versions of violence and other barks

i dreamt of kara this afternoon. she had crawled in some den with entrance in the garden next to our block and wasn't feeling very well; apparently she had swallowed a (deflated) football. i was trying to get it out of her, either making her throw it up, or else i had caught hold of it down her throat, am not too sure - when my father called out to me. there was someone there who wanted to see me. i was reluctant to leave her side until i had gotten that football out, and there were also some boys from the neighbourhood around demanding their ball back but he insisted, so i eventually went to the entrance of the den to see the person. it was my brother.

until i went to work later at night i listened to alanis' versions of violence on repeat for almost two hours and... well, i'm probably guitly of most. and i'm probably marked by most, too. but that's the way it goes with most of us, i guess, mostly unaware.

when i got at work for my nightshift, the dog in the yard my office window is facing was barking his usualy two-note bark. he has a very monotonous barking, like a bored clerk doing a routine duty. same two notes, barked halfheartedly. on and on and on and... some of the folks here find it disturbing noise. i find it... sad. for some time i used to try to imagine what the dog looked like from his barks. i pictured him as a big dog, long fuzzy fur, grey or maybe dirty white. kinda like a big unkempt shepherd dog. well, turned out i was only right about the fact he's old and the shepherd bit. he's a german shepherd, though. nu fuzzy fur. as sad and worn out looking as his bark sounded. so that i could really not hear a change in the tone of his bark when one of his human family members comitted suicide. a sad bark's a sad bark. and some dogs didn't even get that. r.i.p.

soap bubbles

yeah, i love soap bubbles. i occasionally go out and buy the crap and spend a couple of hours making bubbles. but that's not the issue of my blog (why the heck is the title never the issue of my blog???).

anyways, i will NOT delete the previous entry, but tnx for the comment anyway. i've said it before that this is the place where i deposit my pseudo-emotional, pseudo-intellectual refuse, so be warned - it's mostly just a pile of garbage here :). but i thought of something to wash it down with (just so you know i am NOT on the verge of cutting my veins or anything).

if i can do anything to help it, i don't get out of the house without my music player (well, except to the shop on the corner and taking out the garbage, i mean, cause that would be plain silly). it's such a deep rooted habit that whenever i forget to take it or go with someone (thus leaving it home) and coming back alone or just running out of batteries... well, that is something that could easily, if not ruin my day, at least spoil a good part of it.

on the rare occasions it happens, i am quite surprised at the "natural" sound of the city - the cars, the buses, the footsteps, the wind, the bits of conversation, the rustling of clothes, noises coming out of houses or building sites or whatever. the feel... strange to me. because i am used to walking around in my little soap bubble, divided from the world not by a glistening layer of water but by tiny ear phones, cutting me off from whatever happens out there. me and my thoughts and my music in a parallel plane of existence, making my way from point A to point B interfering as little as possible with the world out there.

and if for me personally, it is something i like, choose and want (to the point that i get upset when i can't have it), i sometimes stop for a moment to philosophise about how effectively these little devices are helping us (us as in millions of users out there, a considerable number of whom i cross paths with every day) getting cut off from the world, noticing less, interacting less, caring less... making us more and more distinct individuals going our way... you get the point. i am not even going to start debating the pros and cons. whatever. it's just a thought that sometimes crosses my mind.

anyways, i was coming home from work yesterday, obviously listening to music on my player. i was just having a relaxed stroll and the music got to me, so i was kind of walking to the rhythm, moving my head to the song and doing my usual playback. oh, yes, i do that. put loads of passion in it too at times; got me tons! of weird looks and raised eyebrows from people on the street. if it is of any relevance to you, i was listening to young folks (i even playbacked (or at least i hope it was just playback) the whistling parts.

well, along comes a dude entirely fitting the rocker stereotype, all dressed in black, leather jacket, long hair bound back - you name it. listening to his own music, nodding his head to it. for a second we took notice of each other, i smiled to him, he winked to me, i nodded back and we had already passed each other. but hey, it felt good. it was like exchanging some secret signs of recognition between some obscure cult members :))) just two soap bubbles meeting, briefly touching and bouncing away, each on its own way. or just acknowledging the other as just as crazily immersed in some private little universe, living it out, ignoring weird looks and raised eyebrows :)

i was born too late...

