Curtain, please!

I don't know whether the following was really a "time slip" (although I suspect it was), but it's certainly interesting, especially because the person who related it - on camera - was world-famous (and not only by his work): Ingmar Bergman, the legendary film director.

Bergman loved the theatre, film-making - and ladies. (These are, in fact, the secondary reason for his worldwide reputation. ;)) And, as difficult as he could be, he seems to have been a magnet for talented women. Especially actresses. (Think Liv Ullmann, a wonderful actress and a beautiful woman, without going any further.)

Between films, Bergman spent a lot of time in and around theaters, especially the Swedish Royal Theatre in Stockholm. It is, as old theatres usually are, a rather grand and majestic building, with a long history. Many lives, past and present, are intertwined with it.

And it was there where Bergman met a lady like no other.

One day, when he was - alone - in one of the galleries that run through the venerable building, an elegant lady strolled by him, clad in a fashionable gray dress.
She didn't as much as blink at Bergman.

But Bergman was impressed, and not only by her elegantly cool demeanour. He had recognised her from the many pictures of her he had seen: it was Harriet Bosse, a famous Norwegian-born Swedish actress. Not the least among the many achievements that made her reputation was her short and tempestuous marriage to August Strindberg, the famous playwright.

Yes, Bergman was impressed, especially because her impromptu appearance from behind him was matched by an equally dramatic exit: as she reached a certain marble column, he saw her disappear into thin air, as silently and unobtrusively as she had appeared.

It had been a long time since Harriet Bosse looked as she did when she whiffed past Bergman that day. She had been born in 1878, married Strindberg in 1901, divorced him in 1904, and ended her long and fruitful life in November 1961 - years before her airy "meeting" with Bergman.

By the appearance of this encounter, one is tempted to say that the venerable walls of the theatre may have given a new meaning to the old phrase: "... but her spirit lives on".

Was she a "ghost"?

What is a ghost, anyway?

Bergman definitely saw her; but she didn't appear to have noticed him at all.

Was her image a lingering remnant of "energy" of an evening long one - perhaps not even memorable at all, as far as Harriet was concerned?

Whatever it was, you gotta love Bergman's reaction. He told that story to Erland Josephson, a good friend and a terrific actor: "... And we decided, Erland and I, that after we die we are going to haunt that theatre, too." :)

Bergman died last July.
Erland Josephson is, thankfully for us, still alive.

And, personally, I think "haunting" is just a terribly misinterpreted category of being there.

Still, if you happen to see Bergman wandering around - he is quite tall and walks fast, you can't miss him - give me a call.



P.S. (totally unrelated trivia):

I just discovered that Bosse's and Strindberg's daughter, Anne Marie, actually lived longer than the long-lived Bergman himself! He died on July 30th, she died on August 17th of 2007... only, she had been born in March 1902. In fact, she seems to have been the oldest living Swede.

Brief encounter

Happy Easter!

(Gotta love it... ;))

Compared to the Easter "spacetime shift" of Jesus Christ, today's story is even more of a trifle than it would be in any other circumstances... (But that goes for practically any story, I suppose.)

There is a thread over at ATS about "spontaneous disappearances", which triggered the memory of one of the most un-memorable such events in my life. Still, I thought some might find it interesting. (I do - on those rare occasions when I remember it.)

It happened a few years ago, definitely in the new millenium.
It was the cool season (not really cold, I think, but definitely late autumn, early winter or early spring).
It was just before dusk, and I was walking home.
There was a very large apartment building near my home, with a passage that I always (literally thousands of times) used as a shortcut to the street where I lived. The passage was very short and served - rather obviously - as the entrance to the actual building, but it (the entrance) was enclosed in a sort of glass/concrete "box" that was always locked with a key (so that the dwellers only had access to the building).

As I said, the passage was very short, so that I could always see part of the exit, i.e. the other side, when I entered it, even though it was partly obstructed by the entrance "box". (I know this may be a bit difficult to picture accurately without being familiar with the passage - or a drawing of it, at the very least - but do try. ;))

As I entered the passage and was halfway through it, I caught a glimpse of a man entering the passage from the other side, apparently with the intention to enter the building (I could tell because he went straight ahead, towards the location of the glass door; if he were going to just walk through the passage, he would have made a slight turn to avoid the entrance "box").
He was of average height (perhaps slightly shorter than average), wearing a black or dark coat, I didn't see him long enough to be able to estimate his age, but there wasn't anything particular (like a "heavy" gait) to suggest old age. I think he may have had a smallish hat on, but I am really not sure.

As I said, I caught a glimpse of him before he disappeared from my sight, behind the corner of the brick wall of the entrance "box". As such "glimpses" were a daily occurrence, naturally I thought nothing of it. Besides, I was composing a little tune in my mind (as I often do while walking).

