The action, which has the backing of the HSE and the local authority#s executive, has so far only secured the  support of one councillor (who always backed the executive anyway). However, even he stated that he would not go ahead unilaterally with the operation unless it had the backing of the whole council.

One councillor, speaking anonymously,  reacted angrily: “Lookad, my lad’s small enough as it is. If any more was taken off it’d be invisible.” A colleague, once again speaking anonymously, said “We don’t see the big lads in the executive being expected to have a bit taken off the top.”

These accusations of double standards were flatly rejected by a spokesman for the County Manager. “Most members of the execdutive are too old to be stilol sexually active. What’s more they’re all too busy.”  Heexpressed his disappointment at the councillors’ intransigence. While reiterating the health benefits of the procedure, he added that people engaging in frequent foreign travel, such as county councillors, had a moral duty to safeguard themselves against infection. He also urged the members of the local authority to think again, adding that he was sure they would come round to the idea, given sufficient persuasion. They were urged to consult with colleagues who had successfully been circumcised. “Most people undergoing the operation, which lasts only a few minutes, say they don’t feel a thing, though to be honest, most of them haven’t felt anything there for a while.” The spokesman refused to comment on claims that a county councillor in Kerry who had initially agreed to undergo circumcision, pulled out at the last minute when he heard that he’d only be given a local anaesthetic. “That’s typical o’ de HSE always tryin’ to cut corners. Fuck it I want an imported anaestetic.”                   

 The councillors’ actions mark a rare example of discord between the authority#s elected members and the executive. The former usually accept blindly and without discussion every policy put forward by the executive. Those believing that this marks a new departure may be disappointed however, as one of the most vociferous opponents of circumcision was at pains to point out that this was a once off.

It is usual in most parts of the democratic world to wait until someone is dead a decent time before they are commemorated by having a building, a road, or a fountain named after them. Cavan town is an exception where it is accepted that egotistical nobodies can be commemorated before they have gone the way of all flesh. I refer to an area near Drumalee Cross which I pass on my daily “fun run” which proudly bears the moniker Cullivan Court. As the building is partly owned by one Gabriel Cullivan, formerly a town clerk of the town, I assume that it has been named in his honour, and not that of the well-known and much-loved architect , the late Phil Cullivan. This is like an annex of Wall Street being renamed Boesky Boulevard or Madoff Parade. While such dreadful and unseemly self-promotion may appear tasteless, it must be remembered that Mr Cullivan, as a former employee of that shower of vindictive cowards Cavan County Council, can do what he likes – he has done it in the past – and should anyone demur, one of the sycophantic elected members of the council would propose a motion of “tanks to Mr Cullivan for his sterlin’ work” on behalf of himself and the people of Cavan over the years.

I need hardly mention that one of Cullivan Court’s biggest tenants is none other than the HSE – another crowd of arrogant, incompetent  anda superannuated shites. All that is needed there is the erection of a pillar surmounted by a statue of Mr Cullivan, maybe sporting the green leprechaun suit he wore  at the opening of the County Museum fifteen years’ ago and which was commented upon with so much mirth and derision by the then County Arts Officer, Ms Catriona O’Reilly. (I know that the present County Arts Officer is also  called Ms Catriona O’Reilly but she is altogether a different person from the one I referred to.

I expect these comments will meet with a frisson of disapproval, maybe even a threat of legal action, but my response is Bring it on baby! Some of them may even say that I shouldn’t be going so far on my fun run. Am I not confined to a wheelchair, and should I not come to terms with my disability like other cripples in the county by accepting my permanent inferiority to Cavan County Council, its employee and their families (more or less the same thing) by awaiting the grant of a council house?

 Market day in Plan de Sanchez

 Sunday 18 July was the day of Plan de Sanchez’s weekly market that attracted visitors from other villages and the surrounding countryside. Early in the morning other visitors appeared on the scene: uniformed soldiers accompanied by men from the Self-Defence patrols (PAC). Forstly they fired two artillery rounds at the villagers, causing sever panic and several injuries. They then proceeded to rough up the village’s inhabitants and to carry out house-to-house searches. Then, in the afternoon, an ominous event occurred when they sealed off the village, preventing anyone from entering, or more important, from leaving. The villagers were collected and the young girls were separated and moved to a house in the village. Here they were interrogated, abused, beaten, raped and finally killed. Meanwhile the remaining villagers were housed separately. The older inhabitants were subjected to intensive physical beatings, after which they were killed. These obscene salami tactics continued with the separation of the young children and even babies as young as nine months old from their parents.  The soldiers did not think them worth a bullet; instead they either had their heads bashed in with rifle butts or they were swung against the ground with such force that their skulls cracked. The only ones left were the women and such men as had not fled from the village. A grenade was thrown in to the house where they were packed. The explosion started a fire, but just to make sure no one got out, the house was surrounded and sprayed repeatedly with automatic fire. Anyone who attempted to leave the village was shot. The visitors eventually left before midnight, having murdered at least 268 people.