... in a world that doesn't care... i wish i was a punk rocker with flowers in my hair.

that is one option. c'mon, would've been great to've been a teen at woodstock. but taken that's impossible, how about being born three or five years earlier. i was just looking at sweet child of mine. heck, i swear i would've fallen for axl had the band still been around when i discovered music :)))) i often catch myself wishing i'd... remember things. things that happened during my lifetime but in a time i wasn't aware of them, or interested in them or whatever. i wish i'd... been there.

i've mentioned before how out of place i feel, though i think it's rather out of time. and... well, yes, i think i could've gotten along just fine without the internet and e-mails and mobile phones and digital cameras and 24hr shows on 42 channels on color cable tv and microwave food (well, i don't actually use that, but it just came along the line).

i... fuck, i have no idea what i actually want to say in this post. it's a bit of school nostalgia and... nostalgia in general, but for something i haven't been there to see. like the urge to travel one gets, but not travel in space, but in time. i was born too late... :( hey, i'm as old as E.T. ... he got to his home, i didn't. i'm entitled to be depressed.

psycho

bored at work again. i find a topic on the forum about a cannibal allegedly living happily ever after in freedom with his family, namely nikolai dzhumagaliev. i follow the link, read the stuff in wikipedia, google a bit more and think to myself 'hey, the dude is a cross between hannibal lecter and... darn! what was the red dragon's name again?'. so i look up thomas harris. yeah, it was fracis dollarhhyde. of course i diverge into articles on blake's paintings and various other characters in the novels but meanwhile i am caught up reading all about hannibal. the article states that dr. lecter is not a sociopath as he only displays two of the three symptomes. sounds interesting. i click the link, here i am reading on psychopats. there's a link at the bottom leading to the article about fictional portrayals of psychopaths. i warmly recommend it. check this out:

In the past fifteen to twenty years, psychopaths, comedic or otherwise, have increasingly been portrayed in popular movies as caricatured exemplars of a kind of aggressively "hip", permanently jaded, ironic, postmodern sensibility of cool. This type of fictional psychopath assiduously cultivates and promotes his deviancy amidst a pervasively cynical and nihilistic pop-culture wasteland. The postmodern psychopath necessarily exists in a chaotic, fragmented environment — one devoid of any authentic values and feelings, saturated with banal consumerism and ephemeral mass-media simulacra, and informed by what French philosopher Jean-François Lyotard has called "an incredulity toward metanarratives". Hence, extreme anti-social behavior becomes the normative method for negotiating one's way through all of the violence, confusion, vacuity and absurdity that abounds. It is by remorselessly and efficiently committing crimes with depraved deadpan indifference that the postmodern psychopath attains the nihilistic grace of self-referential coolness which is his calling card.

The appeal of postmodern psychopaths in the current popular culture is not entirely clear, but it is quite possible that they are meant to reflect and cater to the narcissism, hostility, jadedness and cynicism of a certain portion of the contemporary audience which prefers to experience garish displays of violence and criminality unencumbered by the implied moral framework of the classical "grand narrative" pretext that is traditionally grounded in the Aristotelian teleological imperatives of justice and catharsis.

errrrm. according to the above quoted and underlined (well, bolded)... aren't we all a bit psycho?

the article then proceeds to analyse psychopaths in iconic works of fiction in literature and cinematography, namely a clockwork orange

It follows that Alex, the rampaging delinquent who abuses his liberty through violent crime, is just as inauthentic a person as Alex the good citizen, who has been coercively rehabilitated by unnatural means and thereby robbed of any free moral choice. Regardless of whether Alex is actively anti-social or passively complaisant, his behavior is ultimately as overdetermined and mechanized as that of a wind-up toy — i.e., "a clockwork orange". In this sense, Alex DeLarge certainly qualifies as a kind of post-human dystopian psychopath

and do androids dream of electric sheep?

The film raises the question of where the moral agency of conscience-endowed humanity ends and the amoral automatism of psychopathic inhumanity begins.

ok, so maybe we are not psychos. for how many of our choices in life are... truly our choices? in how many cases do you by your own accord and free will abide by the rules set to you (and these rules multiply by the day) and in how many do you do it because the repercussions for acting otherwise (i.e. according to your heart's desire) are too high a price - from social exclusion to detention in state or mental institutions. constant acting on my feelings would probably make me passable for the label, though i still have issues with the 'lack of remorse' criterion. anyway, this one dude here strikes a chord with me:

The Marvel Comics vigilante known as the Foolkiller has been depicted in several incarnations, usually as a reactionary crusader. Whom he kills depends on whether or not that person fits his private definition of a fool. As a result, he has killed in cold blood not only criminals, but also average, ordinary, law abiding citizens if only because their thoughts, words, or actions deem them fools in his eyes.

