Chasing Little Red Riding Hood
01 – 1.05
There comes Little Hood Keith, scampering happily down the winding path in the forest on a glorious summer morning. In one hand a small basket, full of provisions for his granny, or someone else? In the other, a twig with which he lightly hits the bark of the trees on his way, counting them rhythmically. Sniffing at the flowers, kicking at wild mushrooms, Keith is blissfully unaware that a pair of green eyes follows him along the path in the thick undergrowth.
1.06 – 2.30
At least not until he can hear a muffled crack of braking wood somewhere on one side. Then he remembers what his mum said: ‘Look ahead and walk past fast!’ So Keith resist any temptation to loiter on his way and scuttles off. But as he does so, Wolf Jack, hidden by the bushes, speeds up his pace too. And if one hairy monster wasn’t enough, there is another pair of green eyes and four wild legs – Wolf Gary has joined his brother. It’s now almost a pack!
2.31 – 4.00
Little Hood Keith doesn’t seem to lose his heart though. His small skinny legs become a centipede on speed. The boy nearly takes off in his daring, adventurous escape. What a graceful run-flight!
4.01 – 4.20
The danger peaks when Keith hears the menacing lupine growl in the impenetrable walls of green around him. Suddenly he trips over a sticking root and falls. Jack and Gary keep running wildly, perhaps planning to set a trap ahead of the poor Little Hood Keith.
4.21 – 5.19
But the wood has many traps, also for wolves. Wolf Jack, blinded by his desire to ravish, driven by the mad momentum of his scurry, can’t see a deep, deep gorge opening ahead of him and … in he dives headlong.
5.19 – 6.00
Wolf Gary, speechless, just watches his brother fall down the rocky sides, unable to get control of his body, tumbling over and over, bouncing on stones, getting mutilated, falling and falling to his death.
6.01 – 7.20
After a while, Little Hood Keith arrives to the scene. ‘Oh you brave, clever boy.’ – says Wolf Gary with a wide grin. And off they start the usual chat of the Wolf and Little Red Riding Hood that everybody knows so well. And he says to himself, ‘I’ll eat you anyway, as soon as I begin to feel that I’d like a decent meal.’
Keith Jarrett, piano
Gary Peacock, double-bass
Jack DeJohnette, drums
The Way You Look Tonight .mp3 7.9MB
Jewgitive
If only we knew more about them. More than a string of loose associations, or resentment, the Star of David evokes; more than the crumbling tombs overgrown by the grass nobody cares to cut; more than the swarthy looking faces of their grandchildren who visit this land to read the scarce plaques on buildings, engraved in the script recalling a half-forgotten nightmare. If only we heard more than the news from their own land, where the yesterday’s victims perpetuate similar atrocities they were once subjected to.
If only we knew what being a Jew meant then, when they lived next door. Today, they have become a fading spot in memory, a mark that links to few facts which only a still surviving handful of witnesses can make any sense of. So much of their world has been wiped out from the world we shared – a sense of belonging, a belief, a religion, a culture, a folklore, a common history, a destiny, a language, a sense of otherness, and a sense of community and neigbourhood.
Last night* the ghost themselves appeared on screen in black and white while their past neighbours and friends spoke of the loss. And the feeling of regret flickered dimly – if only we knew more about them, we would have more of this certainty about ourselves – where we came from and what we should really stick to today.
* a one-off screening of Po-lin. Slivers of memory, a documentary by Jolanta Dylewska, at Forum