 Identification and burial

 The next day those who had fled from the village, as well as the handful who had managed to conceal themselves or escape the killing returned. It was impossible to identify the bodies of the burnt. Many had already been partly eaten by dogs and other wild animals. In the afternoon the visitors returned. They forced the villagers they found there at gun point to hastily dig eight graves into which the victims were piled. Surprisingly, these witnesses of the atrocity were not killed; they were only threatened with death. Any houses that had not been consumed by the flames were ransacked and then set on fire.

A code of enforced silence

The soldiers left the field of carnage and lust they had created, though they threatened the survivors that they would suffer dreadful reprisals if they spoke of the events. Then they left, followed gradually by the survivors who left Plan de Sanchez a smoking ruin, suffused with the stench of burning flesh. In subsequent years a handful of the villagers drifted back and the military allowed them to resettle, on condition that they maintained their silence and joined the Self-Defence patrols.

 The search for justice thwarted

 It is difficult to conceal horrid feats. It took ten years, and the return of Guatemala to a form of civilian rule, (though under military tutelage) before attempts were made to launch a criminal investigation. These came to nothing, as witnesses were often intimidated or killed, while the Guatemalan judiciary showed a marked lack of appetite to pursue justice. In 1996 came the formal end of the hostilities that led to the massacre. Unfortunately, one of the terms demanded by the military before they’d agree to a peace settlement was a blanket amnesty for their misdeeds.

 A glimmer of hope

 In 2000 the then president of Guatemala Alfonso Portillo admitted government involvement and promised to pay relatives of the survivors compensation, but still the Guatemalan courts or police refused to get involved. 

Alvaro Colom

The election of the centre-left Alvaro Colom as president in 2008 ushered in a new willingness to address the problem of justice delayed being justice denied. The two men arrested are Lucas Tecu, military commisioner in the region when the massacre occurred and three PAC members Mario Julian Acoj, Eusebio Grave Galeano and Santos Rosales Garcia.  This is a start, but the overall responsibility for the events of that day in July n nearly thirty years’ ago include far more people, not all of them present in the village.

 The beginning or the end?

 These arrests are a start, but one worries that they may mark the end of the search for justice. President Colom’s term is coming to an end. His likely successor is Retired General Otto Perez Medina.  Guatemala

Perez Medina

 is a country racked by violent crime, much of it drug related (and some carried out by former members of the security forces who have found peace and lack of impunity for their crimes not to their liking), Retired General Perez promises to strike hard at criminals. Only a fool would believe he will fail to protect some of his former colleagues, especially if a full inquiry into past crimes were to reveal just how deeply the Guatemalan army is dyed with the blood of the innocent.

No No No!

Cavan’s upcoming fleadh is due to be opened by renowned squeeze-box player Sharon Shannon. Ms Shannon has once again strongly denied persistent rumours that she plans to bring out a cover version of the late Amy Winehouse’s “Rehab”.

 You need balls to be President?

The framers of our constitution, in their urge to re-create a system as close to that of England as possible, did not want to imbue the office with any powers. In fact, they ensured that the holder of the presidency would be politically castrated. It might be said that old people are time’s eunuch, castrated by its unstoppable flow (Who said that? er me actually), so an older person fits the bill. The constitution stipulates that the president must be 35 or older and such a clause has long existed in the United States, which has a real executive president and not a wimp as head of state. Sadly there is no upper age limit.

Sin a Fianna Fail

Fianna Fail support for Gaybo is reasonable as they understand the essential impotence of the office. An old person, perhaps growing in infirmity, is castrated by time.  They may be able to rise to the occasion if their pension allows frequent access to the little blue tablets but otherwise they’re fucked – metaphorically. As a result the FFers have always seen the office as a comfortable and gilded old folks’ home, to be given as a reward to elevated party members as a reward for their service, or as a compensation payment for being shafted.