errrrrm. psycho trait. yup. my 'humane' side fights a constant battle under the motto "they are human too. they have a right to live as mother nature made them" with my foolkiller side. errrrrm. i'll let you know if and when the switch burns through. i'm off to practice my psycho glance :)

and if you want to have some fun, check out this page. how psycho are you?

l'ombellico del mondo

you know those youtube clips where american citizens find it perfectly ok to be asked the question "which country should the u.s. attack next?" without asking themselves why the u.s. should attack anyone? and they randomly name a country, from afghanistan, to any of the koreas, china and even france? and then, when asked to point out on the map, they indicate australia as north korea and new zealand as south korea?

well... until recently, while i was convinced that such people exist, and it saddened me that should there ever be a referendum in the u.s. on whether they should attack anyone (not a chance for that, they are too much of a totalitarian regime for that, that's right, you read me correctly), these people would be voters, i thought that they were a minority, that they have been picked out to be mocked and laughed at and put on youtube; that certainly you can't equal them to the average american citizen, who may be proud, nationalist, but not a complete self-centered, americano-centrist moron.

well... apparently americans are just like that. average americans, at least. i still retain hope and faith that there are some who think differently, though they seem a somewhat obscure elite now. let me tell you why.

i work for a multinational company with headquarters in several continents. my job is at the welcome center which works 24/7. yesterday i received a phonecall at 11:15 pm EET (that's eastern european time, for you american folks; with europe being that small continent on the other side of the atlantic ocean - the one on your east coast - just north - as in "above" africa - that big piece of land in the rough shape of a triangle. by the way, a triangles is that form with three sides). that's GMT +2.

it was from a lady from the headquarters in the u.s. she shouldn't have phoned my in the first place, as she was looking for someone from another department, but skip that. anyways, she insisted to look for that someone and to be put through immediately. i thought it might be an equipment failure emergency and i asked just how urgent the matter was. to my surprise, i found out that it was no such trouble and the lady merely wanted to communicate the person here a password for an application.

"errrr.... ok, so this can wait until tomorrow morning, right? you know, there are time zone differences, and it is past 11 PM here. i wouldn't want to look up and call someone on their personal mobile phone at this time, as it's... a bit late". silence. and then. 'oh, yeaaaaah, yeah, sure, it can wait." she was having a revelation, i could hear it in her voice. like doooooooooooh! when you make a phone call on the other side of the planet, don't you give a moment's consideration to that? i do it even when speaking to someone one or two timezones away... hello, the earth isn't quite as flat as your brain, you know? geesh!

Zaraza - part two

Let's see how you're doing: you haven't changed your car, you've got no villa and you didn't get a mobile with bluetooth, like all the fancy people do.

You didn't kiss ass to build a career. You spent all your money on books, movies and travels.

If you keep it up in the coming year, you are sure to win all our respect. From Zaraza, to all those who understand that you are made a gentleman by what you know, not own... Respect!

Zaraza part one

Zaraza greets all those who don't appear in magazines, those who don't have fancy cars, teenage girlfriends or spectacular political careers.

Zaraza congratulates all those who know what "fortuitously" means and those for whom Kafka isn't a Czech football player.

From Zaraza, for the true gentlemen in Romania... Respect!

the toilet blog

how many people out there watch(ed) ally mcbeal? ok, ok, lower your hands, no need to poke my eyes out. i just needed a smart introduction. well, even if you've only fleetingly watched the series, you will have noticed that some of the best, funniest, smartest, most interesting, revealing and important moments of an episode's plot happens not in the courtroom or in the office, but in.... the toilet.

whether it's the biscuit gathering courage in front of the mirror by doing barry white impressions, people making love in the stalls, conversations being overheard, or just meaningful sighs of characters while looking at their own reflections... it happened there. of course, the fact that it was a unisex toilet was important in all this. and it's usually the "oh, i didn't know you were here" thing that played a part.

well, i hate public toilets. i hate the fact that people who happen to be in the room hear you peeing. i know, i know, it's natural to pee and the toilet is the place to do it. but i don't like it. it's even worse with poo. and god forbid you need to fart. that's downright embarrassing - toilet or not.

when i go to the toilet at work, and there's someone there at the sink or in the other stall... i usually wait until they leave the bathroom before i get out of my stall. don't ask why. i just don't consider public toilets a place to look strangers in the eyes. am i weird in this?

now don't tell me i'm weird just for writing about it. there are serious, scientific surveys about bathroom behaviour. people get paid for putting toilet users in categories according to toilet rituals, the way they fold their paper, wash their hands, what they do while peeing or pooing or how they keep their trousers while sitting on the throne. there is nothing off with my post here, seriously. i was just expressing some apprehension towards public toilest.

