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I've always been fascinated with international meetings. Not that I went to so many, but those I did got to offered me the opportunity to form a opinion, not a very original one, of course, but still, it's an opinion, which may even be subjective. International

excerpt Lying on the hot tile floor, Brave Leader was reaching back and scratching his ass with the Romanian people. What he lovingly called the Romanian people was in fact a tiny little bathroom brush with ivory engravings, which he never parted with, and liked to have

Almost no one in Vintileasa saw on TV the scene when the revolutionaries broke into the famous Studio 4 in the afternoon of 22 December 1989. The villagers were busy doing other, more important things. Some were killing their Christmas pigs. Others were stealing wood. Most

About ten years ago I put down my name on a list. I wanted to be received in an audience to ask for some favor and I was told that for this purpose I had to enter my name on a list, leave my telephone number and wait. One day, the telephone rang and a nasal voice informed

One sleepless night I went out to walk my dog. Although I had noticed that for a few days some digging had been in progress on my street, I failed to be heedful enough and fell in a ditch. Frightened, I started to scream:'Help! Help!''Well, dear,' said

Xmx is capable of voicing any text (well, not voicing, interpreting it), whether it is Shakespeare's or Chekhov's. There is just one single word he cannot say: no. He is solicited by a TV station for two lines consisting of three words; he would like to tell the

Arhip is giving advice to a young film director:What are your grounds in selecting a book for a film version?First of all, it has to be visual, easy to put on film. Wrong! proclaims Arhip. If it is visual, everyone will claim that putting it on film is a piece of cake, a

In the romantic revolutionary years after the communist take-over there was a custom to hoist a red flag or lay a red cloth over the presidium table at any meeting or session having a political character. It was a revolutionary symbol, an optimistic one, a symbol of the

I was preparing to go to the editorial office where I was going to give a lecture in front of a group of journalists. A cultivated, exigent, familiar audience. I was waiting for the car to take me there. I like to be left alone in such moments, so that my excitement doesn't

The three of them are filling in soccer betting slips and drinking cold beer. About the beer they seem to agree. Over the match results there is much argument. Cut my head off if these don't lose, the one in an otter fur hat says. The one in the very large rimmed hat

On one of the central avenues I ran across a very good friend of mine, one of the most gifted poets of our generation. Shall we have coffee together? Of course! So we entered a restaurant. It goes without saying that what with one thing and another, coffee was followed by

The barracks has always been an endless source of colorful and comic stories, of funny tales subsequently raised to the status of anecdotes… We heard them, we all keep hearing them and we transmit them to others. Who hasn't heard, for instance, the pieces attributed