The roll of (dis)honour

• Sean O Ceallaigh had every reason to expect that he would be named Minister for External Affairs by De Valera, but Dev kept the job and the kudos for himself throughout “The Emergency”, The pay-off came in 1945 when he was nominated for and elected president.
• When he had served his two terms, what better way was there to reward the 77-year-old long fella than with the presidency?
•  At the expiration of his term the presidency was thought a fittingly harmless role for the intellectually far too well-equipped Erskine Childers Jr. Poor Dr Childers was not a well man.
• On his untimely departure from life’s stage he was succeeded by the learned Cearbhall O Dalaigh without an election. President O Dalaigh withstood the petty restrictions of the office, as well as the insults of the political cornerboys of the Fine Gael / Labour coalition until the publican of Monasterboice in a moment of sherry-trifle inspired tiredness and emotion called him a “thundering disgrace”, and he resigned.
• The coalition, reading correctly that its days were numbered, did not oppose the nomination of Dr Patrick Hillery by Fianna Fail, who was thus being rewarded for his services to the party by a sentence of fourteen years in Aras an Uachtaran from which he was lucky to come out alive.

 The worm turns

 In 1990 Fianna Fail attempted the old strategy by nominating the visibly frail Brian Lenihan Sr. as presidential candidate. By this time Ireland had grown up and realised the Soldiers of Destiny’s cynical ploy. And now they’re at it again. At the Magill Summer School Micheal Martin tried to present himself as a forward-looking politician who had realised that the Irish people had meted out a just and long-deserved punishment on his party. By courting the likes of Gay Byrne as a candidate he shows that this was all bullshit and that he is deeply dded to the Fianna Fail past.

Name recognition

Apart from Gay Byrne’s age, there is also the fact that Fianna Fail has been rattled by the candidacy of my friend and fellow Cavanman Sean Gallagher who has gained public recognition through his appearance on the Dragon’s Den programme. The simpleton from Connemara, Eamon [O] Cuiv is not liked by the electorate – I wonder why? – so they needed someone with name recognition, but Gaybo is yesterday’s man. Gay Byrne has gone down in my estimation by even giving them the time of day, and all his assurances about his campaign being “autonomous” are about as sincere as a debutante’s commitment to her virginity.

 If Gay says no…

 ll is not lost for Fianna Fail if Gay refuses to play ball. I am assured that there are plenty of other broadcasting hasbeens out there who would jump at the chance to come out of senility for one last gig with the added bonus of a plushy pad and, let’s not forget it, the state funeral, so  Tom Carter could stick his funeral expenses policy and the charming carriage clock up his arse. Names that come to mind are:

• Bunny Carr who charmed generations of Irish people with his quiz show for the intellectually bollixed Quicksilver and who then serenaded those same folk into a calm state before they popped their clogs along with Anne O’Dwyer in everyone’s favourite Going Off; How about
•  Sonny Knowles? (age 78). He can’t sing any more (could he ever?) but he’d be able to take on most presidential tasks with ,, er … aplomb? 
  Q. What is thirty feet long, has ten teeth and reeks of piss?
  A. The front row at a Sonny Knowles concert. 
  How about
•  Sean og O Ceallachain (age 88 – now we’re cookin’ baby); all the right cred with the Gah. a familiar voice associated with tranquillity on a Sunday night before the rigours of the week began afresh…  I’ve got it
• Liam O fuckin’ Murchu (age 82), Bualladh bas agus pog mo hol agus … suck me dick etc.
• Arthur Murphy (age 80 ish?) who must find life really sucks since they pulled Mailbox on RTE and he no longer had to read out badly spelled missives from irate clerico-fascists from sheets smeared with semen,
• Donncha O Dulaing (age anyone, must be hitting 80). Very fir for his age. Who can forget his memorable walks in the footseps of O’Sullivan Beare or Eamon De Valera? What’s more, he’s politically safe
• Brendan Balfe (age 65, not really old enough). According to contacts he’s really pissed off since he got the elbow from RTE. What’s more, he doesn’t seem to have a pension either.
• Andy O’Mahony. Remember programmes like Dialogue? He’d be just the man in our troubled times. We’d forget we were up shit creek because he’d put us all to sleep.
• Hal Roach (age 83). Swallow me I’ll be right behind you but … er…no.

