Globusz^® Publishing 

I took a good nap, although the bus is not the ideal place for sleeping. On the one hand I am feeling refreshed but, on the other hand, looking through the bus window, I think I have hallucinations. Tens of multicolor balloons float in the sky as one’s eye can see. They are not small balloons, but some very large ones, with nacelles. Some of them are very high, while others pass among the buildings to which we are just coming around. I pinch myself to see whether I am awake, look again, look to the passengers next to me and try to understand. Yes, they are real balloons, and we are entering Albuquerque, New Mexico. It is five minutes to seven in the morning on September 27 and the Balloon Fiesta has started here.

What would the Americans not do for a play! Everything has begun 25 years ago with 13 balloons and 10,000 spectators. A folding publicity prospectus informs me about it. Today they are hundreds of balloons and the spectators are in great numbers. Some balloons have odd shapes—the more original the better. The mornings are for the proper flights. They leave very early, in order to catch the favorable air currents. With some money, anyone may have a soaring. How much? I do not know. Try to 01–800–351–9588, if they did not change the number, in the meantime! In the evenings, performances of sound and lights are organized, when they launch thousands and thousands of small balloons for free for the spectators. Lots of fans bring them from great distances— at their own cost— only for the beauty of the spectacle.

The Americans’ soul is to be seen here clearer as anywhere. It is easy to say about such spectacles that they are childish. Too easy, simplistic and effortless! Maybe just preserving a bit from this childish exultation is a part of the explanations of their success. Unfortunately, in Romania rather few people know to enjoy themselves.

Johan Huizinga wrote a book about the play: Homo Ludens. Huizinga is a very serious academic, and the subtitle of his book is “Essay for determining the ludicrous element of culture”. He says the play is performed in the fullest seriousness. It has its rules. It is the play that teaches the man to keep the rules. Firstly, he does it with good humor, without stress and on his own initiative. Huizinga persuades us that everything that man does, no matter how serious, is what he learned playing during his childhood. In his whole life, he will put into practice the methods learnt then, and will be respectful of these rules. Even the most cruel war, is a play too. (Not for all! I remember a maxim of a Greek, I think: when children throw with stones in frogs, just for the fun, the frogs do not die for the fun, but in reality.)

On the other hand, the play is exaltation and ecstasy. By means of play, the man isolates himself in time and space from usual life. For a moment, he lives in another world. The main role of the play is to stimulate the imagination. Yes, this is the key! The new ideas come by playing, when we let our brains to play. One’s intellectual value seems to be directly proportional to his availability to enjoy himself.

The Americans have balloons. Some of them have big ones, but others only small ones. Each of them according to his possibilities! I do not know whose joy is greater but incline the think that small balloons do it better. When I was a beginner as a skier, I had maximum joy. Later on as I learned better, my joy became smaller and smaller, because my requirements were greater and greater.

Elaine and James are the name of my friends in Albuquerque. They are not at home just now, so that I have checked in at a motel belonging to the net of Motel 6 motels. I have chosen such a motel because I was told the prices are less and they are clean and safe. This one proved that the information was true. Besides, there are not lorry drivers at such motels, only motorists.

Till tomorrow, when James will come to pick me up, I have time for visiting the town. Of course I begun with downtown but this is not very interesting. It is new, clean but it has not the air of the great metropolis. Instead, there is the “Old Town”. Here, they preserved the old buildings, so that one can see how the town looked like, but only as exterior aspect, because the indoors, except the church, were turned into shops full of handicrafts. What is surprising is the contrast between the Spanish style of the buildings, proving their Mexican origin, and the local Indian origin of all the things for sale. There is nothing Mexican here. As for this kind of handicrafts, it is very interesting and I can’t help admiring most of the things but, what is attractive for the beginning, become tiresome and boring after a while. Fascinating for the beginning thanks to the variety of forms and ideas, proving an amazing imagination, become unbearable in short time. It is too much.

Between the “Old Town” and the new downtown, I have just discovered a very and original — for me— area. At the first sight, the dwellings look like some extremely modest ones, made by disdained materials, but here most of them are real residences of rich people. Houses of the adobe style! For the beginning, I hardly realized the difference between a poor house and a rich one. I needed some time. If the exterior aspect is not very imposing, the inward surely is. This may show a feature of people’s character. They do not want to display what they really are. It could be modesty, decency, but demureness, or falsity as well. Or maybe they think that this style would be noble. Is it snobbery? Snob is a word coming from French, as an abbreviation for “sans noblesse” (without nobility), for featuring the parvenus seeking for an old but false tradition and pretensions. Is here the case? I do not know, but anything is possible in the country of all possibilities. On the other hand, here is very hot and these houses are cooler. I noticed also the unthinkable great number of lawyers— most of them specialized in divorces, sharing, and others of this kind. This seems to be a searchable and profitable profession.