i might be too prude for all i know. but toilets should make you feel comfortable and safe. you should know no one is busting in on you, no one overhears any weird noises you might make - be it sighs of relief or concentration or just a plop in the water, where you don't hear others gossiping, possibly even about you; where you can spend some quality time with yourself, being excused from the world with a very acceptable and undeniable reason; where you can relax reading instructions from detergent bottles of have a good time with your favourite book, and maybe a bottle of coke next to you or just meditating about insightful and deep philosophical issues. under no circumstance should it be a place where you mind social conventions and have cramps because you force yourself not to make sounds...

well... so much musings for today. excuse me... am off to read a book ;)

saved by the T

not the post i meant to write.... but somehow i'm too depressed to be depressed. or too depressed to write another pointless depressive mumbled rant that doesn't interest anyone anyway.

so i remember stumbling upon this site a couple of days ago... i was slightly amused by it. didn't fall off the chair with laughter, but it smoothed a wrinkle or two. now, who knows who dustin diamond is? somebody? anybody? don't google it, i'll spare you the trouble.

it's the guy who played screech in the saved by the bell series. you know those, right? well, he kinda faded from public attention afterwards. it's the merciless, pitiable fate of child stars. well, screw you kids, you've had your five minutes of fame, now get the hell outta here.

well, dustin didn't want to fade away. so he - or some smart PR person - came up with the idea of this site. i wonder how many people actually laught at it and in memory of good ol' times actually buy the t-shirts. for half a minute i considered getting one too but... hey, that's the equivalent of a filter for my camera and i have my priorities well sorted out ;)

anyways, here's the banner with the link to the site. read. marvel. smile... even if just a bit.

losers weepers (2) mtv trip in time

sorting out stuff in your room is really an occasion for a trip back in time... provided you are as good at piling up stuff as i am :) so, apart from finding things that should've never been written, yesterday i also went through stacks of audio cassettes.

in case you are too young: audio cassettes (or tapes) are those plastic things with a magnetic band inside, that you inserted into cassette (or tape) players and you listened to music... and every once in a while, you'd hear your favourite song completely distorted and it was no studio special effect, but the tape inside getting all messed up and you'd spend an hour gently pulling it from the player, trying not to wrinkle or god forbid, tear it.

yes, i am part of the generation who not only knows what they are... we worshipped them. it was back in a time when there weren't mp3s on every site (what is a site anyway?!?!), when cd-s weren't used as car decorations... when all you had was your radio and your... well, yes, mtv. and a walk-man for tapes if you were really hip. and you taped stuff. and you felt like it was easter when buying a cassette.

woo-hoo, those were the days. well yesterday, among other things, i found my... (ok, buckle up and hang on to your seats, folks) well... errrm... take that and east 17 tapes :D


yup, i owned those. i caught the Take That bug on the last few meters of their career, admittedly. and i was the weirdo who tought neither robbie nor mark the cutest, but jason (is anyone out there following me here?!?!?). jason orange. hell, i wonder what he's doing these days... as for east 17... they had a couple of nice songs and well... yeah, i thought tony was a cutie (still following?).

i remember watching the video for e 17's hold my body tight on dial mtv each day... i knew all the dance moves... i noted and kept the charts... and i died with happiness when my first ever love bon jovi conquered the dial mtv charts with this ain't a love song... yeah, those were the days, when my only worries were whether it would be ingo or enrico presenting the show. and those guys were hot, and i mean hawt (ok, maybe it was just me being a hyperventilating teen).


which, finally, gets me to the main subject of this post :) it is good old mtv, in the days when it was still good. in the days when it was only mtv europe and people all over the continent had a say in the shows... when it brought people together and showed issues they all cared about. when it had a teletext to which i owe some friends (cheers!)... when it was showing an attitude, when it was an edgy thing ahead of its time... and not merely a commercial television showing all the latest crap.

oh, sure, they had crap back then. but they also had some great stuff. they had the unplugged shows (first thing i ever saw on mtv was the aerosmith unplugged), and yes, they had the hottest guys around - ingo schmoll and enrico silvestrin. there was also the great ray cokes and his davina on mtv's most wanted - hey i've still caught robbie williams' naked butt live on air, ya know... and... well, they had greatest hits and mtv wasn't ashamed or feeling out-dated to show bruce springsteen or dire straits or aretha franklin along with take that and nirvana - who were polarising the listeners at that time (i liked both :P)... and mind you, we are talking mid-nineties here.


