1980 My literary era

It was late autumn when I left, and it was early winter when I came back.

As soon as Lin Weimin got off the plane, a cold air hit him and he shivered.

I don’t have enough clothes on, it’s a bit cold!

The world outside the terminal is covered in snow. There has just been a heavy snowfall in Yanjing. No wonder it is so cold.

After taking a taxi back home and drinking hot tea, Lin Weimin warmed up.

After being away for a month, Xiaodou Bao almost didn’t recognize him when he came back. After coaxing him for a long time, he finally called out "Baba".

Every time he went out, Lin Weimin always brought some gifts with his family. Tao Huimin's face improved a lot after receiving the gifts.

In the past few months, he had hardly spent time at home, and Teacher Tao was very dissatisfied.

Lin Weimin planned to use his expertise to communicate with Teacher Tao at night, but he got a fever in the evening.

"Maybe he got cold after getting off the plane."

He said with the thermometer under his arm.

"I think you're tired. Tell me, have you had any free time in the past few months?" Tao Huimin complained.

They complain on the lips, but they actually feel distressed.

Lin Weimin held her in his arms and coaxed her a few words. Tao Huimin's face cleared up, and she just kept doing this.

After taking the medicine, Lin Weimin picked up the phone.

"Hey, Lao Cheng, you're back, you're back."

"Working? I'm afraid that's not possible."

"I have a cold! Yes, I have a fever, almost 40 degrees."

"Don't get excited first, isn't this a special situation?"

"Just take a couple of days off and try to hold on tighter. Just be patient, it will be over soon."

"What do you mean it's the same with or without me? Old comrade, don't speak with emotion!"

"Okay, that's it. The day after tomorrow, I will definitely go to work the day after tomorrow."

After hanging up the phone, Lin Weimin looked at Tao Huimin, "Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Do you think you're going a little too far?" Tao Huimin asked.

"Why is it too much?" Lin Weimin took out the thermometer from under his arm, "Did you see that? I'm sick! Pour me some hot water. I want to soak my feet!"

Tao Huimin rolled her eyes at him, "Virtue!"

Two days later, Lin Weimin appeared at the Chinese Literature Society after a long absence, which immediately attracted the attention of many colleagues.

It's too arrogant to say that he was suspended for three months but has not been seen for more than four months.

"You still know how to come back!"

Cheng Zuochun said this when he saw Lin Weimin, and then stared at Lin Weimin with cold eyes for more than a minute.

"Okay, stop looking, I don't have any flowers on my face."

Lin Weimin seemed not to feel Cheng Wuchun's dissatisfaction and resentment at all, and said nonchalantly.

As he spoke, he reached into his bag.

"What, what?"

"Don't think you can get away with this little favor!"

"This kind of thing..."

"This will never happen again!"

Finally able to talk calmly, Cheng Wanchun asked: "Did you cause a big fight in the United States?"

"How do you know it?"

"We are in China but not isolated from the world. The media has reported it."

In the eyes of many media, foreign farts these days are all delicious, and many incredible "benefits" from foreign countries in later generations entered the country through media reports at this time.

However, there is indeed nothing worthy of "distortion" in the response caused by the media report on Lin Weimin in the United States.

It’s all full of positive energy!

"When you come back, take it easy. Stop thinking about things outside and think about the development of the company next year." Cheng Wuchun warned.

Lin Weimin said a few perfunctory words and came out of Cheng Wuchun's office.

Not long after returning to the office, Yu Hua ran in.

"Hey, Teacher Lin, you are finally back!"

Lin Weimin raised his eyes and looked at him, "Is something wrong?"

That means: talk about things when you have something to do, and get out of your way when nothing happens.

Yu Hua stopped his exaggerated tone and said, "A friend wants to meet you and take a photo of you."

"Take a picture of me? Reporter?"

"No, photographer."

Yu Hua introduced his friends to Lin Weimin.

Xiao Quan published the Sanmao photography album "Birds of Paradise" in 1991, held a solo exhibition in Switzerland in 1992, and participated in a photography group exhibition in France this year.