Other names crying out to go forward are

• Podge and Rodge, or their alter ego Fester and Alien
• Dustin the Turkey
• Bosco

Don’t be silly I hear you scowl, they’re puppets. So? That’s exactly what the president is.

One final name that springs into the fetid sewers of my memory is

• Liam Nolan. I recall with nostalgia how, as an undergraduate in Trinity I used to listen to a then pirate radio station in Dublin. First would come Fr Michael Cleary who would give it between the eyes to all the shifty lefties and liberals, and then would give it between the legs to his housekeeper. I recall with fondness his attempts to spur his listeners to go to Knock on pilgrimages. “It’d be a great day out on the train. Ya could go with a flask o’ tea and a couple o’ sanbos, an’ after ya’d done with the prayin’ ya’d be back in De Citty before nightfall.”I recall how he was once telephoned by a distraught parent asking for assistance in tracking down her son’s skate bird. The next morning I met my friend Marc coming out of the Common Room. “I say Marc. A chap has lost his skate board and I was wondering where he might start searching.” “I’m awfully sorry old man but I haven’t the foggiest” he replied. Father Cleary  was followed by Liam Nolan with his mix of “easy listenin’” including Dianna Durban’s Greatest Hits such as “It’s foolish but it’s fun”. He would read from correspondence and it seemed to me that, while those listening to Fr Cleary had real-life problems, those who listened to Liam Nolan had fought the good fight and failed, after which they’d gone into homes for the bewildered. Ni fhecfimid a laethaid ann aris go dteo

Now if that far right birdbrain Dana Rosemary Scallon is thinking of runnng again, what is there to stop Johnny Logan (who won Eurovision one time more than Dana, back when it was worth winning) or Charlie McGettigan?

But honestly, Gay Byrne for President? Stop the shaggin’ lights Bunny.

Tar and cement

The most ludicrous aspect of these preparations is the re-tarring of Cavan’s streets which is occurring as I write. This is causing considerable disruption to traffic. If the streets needed to be re-tarred, why wait until three days before the fleadh begins? It is an attempt to insure that the town’s thoroughfares have a sufficiently shiny patina so that visitors can lick their food from them? The decision to begin this work now seems irrational. Management is often about making decisions about the deployment of resources, and whoever made this particular decision shouldn’t be called a manager – or paid for being one.

Imprisonment

I don’t know how far I’ll be able to participate in any of the fleadh activities. The decision is mine, and will not be influenced by the cowardly actions of the County Council executive and some of their employees who have tried to exclude me. I an sincerely concerned that there may be people in the town or who work here who will not benefit, either directly or indirectly, from the fleadh, but whose lives may be disrupted by it. This may take the form of footpaths and gateways being blocked. There may even be some, especially the old and the infirm, who will be literally imprisoned in their homes.

 Falling off the edge

 eople’s lives are being disrupted by this tarring fiasco, but they must be warned about grumbling too loudly. Any criticism of the council, no matter how warranted, will be presented as “anti-fleadh feeling”. In other words, those who are unhappy will be painted as knockers (and painting is the only way the council can get any), or grouches, paranoiacs, flat earthers, maybe even as manic depressives; in short, socially dysfunctional folk who deserve to be isolated. The next ineluctable stage is blacklisting.

It is alright for me to say what I have: I’m already blacklisted by the council and I want nothing from them.  But others might find this painful and costly, especially if they still view the council as just a bunch of bumbling, inefficient and superstitious fools who would rather not work in any week with a Friday in it, but who are really harmless.

 Health issues

 And finally, have the authorities taken steps to promote sexual health during the fleadh?  Not all followers of traditional Irish music are doddery old farts whose fingers only ever touch the strings or keys of their instruments. There are quite a number who are young and active. Have condom dispensers been located at points near to events? Have the pubs and chemists been alerted to the need to carry more stock? (I suppose if I carried a story claiming that I had evidence that a far right Catholic fundamentalist group with a kinky Latin name had flooded the town with punctured condoms the local paper would believe it and carry it on their front page.)

 Both sets of visitors were referred to either as “the yanks” or “the yankees”. They were viewed as richer, though not every Christmas card contained a token of their wealth. They were also much more sophisticated, enjoying a level of culture far higher than available in Ireland. So all members of the family had to engage in an act of collective effort, referred to by their unsympathetic neighbours as “putting our their egg bag.”