now? i am sick of turning it on... stupid mtv regionalization was a disaster from my point of view. no hot news from the heart of musical europe - the uk. no europe-wide video text service. crap vj-s who lack both professionalism and charisma. shitty music and idiotic listeners. this isn't the mtv who rocked the vote, who hosted the show that gives out the free your mind awards, who promoted young artists with their mini-mtv-clips... this isn't the mtv of which i was proud to be a viewer.

that mtv... that is locked together with a bunch of other memories, that remind me of a time when... when the world was still in order. but that's another post. this one was just meant to revive some sweet memories: glueing my eyes to the tv every saturday for the european top 20 (i had three notebooks filled with weekly charts...), pinning up posters with ingo and enrico, laughing my ass out with ray, watching singled out on summer nights (instead of a slutty pimp-show dismissed), learning dance moves from east 17 on dial mtv, feeling close to kids my age during hanging out, crying when watching the groundbreaking video to everybody hurts and... well, yes, taking the first steps into the world of rock :)

proof to the contrary

"looks and sounds like heartbreak season. actually, been looking and sounding like that for some time now. people breaking up or falling apart... people whom you'd never expect to do that. people being broken hearted who'd never deserve it, people breaking hearts from who you'd never expect it"

sounds familiar? 'course it does. or it should, mind you. it's just a couple of blogs below, the starting paragraph. last night was night shift, that's when i usually talk most to people in my messenger list who are night owls just like me, hehe. well, one of these talks quite fit the paragraph above. unfortunately. the guy, let's just call him c., is just about to break up with a long term girlfriend. i told him such news always get me depressed and made a :( face; he said i shouldn't as it always happens in the end. well... my remark was that i am still looking for a proof of the contrary. we ended talking about the issue by agreeing that i have a talent for in-vain-things.

well, well, well... i've got news for you, folks :D. i've found a proof for the contrary and i was laughing my ass off, alone in the office, at 5 am. i am really happy for these people, if they weren't on the other side of the planet, i think i'd like to give them both a hug for that hearty laughter. first of all, because i found the aforementioned proof. and second, because i simply adore irony. even if it slaps me in the face :) ladies and gentlemen, please proceed to examine evidence no.1. it is a quote from a blog i came upon accidentally while seeking an image of a breakfast table, believe it or not.

My boyfriend and I have been together for over 6.5 years. No, we don't have an "open relationship," and no, we don't do 3-ways. (Nor do we have any intention of partaking in those activities in the future.)---Yes, we've both made our share of "mistakes" over the years. (Most couples who say they haven't are usually lying.)

*A brief word on "mistakes" in relationships: If a relationship is based on honesty, a couple really can work through any possible problem or "mistake" that either one makes or encounters.---There comes a point in a relationship when you stop thinking "Will we make it through this?" and focus on "How can we make it through this?"---Yes, it's possible to attain a point where "breaking up" just isn't a viable option.---And yes, there are situations when it can be incredibly painful, but (here's the good news)... hurt feelings can be healed, lost trust can be restored, and "things can be like they used to be" (most times, even better!)---If doubts arise as to "whether" a couple might "make it through" a conflict, then... well... they're just not at that point yet.---However, when you get there,... it is glorious!

this is by far the most reasonable and at the same time sweet thing i read on the issue of relationships lately, and trust me, i read a lot. note the 6.5 years? blog post is dated july 14, 2005. today's post from the same blog reads:

"Yesterday afternoon, as I drove home from work, I started thinking about my boyfriend... and how much I loved him and... I started... sobbing,... just... sobbing. I pulled over to the side of the road and called his phone at work. "Forget about the blog tonight, honey," my boyfriend said. "Skip the errands, go home, and relax.".

and yes, by all means, it is the very same boyfriend. oh, yeah. have i mentioned the irony before? the author of the blog isn't a chick. it's a guy called jason :) and yes, you read correctly on first attempt (congrats on that): he has a boyfriend.

right at'char faces, assholes. no, not you people. those stupid brainless giants in windmills i've been fighting for some time. monster considered squashed with proof the contrary.

woo-hoo. draco vincit.

se7en

not the movie. the sins. self-analysis coming up next. highly subjective. so sue me. below: the seven deadly sins in the order i stand accused. according to myself. definitions according to toma d'aquino and deadlysins.com.


greed - "the desire for material wealth or gain, ignoring the realm of the spiritual". i think i am the most non-materialistic person i know. i don't want things for the sake of wanting and i am completely immersed in the spiritual :). seriously now. i do want the one or other thing at times. and if i do, i work towards it. but i don't remember craving something so bad as to go out of my mind.