But Albuquerque is a town of contrasts. It had a weak economic development in the past, due to the inhospitable, semi–deserting, climate of the area, and a bloom of the economic prosperity after the WW 2nd, which took advantage of the same dry and warm climate, but with water brought from the mountains and modern systems of air–conditioning. Of course, the climate was not the single cause. It is here where “atomic era” begun in 1945 with the first successful experience of the first bomb in Jornada del Muerto and, after it, lots of scientific institutes of research and high–technology factories appeared. Once again, the desert is an advantage for this kind of activities, because it is easier to watch an area where there is nothing moving and you have large visibility. Jornada del Muerto, which means “the journey of the dead”, was life for New Mexico.

I am wondering who knows not that Romania turned the arms at 23 August 1944, which brought the end of the war at least 200 days earlier? The military historians said it! Among the consequences is that the first atomic bombs would were German, not American, and first aims in London, not in Japan. The world would be different now. But it did not happened. Unfortunately, the after–war politicians ignored Romania’s sacrifices in the second part of the war, and left it under Soviet hard occupation, who tried to destroy everything of Latin and European tradition, in order to impose a Slav domination.

Elaine and James proved to be good friends. She is a teacher and he is an engineer. They live at about 20 miles north, in a nice mountain area. As both of them work, I spent alone some mornings of working days, visiting Albuquerque or painting. Instead, we had nice evenings speaking a lot. In spite of my tiresome – speaking English is not easy for me – I have nice memories of these nights. Doing painting was necessary because I had to repair some spoiled paintings, and making others, as I left six of my best paintings in Florida, and what was left were too few for a good offer. As a matter of fact, painting was one of my aims in Arkansas, but I missed this opportunity. But did I ever write that I am a painter as well? I do not remember! If not, I write now. Yes, in time I have turned this hobby into a second profession, so that I may say now that I am a painter— not a famous one so far, but professionally adequate.

Speaking about James, he is a very nice fellow, both physically and socially. He is handsome, thin and with a remarkable sportive career for his age of 60. He is very prudent about his family, and shares his thoughts with his very old mother living alone in west and the two daughters studying in New York, in the east. One day he had a great joy, as the smallest daughter called to say she had passed the examination for admission as candidate for a doctor’s degree. Naturally, the news made him particularly happy.

The next year he will retire and he already wonders how to fill the time. I have the painting, but what will he do? I am sure he will not have troubles with what to do. He is an active person, and such people are never bored. I often remarked that, after retiring, people who were busy become busier, because they propose to themselves to do more things than they can do. Only those without initiative, those who had an activity of routine and worked under other’s direction, could not find something to do. It will not be James’ case.

Remarkable is his wish to inform, and the way in which he knows how to put questions, and listen the answers. Few people know to put pertinent questions. We may say that one’s intellectual qualities are easier to identify after the way in which he puts questions, than after his answers. He must know exactly the limits of his knowledge, and ask only for extending the limits. He also needs to make known his limits to the interlocutor, because only in this way he will receive good answers, suitable to his own understanding. It is not easy, and it is not just usual, but James knows how to do it. We talked almost every evening till late at night, which was very tiresome for me, as I had to answer in English at questions that sometimes were difficult even in Romanian. But he knows to talk in an opened and thrilling way, so that I would love our chat never stop, even if sometimes I was sleepy and less and less able to concentrate.

On such an evening, we listened to a CD that I had brought from Romania, with folk songs, interpreted by Maria Tanase, a famous Romanian singer. I watched James’ reactions. He was very attentive. I had had similar experiences with other friends, but their reactions were different. Of course, they were not obliged to love Romanian folk music. Myself I do not like her music too much, but Maria Tanase has a special interpretation. There is a question that I have in my mind for a long time. It is known that a large base is necessary for building a high top. A country needs many small musicians and a good folk music from which high professionals may raise themselves. Romania has very many high professionals, but its folk music is not appreciated too much. Why? Probably I first need to prove that Romanian professionals really are some good ones. It is easy. There are numerous famous and acknowledged Romanian musicians in the World. The great percent of foreign musicians in Vienna— of Romanian origin— proves it. Iehudi Menuhin himself chose a Romanian teacher — George Enesco — to develop his skill. On the other hand, I must confess to a weakness for Spanish music, particularly for the Latino–American one. For all that, there are not so many great musicians from there. Anyway, we cannot take up the thesis that Romanian people are exceptional gifted for music. The explanation of some Romanian musicians’ success lies in the existence of a good school of music molding professionals of great value. The same is with the Romanian school of mathematics or gymnastics. Mathematics is a cheep science – it needs only some paper and a pencil — and it was a control device out of the isolation, for those wanting to do something important. The Romanian feminine gymnastics started in a very small town, where two ambitious teachers rallied the energy of some children. It is there where Nadia Comaneci trained. Later, those two teachers became the coaches of USA team. Later on, more schools with gymnastics profile settled up, but it does not mean that Romanian girls make more gymnastics. On the contrary, in my opinion they make a few sports. Consequently, the initial hypothesis was false. There is not need a large base for high top.

