Two men alone, waiting

Why is the thought of two men sitting by themselves, confined in a real or imaginary prison, waiting for some ill-identified entity to come and give them some kind of direction, so extensively used in modern theatre? Beckett did it in Waiting for Godot, Pinter does in the Dumb Waiter and McDonagh copies him in In Bruges. Perhaps it is the ultimate theological metaphor: people, we are prisoners in our lives, not knowing that there is a world out there. And God is irrational (sending wrong orders down a dumb waiter, according to Pinter) and most of all absent. Don't put your money on him coming to save you or give you any direction whatsoever.

It's up to us folks, only.

Should Big Lebowski be afraid?

I am one of Big Lebowski's biggest fans. In fact I think it is my favourite Coen brothers movie. But seeing this trailer made me think, could it be that the brothers are at it again? Should el duderinio be afraid that someone else might take his reign, that someone could take him down from the top of my list? From this trailer it seems that indeed, something really good is being cooked and Brad Pitt is in it.

The cool

Is this cool or is it cool?

I always thought Amy wrote amazing, heart-breaking lyrics but I never thought my old University would rise up to the challenge and acknowledge that. I mean a comparison of Amy with Billie? A-fucking-maxing! Well done Cam! (I never thought I'd say that...)

Inspired by this, the blog administrator (i.e. me) will administer an online competition.
Compare and contrast the following two songs by Billie Holiday and Amy Winehouse. What do they reveal about female psyche?

Bille Holiday: Lady sings the blues




Lady sings the blues
Shes got them bad
She feels so sad
Wants the world to know
Just what the blues is all about

Lady sings the blues
She tells her side
Nothing to hide
Now the world will now
Just what the blues is all about
The blues aint nothing but a pain in your heart
When you get a bad start
When you and your man have to part
I aint gonna just sit around and cry
And now I wont die
Because I love him

Lady sings the blues
Shes got em bad
She feels so sad
The world will know
Shes never gonna sing them no more


Amy Winehouse-Back to black



He left no time to regret
Kept his dick wet
With his same old safe bet
Me and my head high
And my tears dry
Get on without my guy
You went back to what you knew
So far removed from all that we went through
And I tread a troubled track
My odds are stacked
I'll go back to black

We only said good-bye with words
I died a hundred times
You go back to her
And I go back to.....

I go back to us

I love you much
It's not enough
You love blow and I love puff
And life is like a pipe
And I'm a tiny penny rolling up the walls inside

We only said goodbye with words
I died a hundred times
You go back to her
And I go back to

Black, black, black, black, black, black, black,
I go back to
I go back to

We only said good-bye with words
I died a hundred times
You go back to her
And I go back to

We only said good-bye with words
I died a hundred times
You go back to her
And I go back to black

First they came (or the conspiracy)

First They Came for the Jews

First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out for me.

Pastor Martin Niemöller

We all know this inspirational poem, some of us have it on our walls even.
Last night I felt a whole new definition of it, when I saw this documentary (sorry in Greek only) about the "generation of 700 euros", the term that defines the part of greek society that has to survive with the basic salary, that of 700 euros. I am usually not moved by these things, maybe because I am an elitist at heart, maybe because I live abroad. Recently however, I have seriously entertained the idea to go back to Greece and I have started thinking about these things. Also my friends, who I love and respect, moan about money all the time, so it seems that this is a true thing, not some kind of exaggeration.

It seemed to me that if a person complains about something like salaries, it is very passé. Having a collective approach to things like that, seemed to me the quest of a different time, of a different generation. I've been very skeptical towards hippie-looking, '60's loving leftist youngsters, who complain about governments.

But I now see that I am very very wrong. Some things might look shady aesthetically (like demonstrations and men with long hair) but the actual issue is real and important. Because the Greek society is rotten in it's core to allow for all this. And this is where the conspiracy of the title comes into play. I've been raised to believe that the Greek family is better than all others and that it loves its children more than the others because they support their children financially. And this is the biggest trap that it let itself fall in. Greek governments never felt the pressure to look after young people, and pay them a decent basic salary exactly because the Greek family has always been there to help. And now you have this generation of well-educated people that cannot support themselves and struggle. And our government expects us to give up our independence and accept our parents' money forever. Why would I want to do that though? Why would I want to be forever handicapped?

The Greek government has proved that it cannot deal with such harsh criticism, that's why it sacked the journalist that did the documentary above. That's why, aesthetics aside, we need to become activists. Maybe well-dressed activists, but activists nonetheless. I really think that this is the only way. Governments rely on our passivity, our lack of action. For too long now, people could afford to do nothing. Not any more though. Because soon there will be nobody 'to speak for us'.

The losing game

Losing is a part of life. If you don't know this, then maybe you should stop watching films. In films, nobody loses nothing ever. And if one does, he is not the protagonist.

In life, people lose things all the time. You can lose someone you love and regret it for the rest of you life. You can lose someone because they died. Surprise, surprise, people do die. And then you don't see them again. And you have to deal with that. You can lose a lot of money, and then live on the street or move back with your parents or owe your ass to the bank for the rest of your life.

