A bohemian is a person who lives a life that does not fit social standards, who prefers those places where he can have a drink and look at the world around with the eyes of imagination. He is a creator – poet, musician, writer, and painter. A bohemian is a coloured spot on a city’s cultural life.
He left ceremoniously the room where he worked on his Lautréamont translations, he walked majestically on the freshly washed concrete of the boulevard and headed towards the Lido Aquarium, a place for spiritual libations fueled with Russian vodka and German Radeberger beer, where he waited for daybreak.
Whenever I hear or read the word “bohemian” this is the image that comes to mind. The image is accompanied by sound: Aznavour. This is the portrait of Tascu Gheorghiu, a mixture of Levant philosophy and Balkan easiness, the cult for books and intellectual finesse, the art of conversation and the pleasure to listen. Many young intellectuals gathered here to see and be seen, to eavesdrop. The access to Tascu’s table was limited. The one figure who appeared most often there was A.I. Zainescu, who came to Lido from the newsroom of the “Scanteia tineretului” towards midnight. Every time, he brought a new poem and recited it theatrically. The meeting would last for the whole night and continued the second night. If we described the bohemian as a messy character we would be superficial and mean. The great bohemians are not flagrantly different from other people; they are even more sophisticated sometimes. They are not lazy. There are few people more interested in reading or research. We know a few things about a few things. They know everything there is to know about what they like. They are refined authors, strange, sometimes unreachable. New and old ideas that seemed asleep in the cellars of thought are now renewed and made better because of such persons. The Writers House on Calea Victoriei (also known as “la madam Candrea,” “la tanti Miti” or simply “Casa Sadoveanu”) now resembles a giant tomb. Big and empty, deprived of the intensity life had here when writers actually considered it their house, it is now too expensive for the common artist. Forgotten are Capsa and Lido; now games are made there in the interest of the mighty. About Tosca, Albina, Trocadero only the heroes of the ’60s remember a few things. Gone are the cups of coffee made with a special recipe: a cup and a poem. Mogosoaia no longer echoes the illustrious voices of poets. It is hard for me to imagine the Internet-cafés and the discotheques as spaces the bohemians of this new age would see fit for their creations. This new generation is slightly aggressive and perhaps the new talents will find a spot in this “brave new world.”