today i almost bought a pair of red shoes, the vampy kind, high hills, pointed. then i realized that i have already three pairs of red shoes, if not more, since my shoes are scattered out in three houses in two continents, i sometimes can not remember all that i have. although i love red shoes, i rarely wear them. it seems i tend to have at least three of everything, that explains how i ended up with three husbands. at least three! sobering.
it is sale time, post xmas tired shoppers are out in masses. the only thing i really needed, was an item not on sale. how did they know? anyhow, i love shopping for underwear, perhaps the only kind of clothes shopping i like, and i like to do it alone. this year however, i could not find the motivation to even look for anything, i do not need anything more in the underwear department, i most likely have three of each, and then i have enough to last me another three years. i will do fine, as long as they do not invent a new kind of tax just for underwear. nonetheless, the one thing i needed, belongs to my specialized kind of underwear, it is the kind of garment that is extremely difficult to find these days, the good old jogging bra to pull over, no hooks either in the front or the back. however, it seems that i am not the only one alone with this problem, this is a shower room conversation, and my dojo colleagues have the same problem. no hooks in the back please! why. for jogging that would not be a problem, but for aikido, it is a major problem. technical details are obvious for those who need to know. why, am i going on about jogging or sports bras?
it is not just red shoes that i have enough, i also have enough with the husbands. once over dinner this week i confessed to a good friend my biggest discovery for the year: i like to live alone, and i do not like changing sexual partner. it took me a while to figure this out, and it explains a lot of the "strange" behavior in my life. those concerned can also easily testify to the veracity of the previous statement. duh.
this is the mood going into the new year: i have a sore throat and have been fighting some bug for the last few days, i have invited a whole bunch of people over and i have no clue how many are actually coming because it is a rather informal, last minute thing, a sylvester party for those with no other plans. a bit of a change from most years when i either go hide in the mountains or at the beach. the son will be going to his friends in zurich and do whatever 20-year-olds do on such occasions.
Friday, 31 December 2004
Thursday, 30 December 2004
what does the tsunami have to do with me
1. i can not bear to see the pictures of the people in their desperation or in their death in this catastrophe. on any other occasion i am a voyeur like any normal being, not in this. at times like this, i do regret not having studied either medicine or architecture. people with such skills can help now.
however to get a remote idea of what happened, here are some satellite images before and after which may help the curious:
WorldChanging: Another World Is Here: Satellite Before-and-After
2. dear close friends missed being in the region by one day. they stopped by in Dubai, most likely that stop-over saved their lives.
3. the family that helps us with household chores here has one daughter still in Sri-Lanka. i pray that she is ok, both her parents and two brothers are in switzerland, and it was just two weeks ago that i helped her father get some information so that she can join them here.
somehow it is a lot closer to home that it seems.
however to get a remote idea of what happened, here are some satellite images before and after which may help the curious:
WorldChanging: Another World Is Here: Satellite Before-and-After
2. dear close friends missed being in the region by one day. they stopped by in Dubai, most likely that stop-over saved their lives.
3. the family that helps us with household chores here has one daughter still in Sri-Lanka. i pray that she is ok, both her parents and two brothers are in switzerland, and it was just two weeks ago that i helped her father get some information so that she can join them here.
somehow it is a lot closer to home that it seems.
Wednesday, 29 December 2004
been interlaced
every so once in a while i get an attack of internet.
the pumpkin here has now taken to teach me how to play "natural selection"... and his attitude is "mom, you going to learn this in spite of yourself!" it has been great for a few laughs and for some rather bad jokes when i batch upload images to flickr and hog up the bandwidth causing him to have pings of over 2000...
what happens after i have had my internet-sitting attack, is that i come out of it, and usually have learned a few things about myself, interacted with a few interesting people, and sometimes meet some people whom i would otherwise not meet. the only thing that bothers me about it, is that my immediate circle, even the more geeky ones, have other internet habits from mine, and we stick to the old channels of interaction. big exception is my brother in california, followed by a couple of cousins in london. then there are those that even after i set up a blog, still prefer to interact with me, the old fashioned way, email and phone. my shock this year was to receive a greeting card, the paper variety, from a cousin who has broadband internet access. a family of romantics!
recently i have set up a wiki for work, that one is being more fun and more challenge that what i expected. so i am now faced with the decision of what to do about it, i certainly am not happy with the way the test run went, either the software or how the whole thing worked out for us. go figure. i am a firm believer in ubiquitous computing, that includes software with the same characteristics, you are using it, and you do not even realize it is software. i want super intelligent software, that is all. i can deal with people's faults, vices, and shortcomings, i have a lot more trouble developing the same attitude towards software.