Sometimes you lose something smaller: a job, a friend, a paper being accepted in a conference, the bus, an earring you like etc. The problem with these things is not that they are important, because they're not. The problem is that we don't know how to deal with them, because we don't know how to deal with losing, because losing, is not something 21st century people do very well. It sounds clishé, and I apologize in advance for this, but the problem is that our society cannot deal with imperfection. We are all supposed to be cool, slim, nice blah blah and non-losers. We don't know how to be humble. When we lose, we need to find excuses for ourselves, not fake ones mind you, but still excuses. Why do we even need excuses, are we supposed to be perfect? Are we supposed to be otherwise great, but extremely unlucky in one particular case? Why? Can we just not suck? I am a fairly cool person, but in some things I suck. I cannot think of one just now, but I am sure I suck in some way.

Another thing that pisses me off is how people deal with you when you suck and are sad about it. Suppose you flip and start crying. You know, something bad happens and then you flip and cry a bit. And then people say "oh c'mon put it into perspective". And the implication in this is: "stop crying because you look like a bigger loser". And I say, screw you. I am a loser and I want to cry a bit about it. I am tired and disheartened and I want to piss and moan a bit. Why should I put things into perspective? Are people supposed not to be upset, ever? Or are people supposed not to be upset unless something devastating happens? In Greece people say "if no one is in the hospital or in grave, everything is ok". If someone died I wouldn't just cry. Just crying IS putting things into perspective.

Whatever.

Random thoughts

1. Where does the laziness of Sundays come from?
Last Sunday, I was cycling through town and the atmosphere was so lethargic. It seemed as if the whole city was asleep, like nobody was there. On weekdays the road can also seem deserted sometimes (because people are at work) as well but weekdays never look like Sundays. I think there might be an independent substance of Sunday-ness that spreads around in cities on Sundays and makes them look as if they are inside a dream.

2. Why do electricity pylons in the UK look like Christmas trees?
Have you seen them recently? I was going to the airport and I would see a lot of them in a row and it looked like a strange procession of Christmas trees. Maybe leading to Christmas land, far far away. I don't know why I even mention this, it just seemed strange to me. And it was stranger that I only notice now.

The ghosts

Students (and academics, which are another kind of students) have no home. I know this sounds a bit too melodramatic but it's true. You go back and forth, you live between cities that you have to leave the moment you start getting used to. And more importantly, you cannot go back anywhere without the piercing feeling of emptiness. Because students live in student-towns, whose population changes all the time. You go back to the town you studied and you don't see anyone you know. And when you do, you usually hide. Well, at least I do.

I hide because I am bored to do the superficial chat-where are you now-so nice to see you-do you have a permanent job now etc. And the people I see, the few people that I still know, look like ghosts. All of them have changed, some look thin and sick, some look fat and tired. Some look disturbingly the same. I don't even know what's worse: to change or not to change-that is the question. We all change, but in ourselves we don't notice it as much. Only when our favourite jeans don't close and old pictures look as if they show a distant relative.

And then there are the places. Your favourite café has closed down, clothes shops disappear and new awful ones pop up in their place. New happy pretentious students have taken up your favourite spot in a restaurant and you look at them and think, who are you, what makes you think you have a right to be here?

I know I sound bitter, it must be the rain after 6 days of sun. It seems so out of place. Which is ironic, because this is the place where rain is most at home, England. Anyway, I have to go now, and bump into more ghosts on my way home.

Attempts on a definition

'Start wearing yellow, wearing yellow'. Paraphrasing a Gogol Bordelo song, today I will talk about a specific type of person, the person who wears yellow. I will never be that kind of person, mostly because yellow is not a colour that should be worn ever. Unless perhaps you are five years old and you are dressed up like a bee or something.

Yellow is a really annoying colour. I don't know why though, I cannot pinpoint its annoyingness. Yellow only looks good on roses (mainly due to the contrast with green). Yellow on clothes screams 'I am different' (but in a bad way). It is sour, a sour colour, reflecting a sour mood. It looks as if the person wearing it is a giant annoyed lemon, spitting bitchiness to the people around them.

Moreover, it compliments NO haircolours: blondes look washed up, red-haired ones look rainbow children and brunettes, oh brunettes look just wrong.

Most importantly however, yellow sucks so much because it is not orange. If you want to be different, to show your sunny side, to wear some colour (on your otherwise dull wardrobe), wear orange. When yellow is sour, orange is sweet. When yellow is too much, orange is subtle. When yellow is childish, orange is adult. When yellow is stiff, orange is playful.

Perhaps this the best way to define things in life in general: contrasting them with something else. Perhaps nothing is something by itself: white is not white, white has no definition, it is not black. Good is not good, it is not bad. Maybe this will solve the problems of centuries of philosophical contemplation: negative definition. There are no good ways to define some things but maybe others are better. Or not? Because if we say that good is not bad then the weight falls into defining bad. Is bad more easily defined than good? If not this is totally circular. Is this bad? Maybe good is not bad and bad is not good and that's all.

I'm confused.

The sea

What does it take for people to relax? You work, you are tired, you're burned out. How do you change that?

