Crazy Love

(Click here for the Romanian version)


I love New York because it’s crazy like nowhere else. Unique in so many respects. Ugly while refined – in New York refinement and ugliness are co-dependent.

But sometimes New York can be just a small place with common people like everywhere else. Only, as it happens, ordinary people hide within themselves extraordinary stories. To discover their stories, one needs a bit of insight, a bit of empathy. This is the New York searched by the documentaries of Dan Klores. His last one is Crazy Love.

A married couple. The photo above is from 1977. Now he is in his seventies, she is ten years less. She kept her beauty and he could say about her,

She’s got a fine sense of humor when I’m feeling low down
And when I come to her when the sun goes down

(I’d like to thank Deborah, my colleague on a yahoo forum - Vorbe si Palavre - Words and Chatters - for signaling me the song of Van Morrison, Crazy Love, that I quote here)

Their liaison started in the 50’s. He was 32 years old, she was 21. And he was crazy for her...


I can hear her heart beat for a thousand miles
And the heavens open every time she smiles
And when I come to her that’s where I belong
Yet I’m running to her like a river's song





There was however an issue – he was married by that time.

He promised her to divorce his wife. Only, as you know, men are always very easy in making promises, much slower to fulfill them. So, after a while, she got tired and decided to break the affair. He got crazy and started to stalk her – eventually, in a moment of totally craziness, he threw lye on her face, leaving her blind.

He was condemned for this crime and spent the next 14 years in prison.

During these 14 years he kept on sending her letters, asking for forgiveness, and declaring his love. He was released in 1974. They got married in the same year.

Dan Klores, Crazy Love, 2007
(video by Nerds 4)

Man, wait a little, what's with this crazy story? What's so extraordinary? Well, I think this is a very straight story about the savage hidden in our inner - the savage civilized self.

And it tells us also something very fearful about co-dependence - between prey and predator. And this is New York actually - ask any inhabitant there - New York is prey and predator living in co-dependence.

(New York, New York)