 The paterfamilias or “oul’ lad” had to take regular baths, whereas beforehand a bath was a rare luxury, occurring at most once a year, and not always then. He would rationalise his aversion to water by saying: “Once I’m dead they can clane me, and once I’m in the ground no one’ll see whether I’m clane or clatty.” Such contrariness was a matter of real concern to the  “woman of the house”, and so plans were put in place to lessen contacts between him and the Yankees to a minimum.

 If time and finances allowed there might be structural adjustments to the house. One of these was the addition of an inside lavatory.  This might replace a “lean-to” structure referred to euphemistically as The Sugarhouse, though any disruption in the facilities dealing with bodily function was bound to be resisted by the “man of the house” who would express bewilderment at why the “hole in the yard” wouldn’t be good enough.  Everyone’s hair would be washed almost daily, and the children would have to undergo the torture of their locks being trawled by a heavy comb in the search for nits. The children would undergo a “no frills” crash course in manners and correct behaviour with the males being physically chastised each time they attempted to pick their noses. The man of the house was also told to leave his proboscis undisturbed, to refrain from using coarse or vulgar language, and to not break wind, especially at meal times. A toothbrush, with toothpaste might even be bought. Any miscellaneous expenses might be defrayed by the man of the house avoiding the pub. What’s more unsightly displays of over-indulgence in alcohol would no doubt disgust the yanks.

 The hen house, sometimes located in an old Volkswagen Beetle, would be towed out of sight or given on loan to a distant neighbour, while any other unsightly visions, such as piles of rubbish or excreta, would be removed.

 The visitors’ arrival was often anti-climatic. If they were native Yankees they might exhale delightedly at the quaintness of it all. The visit would end with the formulaic “You must come and visit us in the States” but it was seldom accompanied by the proffering of an airline ticket or displays of largesse. Once their (rental) car had staggered down the rutted lane there would be a collective sigh of relief, usually initiated by the man of the house stating: “Well thank fuck the hoors are gone. These new pants are cuttin’ the balls off me” followed up with “What’s for tae?” The “oul’ lad might be let back in, smelling strongly of urine, while the woman of the house would start scolding her husband, “Me mother always said I was makin’ the biggesht mistake o’ me life marryin’ you ya lazy, good-for-nuttin’ hape o’ shite, an’ she was right the Lord have mercy on her.” Little Seamus would then attempt to stem her wrath by asking: “Mammy, can I pick me nose now?”

 The Gonzo Theatre

 I am unfortunate enough to have mobility problems, which I am endeavouring to overcome. A number of events associated with the fleadh are to take place in locations to which I (along with other disabled people) would have trouble gaining access. One of these is The Gonzo Theatre above the Imperial. This sounds like a really cool place, while pictures appearing in Fuckyez Magazine suggest that it offers numerous possibilities for the practising ornithologist. As far as I know you can only get into it by a flight of stairs. This is not Philip Doherty’s fault. Philip is an exceedingly talented writer who has the rare gift of being able to work in a variety of genres. Philip has furthermore undertaken to help me get to the Theatre, something that would be possible as stairs do not present an impassable barrier to me. I am sorry that, until now, I haven’t felt well enough to take him up on his kind invitations.

Lie down croppy boy!

There are, I feel, some associated with the Arts in Cavan who are not in the least worried whether I can get there or not. Have I not bitten the hand that fed me? They may be surprised that “a cripple” or someone in a wheelchair would want to attend a show, along with “normal” people. Why can’t “they” be content with their own entertainment provided in venues like the IWA centre in Corlurgan, featuring plays that have been written especially about them? Or they could “shadow” (for free) consultants and “access auditors” employed by the county council (no doubt not for free) to draw up reports pointing out access black spots.

Coming to terms

Maybe I’m writing this because I am angry, or because I haven’t “come to terms” with my disabilities. True, if “coming to terms” with my disabilities means participating in a racket whereby the disabled are bribed into a state of submission as they wait for their number to come up in a council house lottery, I have not “come to terms” and never will. But I do not accept that I should “come” to someone else’s terms.

“Them” and “us”

I was ill for a number of months but I now feel much better. I am able to walk further than I ever could and I am determined to the best of my abilities to use a wheelchair less and less, partially because I see its use as a label of imposed separation. I do not and never have considered myself as belonging to that group referred to dismissively as “them” but rather to the collectivity of Cavan’s town people called “us”.

