Category: Social

posts about life conditions

“Esteban” (A portrait from the past)

“Esteban” oil -WM

Esteban is a Spaniard of Catalan mother and Andalusian father. He grew up in a small Catalan city. He came from Barcelona to Paris with dreams of journalistic glory as an envoy of a literary magazine. He had the great sensitivity of a writer but for success he lacked two basic qualities: education and money. In Barcelona, the magazine published his rubric a la Dear Abby which he surely handled well because he knew how to dig into life situations and his religious morality concorded with that … Read More

“Janek” (A portrait from the past)

ink drawing of Janek
“Janek” – ink – WM

Unfortunately I can’t give his family name even if, as readers will find out, it has an important place in history. Janek was born either in Westphalia like his parents or in France. He had some German blood, I am not sure from which side. In Polish he spoke correctly; in French, like a Frenchman. During the war, when he was 8 or 9 years old, his father sent him to the Hitlerjugend. Janek told me how the whippersnappers of his age sliced each other … Read More

Shearing of the Sheep

Last month we learned about a sheep that escaped shearing for six years, hiding alone in caves in the New Zealand wilderness. To live solitary is already against the sheep’s basic instinct and the absence of the predators made its survival possible. But nobody, as far as I know, has posed the question: what made the sheep escape shearing, its flock and humans? I feel I may have answer:

Many years ago, I won’t say where, I witnessed a sheep shearing. Decent looking young men in their twenties behaved as … Read More