gluttony - "not any desire of eating and drinking, but an inordinate desire... leaving the order of reason, wherein the good of moral virtue consists". guilty as charged. damn hard to refuse a good icecream. long given up renouncing coke (yes, i am fully aware of the damage i do to myself). but i do not consider myself a real slave of the palate, so to say.

envy - "the desire for others' traits, status, abilities, or situation.". nope, most often not the case. i don't envy others for what they have and what they are, as i am mostly fully aware that it is senseless to do so, or that i can get my heart's desire. however, i do sometimes envy the ease with which some characters get what they want without apparent effort. but that immediately hauls me into another sin.

lust - "an inordinate craving for the pleasures of the body". in matters of my judging, i would be absolutely guiltless (yeah, isn't everybody?). in toma d'aquino's view... i don't indulge in bestiality and am not gay to my knowing. guilty as charged of "procuring pollution, without any copulation" and "not observing the natural manner of copulation". fancy speech, dude! have it your way.

sloth - "the avoidance of physical or spiritual work". oh, yeah, baby! funnily enough, others' reports on me on this issue vary greatly. and right they are. there are times when i embark myself on a mission, and give 150% to do it. some say i take on much more than i should. then again, there are times when i don't want to move a finger, let alone think... but honestly now... how many of you peeps out there seek out work for it's own sake... isn't that like... sick?!?!

anger - "manifested in the individual who spurns love and opts instead for fury. it is also known as wrath". guilty. i do not enjoy it, though, it means effort, and we've already agreed that i'm a sloth :). but, alas! i am angered more than i would like it. i am angered by stupidity. i am angered by narrow-mindedness. i am angered by arrogance. i am angered by what i perceive as social injustice. i am angered at myself for being greedy, gluttoneous, envious, lusty, lazy and, hell yeah! for being angry. and i presume that the fact that i mostly consider my anger justified doesn't lessen the guilt. neither does the fact that i'd oh so much rather not care...

pride - "excessive belief in one's own abilities, that interferes with the individual's recognition of the grace of God. It has been called the sin from which all others arise. pride is also known as vanity". yippppiiiieee. yes! yes! yes! guilty. even if ever so often i indulge in self-pity and i swim in low self-esteem... vanity must be it. because deeeeeeep down inside i know i am so darn better than every idiot out there who i might at times envy, because i do consider my point just and my anger justified, because i am lazy, but i think i do enough and others should do more and i could just drone on and on...


and how was pacino's line in the devil's advocate? "vanity is my favourite sin" - and tell you what - lucifer was darn right too in his vanity. why play harp with the rest of the herd when you stand out in the crowd. according to deadlysins.com, i'll be broken on the wheel in hell (so if you can't break my morally in life, you'll break me physically in death?!?!) and the sin is linked with the colour violet and symbolised by the horse. well, being in the company of a great actor as al pacino and of horses, who are such magnificent and... well, yeah, proud animals... guess it's just the place i belong :)

do chairs have dreams?

do balrogs have wings? god, i love pointless questions. don't know about the balrogs. but chairs have dreams. and i am here to prove it (well not really. but i have to justify this blog entry somehow :) ). just please don't call me in the middle of the night to ask me this.

just like humans, chairs can live in two different types of worlds. the world can be a dull and downright opressive, a black-and-white world if you wish, forcing one to find ever new means to satisfy escapist tendencies without getting into (serious) trouble (of course this doesn't work in 1984-type of worlds). or, the world can be your average every day grind - a colour world, where escapism is a perfectly normal way to keep you working as a little wheel in the big system, while at the same time allowing you to keep your personality intact. now, let's analyse the dreams of chairs in the two possible worlds.

CASE STUDY 1 - the black and white world

the initial condition for a chair to start dreaming, is a rupture with the world it lives in. not fitting in the surroundings, no communication with other chairs, be it lack of chairs near the subject, or the existence of other types of chairs that reject communication with our subject, on grounds of its different nature. in other words, in order to start dreaming, a chair must feel alone in a black and white world.


the dreamt "escape" from the narrow-minded black and white world has two dimensions. first is that of the chair's inner world. we, as mere humans, can only begin to fathom the extent of a wooden chair's imagination, the height to which it takes the chair's inner self in its daydreams. neither can we graps the colour spectrum in which wooden chairs of various essences then perceive their otherwise dull b/w surroundings. we can only reach out with our inner eye and thus perceive a chair's dream of spreading imaginary wings and floating above the daily monochromy in levitation.