Very few people can share the sense of outrage and despair I suffered last year as I saw people from outside my town being invited to speak on its history. These experts “had their degrees” i.e. they had PhDs. But do I not have a PhD awarded in 1992? Maybe there are some who cannot “come to terms” with the fact that a PhD could be earned by a partially sighted individual?   Don’t get me wrong: I am not preaching a narrow parochialism or stating that only Cavan natives should be allowed to talk about its history. But when there is a Cavan native who can talk about it, and in an entertaining way, why should that person be ignored just because he has been blacklisted by some cowards in the council executive or because his father is not a town councillor?

Please forgive me if I have stepped on some people’s corns. I used to play an active part in the cultural life of this town: I would love to do so again.

Epilogue

(By the way, readers needn’t worry about “who he’s getting’ at”. I’m only getting at the same crowd of superannuated, impotent, God-forsaken fuckers as usual. Apologies to anyone who can’t rise to the occasion or get a hard on; I honestly didn’t have you specifically in mind.)

He was a survivor. Sometimes people who have not known suffering or fear appear to criticise him because of this. It is as if by surviving he had made some sort of Faustian compact.

  There are two photographs which anybody familiar with Shostakovich will know. The first dates from c. 1929. It shows four people, of whom the youthful and energetic Shostakovich seated at the piano is a clear exemplar of his precocious genius. The three other people in the photograph are the poet Vladimir Mayakovsky, armed with a cigarette; the theatre director Vsevolod Meyerhold, who appears to be attempting to communicate or at least argue a point with the young Shostakovich; while the fourth personage, standing avuncularly over the rest is none other than Marshal of the Soviet Union Mikhail Tukhachevskii: like many leading communists he had sought to advance his prestige by “collecting” artists, whose patronage he could use in a protective way, though as a gifted amateur violinist he was no mere dilettante. Of the four Shostakovich alone did not die a violent or horrible death. Mayakovsky, perhaps armed with a prescient intelligence as biting and as sharp as his verse realised that time would eventually catch up with him, and ever an egoist. opted to end his own life by suicide in 1930. Tukhachevskii “fell from grace” in 1937 when he was accused of being a German double agent, on the basis of information leaked by Stalin (anonymously) to the Czechs, and then shot after a secret trial. As for Meyerhold, he was shot in February 1940.

There is another photograph which I have not included. It was taken of Shostakovich in his casket, which, according to Russian Orthodox custom, remained open during the funeral ceremony of 1975.  I believe that his face is governed by what appears to me to be a smile. It is the smile of the survivor, the person who has defied history, fate, the brutality of the state, the firing squad. It is the defiant smile of the survivor. To do this he had been compelled to offer numerous hostages to fortune. Perhaps that is why the first movement of his Symphony no.15 is peppered with references to Rossini’s “Wilhelm Tell” overture (though I think a more personal reason relating to his son Maksim exists for the quotation).

His true nature is to be found in his musical work, especially though not exclusively the works from the latter decade and a half of his life, including the late string quartets, the song cycles, and the enigmatic symphonies no. 14 and 15.

Shostakovich the atheist

Shostakovich was apparently an atheist. He admitted this in the controversial memoirs published under the title Testimony, in which he had no need to differ from the then current official ideology. It is possible to see signs of questioning of one’s existence in his work, doubts which not even the most fervent atheist can eschew when faced with the approaching unknowability of life’s extinction. This is evident in his penultimate song cycle, the settings of sonnets by Michelangelo. For me, at least, the final setting entitled “Immortality”” is like the “In Paradisum” of a requiem with its naive, even childish piano accompaniment. “…I am not dead, though buried in the earth … I live on in the hearts of all loving people, for I am not dust: mortal decay cannot touch me”.

The composer smiles

 Most of the surviving photographs show Shostakovich bathed in thought, either with his hand holding his jaw as if suffering from tooth ache, or holding his hand close to his mouth, almost biting his nails. Images of the composer smiling are very rare, but here is an excerpt of his attendance at rehearsals in the year of his death, 1975 of his brilliant opera The Nose, bristling with the anarchy of youth. We can see the influence it has on him as he hears his music performed after four and a half decades. He is ecstatic as he clearly recalls every note and sings along with the chorus. I find the first part of this film truly moving. Towards the end he talks about his music, but in is in an “official” way; he seems to be reading from a carefully censored script. His nervousness evident from the constant movement in his hands.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjK7Hnxpmsg