I'm sorry to bother you but what's the time?

Seaweed
Originally uploaded by Victoria M. Poe

It took slightly longer than I intended but I made there in the end: I saw Hairspray today. After cycling manically to the cinema in a freezing and damp Amsterdam evening, the sunshine of Baltimore was more than welcome.

One of the motives for going to the cinema or inserting a DVD into the player is to escape - escape the worries and the daily hassle. If you're looking for that, Hairspray is your answer. And even better, Hairspray does all this with addressing themes still highly valid - equality and normality.

I don't know how I would feel if I would have been brought up in the 1960s and especially if I would have been brought up in the US, but the period of history truly fascinates me. I have been going on and on already about Kennedy but the whole period has this flair of being the era when things were possible. I find the civil rights movement much more interesting than the sexual revolution. The 1960s is also the period of extreme polarisation and violent outbursts but somehow it carries the brand of being the time when individuals still believed in their possibilities to change things. I would love to belong to a generation like that.

Yesterday i met a friend of mine and we talked extensively about the reasons that make people jump, take risks and start changing their own life and the lives of others. Although with singing and dancing, Hairspray addresses the notion of change. I guess the crucial issue that drives people to jump is a better dream. That's what we need in order to hit our shovels in the sand and start digging - an idea of a better world to work for.