You can go see friends-but then you might end up talking about work...
You can go see a movie-but then it might be bad...
You can go shopping-but then you might end up buying things you don't need...
You can read a book-but you might not have any braincells left...

Or you can go to the sea. And there will be no but.

P.s. I think I only wrote this post to use this awesome picture of the misty beach of Dundrum in Northern Ireland.

“Outside of society they wait for me/Outside of society that’s where I want to be” - Loose and somewhat abstract ramblings on society & other animals

Outside of society would we run around naked, eating dinner for breakfast, lunch for dinner and vomiting our breakfast on innocent passer-bys in electric wheelchairs at lunch time? Or would be simply just do away with the clock, wake up in afternoon, dance in the morning and shave (nothing but our knuckles) during the night time? We would not miss anyone round midnight but rather have fond memories of acquaintances – past and present - at around 2.30pm (which would be hard to figure out as the clock has been disposed of). But in doing the all the aforementioned, in a regular manner, we surely must be taking the risk of forming a society, and, assuming one is predisposed to wanting to live outside society(ies), recreating the need to escape. Thus a condemnation of eternal ‘societo-escapism’ follows… ‘done, done and on to the next one” (as expressed by the poet). Mind-boggling stuff (or just sanctimonious rubbish - you choose).

Writers, filmmakers, poets, rockers, rappers and bankers (to name a few) have explored the ‘outside of society theme,’ all in their own special ways: be it through love on a boat, sailing through a cholera infested world; love in an elevator, perpetrating explicitly amorous acts while the lift descends; or there is the love in the tower, performing spider like tasks day in day out, cursed to keep your back to the world, carelessly losing your life on account of catching a whiff of a morally-questionable man’s proverbial ‘Old Spice’ and taking a glance behind you (and all this whilst having the dubious honour of quite awkwardly having a name similar to that of an onion’s little, fresher cousin); and outside of society one can clearly slap some bitches up, enjoy rears containing trash (apparently) and make up his own shnizle dizle words, ayeee(?). And yes bankers: creating a product, giving it the triple-A rating (which even tracksuit clad, inferior-newspaper readers realise is better than just one ‘A’) and selling it to Icelandic village council (for example) as an assurance that everyone’s pension will mature and prosper (I mean triple-A, just like my remote control takes and that hardly fails me). For the ones not following the financial crisis too closely, the reference concerns bankers overrating financial products, selling them on, becoming rich and thus creating the ability to live outside a credit-crunched (if you believe all the news) society. And let us not forget the filmmakers: man meets robot-girl, man gets followed around by an origami-crazed-officer who makes an origami man with a (origami) penis. Man fights with another robot-man (oops, I gave it away), robot-man starts slowing down (his triple-As start running down). ‘I’ve seen a lot of things, you haven’t, but all these don’t quite matter now,” robot-man tells us in dramatic gasps just before he expires. Man counts his stars because robot-man was stronger, looks at robot-girl and possibly wanders “do electric sheep, erhh I mean ladies, also fake orgasms.” Origami-crazed-officer re-appears, makes an origami unicorn, tells man “we all die in the end so don’t worry about it.” Robot-girl and man(robot) make a run for it… This one has been long and laborious but the unicorn is clearly an ‘up yours’ to society (for there was never such a creature as the unicorn, with the capacity for a double-phallic ‘up yours.’ If you may excuse the crassness, just like a horse but add some).

I was once – quite conventionally - a teenage boy. I produced an essay (the school’s volition, not mine) on something to do with facing ‘the music’ or just walking away. This being an English literature literature essay The Sun Also rises (or Fiesta as I knew it) was involved, as was the New York Trilogy (yes, Paul Auster was quite the rage – especially amongst my female classmates, but then his tiny portrait on the back of that Faber&Faber 1997 paperback edition made even the most ‘testosteronious’ of boys wander). But top-notch American authors aside, society had schooled me well; to walk away is to go back, to go back you have to look back and ones cannot see behind them as they can see forward. Thus the best way is to proceed face-on, after all the sensory organs are all generally and relatively more in front than the rest of them. “Hmm”, said Eric, a man with PhD in (all it seems) literature, who teenagers were allowed to call by his first name, whose wife was Margaret, who (both of them) didn’t eat meat (eggs or dairy), didn’t wear leather, didn’t eat the wine gums the rest of us did (something about bovine gelatine) and who had a beard (just Eric, not Margaret) dense and intense enough to conceal any features of his lower skull structure. “Hmmm, wouldn’t it make more sense to sometimes just back off? Nevertheless, well argued.” That last part seemed to suffice to me, as did the 87% grade. But the passing of time makes one wander about the rest, that 13%… possibly in the same way that Eric wanders if meat still tastes as it did back when he was young, pre-university, pre-Margaret, or like he wanders (perhaps) if his Vegan raised son has ever snuck out and bitten deep into burger, in delightful anticipation of what lies outside his society…

...and if you are left wandering what the point is, then you are being conventional. If you got the point, then think again, because did you?

PS:
Its ok Mr Deckard. You go ahead and make love with robort-girl, run away with her. No one will judge you and moreover its because you are just like she is; just like what you once battled against.