With this layer of foreign gold plating, Xiao Quan is very well-known in the domestic photography circle and is known as the best portrait photographer in China.

This time Xiao Quan asked Yu Hua to help him take photos of Lin Weimin, a portrait photography series he had been creating since the mid-1980s called "Our Generation."

In the past six or seven years, Xiao Quan has photographed many trend-setters in domestic cultural circles, including Bei Dao, Gu Cheng, Cui Jian, Yang Liping...

Among them are many acquaintances of Lin Weimin, such as Shi Tiesheng, Yu Hua, Jia Pingwa, Tong Zhonggui, Wang Shuo and others.

There are so many acquaintances, but no one else asked for help, but it was Yu Hua.

Otherwise, she is a social butterfly!

Yu Hua talked for a long time. He was afraid that Lin Weimin would not agree and praised Xiao Quan to the sky.

"Okay, okay. You can take him to my house on the weekend, and then bring Cheng Hong and his son with you, and we can have dinner together at noon."

Yu Hua suddenly smiled and said, "Okay."

On the weekend, Yu Hua's family of three came to Shizhu Xiaoyuan. Behind them was a bearded middle-aged man with a camera hanging around his neck. He looked around as soon as he entered the hospital.

We shook hands and exchanged a few pleasantries.

Xiao Quan took out some photos he had taken, as well as some works he published in "Modern Photography".

Lin Weimin took it, looked at it, pointed at one of the photos and joked: "You can't make me look so crooked."

In the photo of his finger, the background is filled with falling snowflakes, and the ground and roofs are dyed white.

Under the telephone pole is the bus stop sign, No. 43, Tuanjiehu Station.

A man who was even hairier than Xiao Quan at this moment faced the camera with an evil smile on his face.

Yu Hua said: "Teacher Lin, how can this be a crooked melon and cracked jujube? What an artistic temperament! Look at the texture of the skin, look at the sparse beard, look at the rough skin..."

The man in the photo is none other than him.

This photo shows Yu Hua going to his friend Wang Bin’s house to meet Xiao Quan. Xiao Quan wanted to take a photo of Yu Hua. He happened to pass by the Tuanjie Lake bus stop after coming out. Xiao Quan asked Yu Hua to stand under the bus stop sign and take this photo. .

Lin Weimin interrupted Yu Hua's boasting and said to Xiao Quan, "I've finished reading the photos. What's going on? Let's take pictures first?"

Xiao Quan had been a little cautious since he walked in. Seeing Lin Weimin so happy, he nodded and said, "Okay."

Xiao Quan had two cameras hung on his chest, one was Canon's EOS-1 and the other was EOS10, both cameras used by professional photographers.

He grabbed a machine and framed Lin Weimin in the camera lens first, trying to get a feel for it.

"Has it been filmed? What pose do I have to pose?"

"No, I just want to feel it first. What do you usually like to do?" Xiao Quan asked.

"Watch TV, read a book, water the flowers."

Lin Weimin's answer was full of the boredom of a middle-aged man, without the temperament of an artist at all.

"How about we go shoot in the courtyard?" Xiao Quan suggested.

Lin Weimin readily agreed, and he wore a gray sweater with a sweetheart collar in the house.

When he was about to go out, Tao Huimin put a black coat on him.

Standing in front of the main door of the courtyard, Xiao Quan grabbed the camera.

In the camera, Lin Weimin's lower body trousers match a bit unharmoniously, and Xiao Quan focuses the camera on his upper body.

Wearing a black coat, a gray sweetheart-neck sweater, and prominent eyebrows and sharp edges, Lin Weimin in the camera looks unrestrained and unrestrained. He smiled at the camera at first.

As the camera focused, Lin Weimin's smile slowly faded.

Until one of the frames, Lin Weimin stopped smiling completely. He stood exactly in the best position of the picture and looked at the camera calmly. His temperament was elegant and calm, and his face was as calm as a flat lake.