the other dimension of the chair's escape is the mutation its dreams and trips in imaginary worlds bring into its behaviour in the 'real world'. every chair capable of such dreams wears their mark that it cannot conceal, just as humans may not conceal their inner fire that will always shine through their eyes. sparks of higher spirits will burn through disguises. now, for the unformed human eye, such a manifestation in a chair is hard to detect, and yet there are signs for the willing to see. the drooping chair below is an example. its drooping board is just the obvious manifestation 'against the system' of straight lines that makes up its world. but there are other, more subtle clues. notice that its hind legs are showing, that it doesn't 'stay in line' either. it is a rebel chair in more ways that meet the eye and in that lies its chance of success. while the system might try to opress the obvious signs of rebellion, the more subtle ones will burn their way into the minds and hearts of others and subminate the system from inside.


CASE STUDY 2 - the colour world

as said, the colour world is your average daily grind. escapism is a must if a person - or chair, in our case - is to preserve its personality, its self, its sanity after all. again, as in humans, not all chairs mind being reduced to a wooden mass in a room. others do. and they dream. the image below is an eloquent example of such. remember le fabuleux destin de amelie poulain? there is that part where amelie's father, being too stuck in his routine, refuses to fulfil his life's desire and travel. amelie then 'dwarfnaps' his revered garden dwarf and sends him on travels with someone; her confused father keeps receiving pictures of his dwarf in various locations around the world that he himself desired to see. this is in short what this particular chair does. back to the wall, in a sunny yet unchanged place, it goes back to its spring of power. it rediscovers its green and very much alive inner tree nature, sprouts new leaves and grows out of itself. since it cannot move, it sends a part of itself on travels, to live the life it dreams for itself, to be its garden dwarf on the great adventure of life on which the chair itself cannot embark.


ps: photographs courtesy of bogdan h. more to be found here.

for the meerkat lover among us

well, we all love meerkats. they are too cute not to be loved. but there is one person out there who is obsessed. and i hear a certain fellow named morty can testify to that. yeah, the people who matter know what i'm talking about. and especially who i am talking about. since i haven't updated in a while... and seeing that it's the 13th already... well, i thought that this post might just as well go out to you. and ignore the fact that this is going to sound pathetic: you are a very special person (and i'm not just saying that, people who know me half-way well can testify i don't go round saying things like that to people, though maybe indeed i should more often); you are one of the few (and i can really count them on my fingers and i'm not sure i'd have to use both hands) people i can really talk to and go as deep as it gets and not blush next time i meet you (or rather send a blushing emoticon...). i think you're one of the good guys and one of the few living humans (i know what i am saying... at least 70% of the alledged 6 billions are mere animals and i don't mean that as a compliment). you're a great guy and the only bad thing i can say about you is you are using a mac. well, i wish you a fun birthday tomorrow and may the year you step in be a great one. you deserve it. HAPPY BIRTHDAY!(oh, my dragon agrees. he dropped in for a word himself apparently. well, can't refuse such a beast.)


ps: i know this really doesn't belong here. i prolly shouldn't even mention it on joyous occasions. but today is the birthday of one of the few true friends i had - unwavering as only a dog can be: rocky would've been 17 today. may he rest in peace and may disney be right: all dogs go to heaven.

sapphire blue

apparently, lately i am torturing my brain. that's pretty common, bet it's used to it by now and would probably miss it if i didn't, but i'm stretching its limits now. latest example was the thinking with a twist exercise. should've had some sort of positive impact, guess it did, but it still feels a bit like raping one's mind, forcing it to view in a positive light something that it usually finds utterly unpleasant.
on sunday, when walking home from work, i tried another thing. at first, unconscious, but then willingly. i started by noticing how deep blue the sky was on that particular day. one thing triggered another: i remembered a passage from eragon, when the main character gets a chance to see the world through a blue dragon's eyes: the blue seemed more intense and had more hues than he imagined, while the other colours were a bit faded. i tried picturing my surroundings making the blue stand out. i read somewhere about an exercise to train your brain: trying to count all white cars, or finding all red items in your office and so forth. this was a bit like that. i tried to notice only the blue things, and they were surprisingly many: the perfectly blue sky, traffic signs, people's clothes, patches on commercial meshes, cars, flowers in a flower shop... amazing.
and the thread of thought went on (does it ever stop?). i remembered i fairy tale i had listened to as a child on a vynil disc. as far as i recall, it was called 'the blue stone'. i don't remember it exacly, i don't think i ever understood the story properly as a kid. in a far away country, all people were given a blue stone at birth. for some reason, the emperor hated the blue colour. he let his men confiscate all blue stones. he called ravens to cover the skies. he covered the wells and made the river dirty, people with blue eyes had to cover them and so forth... no idea how the story went out, but whenever he thought blue was gone, someone reminded him that there is still something he can do nothing about... and i was just thinking how foolish it is to try to erase blue. and i think i like living in a blue world :)

beauty lies in diversion... - the me's

the whole of deni
the sum of all that follows below
might be hard to handle at times. below chart should provide some help

sleepy lemming
the sleepy me.
can be moody if disturbed. no, lemmings are not stupid herd animals. no, they do not commit mass suicide either.