Maybe it was precisely that (the "awareness" of music, of sound) or maybe it was something else, but as I stepped out of the passage - it had taken me, as usually, some 10-15 steps in total to cross it - I suddenly realised that no sound - specifically, the sound of a person either unlocking the door or waiting by the "buzzer" for someone else, inside the building, to open the door - was coming from the entrance door. The entrance was at that point just behind me (maybe 4 metres), on my left side.

I thought that was odd and turned around to see why the man was so silent.

As it turned out, he was "silent" because he was not there anymore.
Furthermore - and I waited for almost a minute - no lights were on inside the building. (They turn on automatically, and they would have been clearly visible in any case, but even more so in that late afternoon of a grey and bleak day.)

Where did he go?
(Needless to say, I never found out.)

As I said, it may be very difficult to understand how unusual this was without being familiar with the passage and building in question. So I'll break it down and add a few points, to better illustrate the situation:

* the passage is entirely paved with ceramic tiles (the walls, too), which is why every single step resonates tenfold.

* if the man had changed his mind (or had my assumption that he was entering the building been incorrect) and simply crossed the passage to the other side, he would have passed by me (the width of the passage is about 3 metres). That, obviously, didn't happen.
(The fact that I like to compose tunes in my mind does not imply that I am blind and deaf to my surroundings - it's actually the opposite. My "auto pilot" is a marvel. Yours, too - but that's a different story...:)
And if he had changed his mind and turned back, to retrace his steps, I would have caught up with him or, at the very least, seen him. But there was nobody around.

* if he wanted to enter the building, he would have had to:

- unlock the door (based on my daily experience in that specific passage/entrance, that usually takes people around 5 seconds - assuming they had the key ready in their hand). And unlocking the door is a relatively loud affair in that particular passage, as you can imagine, if you've read its description.

or

- call and wait for the "buzzer" to open the door.
(And in that passage, the "buzzer" sounds like the trumpets of Jericho...)


But, being the self-skeptic-watchdog that I am, I assumed, just for the sake of the argument (with myself), that he somehow slipped in faster than I could have imagined.
(Perhaps the door was - uncharacteristically - unlocked? I actually went back, into the passage, and tried to open the entrance door: nope, it was locked.)
There are no apartments at the same level of the entrance, so he would have had to use the stairs or the elevator; in both cases, his steps would have been clearly audible. But even if he, for some reason, tiptoed or just stood there, somewhere behind the door, the light would have betrayed his presence: it's automatic.

If you now go back and review the actual daily scenario of people entering the passage or the building itself, you will, I hope, understand how unlikely - to put it very mildly - his silent and invisible swiftness was...

So... what happened?
Where did he go?


Would I be writing this if I knew?

Tossed pasta, hold the gravy

One of the silliest – and most endearing – space/time »anomalies« I've ever heard of, is Michael Talbot's account of an unusual event which happened right in his living room.
He attributed it to a »poltergeist«. I would attribute it to a »glitch« in spacetime, the inner workings of which are at this time unknown to us, which led to a anomalous manifestation of... spaghetti. Out of thin air. (Although one is tempted to wonder just how »thin« said air can be, holding all those carbohydrates...) Which is why it probably qualifies as a »time slip«, in the sense of anomalous displacement in spacetime.

Be it as it may, the »service« was unexpectedly swift but less than smooth... (Think Fawlty Towers sans saucers. :)

Here's the story as it appears on page 150 of Talbot's very flawed but absolutely engrossing and entertaining, must-have book The Holographic Universe:

»Still it is with some trepidation that I admit that my own poltergeist also occasionally materialized objects. The materializations started when I was six years old [...]. Unfortunately, I usually did not see the actual materializations, but only witnessed their aftermath, such as when a pile of spaghetti noodles (sans sauce) fell on my chest one day while I was taking a nap in my New York apartment. Given that I was alone in the room with no open windows or doors, there was no one else in my apartment, and there was no sign that anyone had either cooked spaghetti or broken in to throw spaghetti at me, I can only assume that, for reasons unknown, the handful of cold spaghetti noodles that dropped out if midair and onto my chest materialized out of nowhere.«

Whoa, that gives a whole new meaning to the term »String theory«...! :)

I did say it was silly, didn't I?
(And endearing - that too.) But does that mean that it was untrue?
That it did not happen? I wouldn't dare to make such a claim – and not just out of respect for the late author.
All I can say at this point is that I wish I were besieged by flying saucers of pasta and pelted by missiles of the farinaceous kind when I am hungry and lazy at the same time... :)

***

The pasta story may sound "silly" (or not), but I suspect that's just because of the object involved (spaghetti: there's something inherently funny about them, isn't it?) and the slapstick circumstances (man asleep on the couch gets hit by a loose plateful of noodles).

But noodles were not the only object that ever "hit" Talbot - or other people, for that matter. And anomalous materialisation is only one of the many aspects that he writes about.Which is why I really recommend reading his book. Its flaws notwithstanding, it has a lot to offer. And I can proudly say that it's one of the "pet" books in my 1000 + books library.