Xiao Quan's fingers and lens accurately captured this moment, and he kept pressing the shutter towards Lin Weimin.

After a few seconds, the film was completely wiped out like a shuttle of bullets.

This time, I am good enough, Xiao Quan thought to himself.

"Did you finish shooting?" Lin Weimin asked when he saw Xiao Quan put down the camera.

"The filming is over."

"Come in, come in, it's too cold outside."

Lin Weimin returned to the house shivering, and Xiao Quan followed him.

The two children were taken care of by a nanny. Tao Huimin and Cheng Hong were chatting. When Lin Weimin came back, Tao Huimin asked: "Is the filming finished? So soon?"

"It's just a photo shoot, it's not acting." Lin Weimin said to her.

"Then I'll take care of the kids and let Sister Sun and Sister Qin cook."

"Don't worry, it's only around nine o'clock. You'll have time to cook at ten o'clock."

Lin Weimin took Yu Hua and Xiao Quan to sit down for tea and chat. Xiao Quan is a photographer. He has photographed many cultural celebrities over the years. He is well-informed and has a lot of material for chatting.

Since the 1980s, exchanges in various fields in China's cultural circles have been very close, and most of Xiao Quan's photographic subjects relied on the help of friends from these cultural circles.

For example, when he met Lu Peng, it helped him open the door to the art world; when he met He Liwei, it helped him open the door to the literary world.

Lu Peng was originally the editor of "Drama and Film", focusing on the translation and research of works in the field of fine arts. He chaired the "Guangzhou Biennale" in 1992 and is somewhat famous in the domestic fine arts circle.

He Liwei is a Hunan writer with a wide network of writers.

Circles are born from such interactions.

Lin Weimin listened with relish to Xiao Quan's description of his interactions with people in the cultural world. Compared with Xiao Quan's circle, Lin Weimin's circle was undoubtedly much more closed.

It’s basically a circle of writers, and we all know each other well.

The largest number of people left are people in the film and television circles, such as Zhang Yimou, Cheng Kaige, and Zheng Xiaolong.

"A life like yours should be envied by many young people, right?" Lin Weimin asked with a smile.

Xiao Quan smiled bitterly, "What's there to envy? Those who engage in art are poor, and those who engage in photography are even poorer. Sometimes I can't even pay for travel and accommodation, so I rely on the help of my friends."

"It's better to be a great writer like you!" Xiao Quan added at the end.

Those who engage in art are all poor, except Teacher Lin.

The fact that Lin Weimin is rich is not news in the Chinese cultural circles.

But only after meeting, can we have a concrete concept.

I live in a courtyard house in Sanjin, Yanjing. There is a Mercedes Benz parked at the door and there are two nannies at home.

Among the people Xiao Quan has met over the years, not to mention those who are engaged in art, even those who are bosses, there are not many who have Lin Weimin's conditions.

“Many people in our country who engage in art always like to pretend to be aloof and are ashamed to talk about profit. This is wrong.

Of course, art cannot be disturbed by external objects during the creation process, but when the results appear, it has the attributes of a commodity.

The theory that "art is priceless" is harmful to the development of any art form. "

After Lin Weimin said this, Xiao Quan said: "You are right. But some people also want to make money when they engage in art, but they just can't."

"Don't worry, the market hasn't been developed yet, how can anyone pay for it?" Lin Weimin said with a smile.

Xiao Quan has been abroad several times and has a deep understanding of the market and audience that Lin Weimin mentioned.

Just like when he went to France to participate in a photography group exhibition, there were people who saw it and were willing to spend money to buy the photographer's work.

But that’s not the case in China now. Let alone spending money to buy photos, no one even wants to see photography exhibitions.

"Many art forms themselves are niche hobbies and cannot expect too much attention from the public. As long as they serve a small audience well, it is enough for artists to live a good life." Lin Weimin said.

His words were obviously in response to Xiao Quan's slight complaint just now. Xiao Quan thought for a moment and nodded seriously.