hyena
ironic me
watch out for this one... it’ll sneer at you no matter what. often sighted.

coyote
the sad me.
just howling out my pain. usually in writing. kicks in pretty often.

raging buffalo
all in a rage about the world...
will bang head against wall repeatedly, numb to personal pain at occasions.

the bunny
the... horny me.
thought of a vixen too, but that’s too sassy. this is the me that drools over jon, rob, adam, adrien, jake and.. errr.. *g*

happy meerkat
the happy-happy joy-joy personality
on the verge of extinction lately

puppy
the comforting personality
can be recognised by attentively perked ears, puppy eyes and the offered shoulder

mouse
guess what? the cute me.
yuck. i used the c-word. sometimes sighted surrounded by butterflies.

wacky seal
silly me
the equivalent of the gaga dodo. not worth contradicting. contagious.

goldfish
just happy to float along.
the mood where nothing touches me.

hawk
free. liberated. happy with a twist.
when the buffalo has his way and gives as much a damn as the hyena...

bookworm
nerdy me
no! don’t take away that book! i was feasting on page 847!

panther
sexy’n’sassy me
the feline personality is seldom to be seen... thought to be extinct by some.

positive thinking

two days ago i did an interesting exercise in positive thinking. I managed to transform something really annoying into something slightly amusing and somehow flattering. let me explain.
for some time now i have felt harrassed. i will spare you the details. but when someone you don't want anything to do with keeps sending you mails, until you have to snap back or block addresses (or both, depending on your mail account), when they put up a blog as response to yours, when they "talk" to your through messenger statuses (wonder what the rest of the contact list thought...), when they subscribe to mailing groups you're in, when they read your site update the minute it occurs, when they announce that they want to take part in something dear to you just because you're there... well, i was actually so annoyed that i wonder if i'd get violent on the next face to face meeting...
now, everybody knows negative thinking ain't good for your health. so i tried looking at it from another point of view. i took the verb 'to harrass' and changed it into something similar - 'to stalk' (after all, stalking does have a tinge of secrecy to it's meaning the way i see it, and this is the case...). now, stretching the limits of logic a bit (hey, it's all for a good purpose), you have to be a really special person to have a stalker. i mean, i generally associate stalkers with famous people.
so this slightly annoying situation could be viewed as something else: i have a fan. what a shame it's an obsessed fan. keeping up the practice of positive thinking, all i have to do is hope i won't end up with a bullet through my head. howgh!

scrat

scrat is a remedy i want to share with you.
i discovered something that makes me feel good. something that amuses me and picks me up when i'm so down that i can't pick myself up from the floor. remember ice age? remember scrat? you don't knpow who scrat is? the little fellow at the beginning. the one true reasons for the forming of continents.
i watched the scrat-mini-movie today. i kept quietly chuckling to myself for the whole duration of it. but i felt so gooooood afterwards. i guess you could say that the life and torment of scrat is a really liberating experience - some really have it worse than you. so why fret?

warning - explicit content ;)

100 points question: what do rugby players do when they're not playing rugby? answer: they pose nude. yep, you read right. the french national rugby team has a bestselling calendar series entitled dieux du stade, that is the gods of the stadium. where the guys pose nude. now if you wanna know how good a rugby ball may actually look in a black and white photograph, you google for 'dieux du stade' and see what you can feast your eyes on. posted here is just a small sample of what a month's name might evoke to you ;)

55!

well, it's not like anyone cared... but my collection of post-soulstrip-publishing has grown today to the beautiful number of 55 poems. that means another 30 something to go and then the time is ripe for another volume. that bearing in mind that it's of course quality and not quantity that matters. and modesty above all, lol. so far, the working title (i like the way that sounds, hehe) is scrambled. i've even come up with a little cover art for it, though both title and design are subject to change... so don't blame me for misguiding you if the end product will be something different :p

ps: poems may be viewed here.