In the second visit in Albuquerque, I saw another part of the town, with new and large malls. I found here a shop with my name. The owner wrote it: Georgiou— more simple and with the same pronunciation. It is amazing that shop assistants realize immediately that I am a foreigner, before opening my mouth. One of them has just addressed me with these words. I am wondering how is that, because my clothes are not specific at all. The shoes are Italian, the trousers American, the blouse without a nation and ... oh, yes, the handbag from Austria drawn his attention. The shop has a large stand of bags, and mine is different. As a specialist he remarked it. Unfortunately, not only he remarks it, but also some people in streets, so that I need be careful in dubious and crowded areas. But there is another thing for attracting the vendors’ attention: my attitude of a person looking at everything but at nothing in particular, betraying the visitor from me.

In a mall, a lady is jogging, even if outside is very nice and surely it would be more pleasant for her. Besides, she makes very odd and disgraceful movements. But this is the level at which some Americans perceive the freedom: to feel free to do what you want, including to show some old, fat and waved thighs, regardless of others’ opinion.

Speaking about freedom, I still wonder whether the Americans really are free, and what the freedom is. They are strongly indoctrinated, and feel free inside of the limits of their education. They never think beyond these limits. Of course, it is convenient to do so in the most prosperous country in the world, under the remark that this is not freedom but opportunity. Their attitude is most visible abroad, where their interests only count.

Things that never existed, or no longer exist, incite our interest more than these easy reachable. The former Route 66, crossing America from a coast to the other, might be a dream for many fans of the tourism some years ago, but the new highways made it useless. It does not exist any longer, but people turned its name into a symbol good for marketing. A mile from the old route is enough for tens of shops, restaurants and advertising. Route 66 creates nostalgia to the elder ones and some mystery for youth. People age, objects fade away, and hardly remain a memory of them; only the trade is endless. Once again it is proved the Americans know how to do commerce.

Unfortunately, in Albuquerque there are not art galleries, except these very modest ones from the Old Town. I was told that Santa Fe and Taos are the towns of art in New Mexico. Thanks to James kindness, we visited Santa Fe on Saturday. It was one of my great days. From a symbol of American railways, but where trains never pass, Santa Fe became a symbol of arts. All the houses of a street had been turned into art exhibitions. One–person exhibitions, group exhibitions, art galleries, and so on. Good or less good, small or large, all kinds of exhibitions were to be found there on a single street. I loved it very much. Crews of tourist of all the nationalities come to visit them, but I did not see people buying. It is practically impossible to see all, and it is a pity. They are much too many. The American style of greatness is disastrous here. We spent a day there and saw less than 10 %. The rest was lost for us. The quality is irrespective of the dimension of the buildings. Most good artists have chosen small houses, often in former outbuildings, accordingly to their financial possibilities. They have a few visitors, unfortunately. The large buildings generally belong to some dealers. Art works are of all qualities there. Good and very good works are not absent, but a great quantity of failed artists’ products is, brought by histrionic dealers. You must stay there long time for selling something, and Santa Fe is an expensive town; it is the capital–city of New Mexico. Instead, in the center of the town, there are several large and very nice galleries, where I would be able to exhibit. Besides, it is the place from which people buy. Unfortunately, paintings must be framed, and I had not time and money for it. Anyway, these are the kind of galleries what I search for. Maybe next time I will be better prepared. In Spanish, Santa Fe means “the holy faith”, so that I have to believe it.

Ending my narration about Santa Fe, I can’t help writing a simple conclusion, probably obvious without saying: it was an unforgettable day. Unforgettable and pleasant! Not a cloudless sky, a mild autumnal sun and a breeze just to cool us so we feel well between two exhibitions. I did not conclude any business, only some promises for the future, but I liked the day. I feel myself now more fulfilled with a day, with such a day about which you may say that it deserves to be lived.

Sunday we visited an Indian pueblo: a lot of dust, strong wind and a fat Indian speaking how Spaniards victimized them. Nothing about what the Americans did. “To the famous Christmas tree do not go with a large bag” is a Romanian saying, suitable for the huge advertisements inviting us to visit such spots with great views. There is nothing from the promised Indian dances, costumes, ceremonies, and generally from Indian culture and customs. The most natives have left long time ago. Those few that we can find are here only for money from tourists, and they are very concerned with this. They want monies for everything! The visit lasted an hour and half, not because the village would be so large, but the guide spoke all this time. He was an Indian with 200 pounds over his normal weight, and a droll cap. And the dust... It is unthinkable where from could come so much dust! And this strong wind that thrusts it not only in the nose and eyes, but also in drawers! Of course, the most important building is the church: a monster from the architectural point of view. I never saw something more ugly. (Inside, there is a large panel full of icons, which is very surprising for a Catholic Church.)

It is interesting that, in spite of the Spaniards’ efforts to convert the natives to Catholicism, they kept their traditional faiths.

As anything in excess, the commerce with Indian goods has become wearisome.