during the past couple of weeks i have given flickr a good combing. kudos, the stuff is good, and i do not care to find out at a personal level what the software is like. the only thing missing is the ability for my rather over-teched or fumbled-non-teched friends and family to be able to look at a particular set of pictures in private from the flickr server. right now, to look at especially tagged pictures for a private group, you need an account with flickr. that last possibility, looking at private pictures without having an account, it is perhaps the only good thing that yahoo pictures has in terms of features, the rest was all either too slow or too lame, i uploaded a few pictures on a couple of occasions, and then looked for alternatives. it could be that it is a lot better, i have not checked in well over one year.
how am i?
got a sore throat.
the pumpkin here has now taken to teach me how to play "natural selection"... and his attitude is "mom, you going to learn this in spite of yourself!" it has been great for a few laughs and for some rather bad jokes when i batch upload images to flickr and hog up the bandwidth causing him to have pings of over 2000...
what happens after i have had my internet-sitting attack, is that i come out of it, and usually have learned a few things about myself, interacted with a few interesting people, and sometimes meet some people whom i would otherwise not meet. the only thing that bothers me about it, is that my immediate circle, even the more geeky ones, have other internet habits from mine, and we stick to the old channels of interaction. big exception is my brother in california, followed by a couple of cousins in london. then there are those that even after i set up a blog, still prefer to interact with me, the old fashioned way, email and phone. my shock this year was to receive a greeting card, the paper variety, from a cousin who has broadband internet access. a family of romantics!
recently i have set up a wiki for work, that one is being more fun and more challenge that what i expected. so i am now faced with the decision of what to do about it, i certainly am not happy with the way the test run went, either the software or how the whole thing worked out for us. go figure. i am a firm believer in ubiquitous computing, that includes software with the same characteristics, you are using it, and you do not even realize it is software. i want super intelligent software, that is all. i can deal with people's faults, vices, and shortcomings, i have a lot more trouble developing the same attitude towards software.
during the past couple of weeks i have given flickr a good combing. kudos, the stuff is good, and i do not care to find out at a personal level what the software is like. the only thing missing is the ability for my rather over-teched or fumbled-non-teched friends and family to be able to look at a particular set of pictures in private from the flickr server. right now, to look at especially tagged pictures for a private group, you need an account with flickr. that last possibility, looking at private pictures without having an account, it is perhaps the only good thing that yahoo pictures has in terms of features, the rest was all either too slow or too lame, i uploaded a few pictures on a couple of occasions, and then looked for alternatives. it could be that it is a lot better, i have not checked in well over one year.
how am i?
got a sore throat.
La Femme de Gilles
La Femme de Gilles:
http://www.lafemmedegilles.com/index_flash.htm
i do not quite know how to put this in somewhat mild terms, that is, this about how this film hit me. to me, it is one of the most feminist films i ever watched, it is directed by a man, and i doubt any self professed feminist will agree with me. still, this is how i feel about it, like it or not.
warning: not the kind of film that you want to watch, if you tend towards depression.
http://www.lafemmedegilles.com/index_flash.htm
i do not quite know how to put this in somewhat mild terms, that is, this about how this film hit me. to me, it is one of the most feminist films i ever watched, it is directed by a man, and i doubt any self professed feminist will agree with me. still, this is how i feel about it, like it or not.
warning: not the kind of film that you want to watch, if you tend towards depression.
Tuesday, 28 December 2004
my deep and meaningful relationship to socks
startled through the morning i deal with fragments of memories of being in high school, living in Montreal, and trying to deal with what to a child of privilege is a catastrophic trauma, and to a child of poverty would have been the greatest gift. i have never known on which side of the tracks i stand, is it privilege, is it poverty, i cross the tracks often, i hesitate.
this morning was no different, i had warned my son that there are some peculiar habits that i have gotten into since i have been living alone, one of these being zazen in seiza, something that aikidoka are known to practice on a regular basis, and that although i would appreciate if he did not make much noise then, there is no need for him to hold back on his normal activities if i am sitting. he grins, a grin that is very his, and comments that anything that keeps my mouth shut is just fine with him, he can deal with that. mother and son have a rather privileged relationship, one i could never have imagined possible, but then i never gave the thing of being a mother much thought, i grew on me and i was very fortunate that he is a rather challenging person with a deep sense of solidarity which often made me ponder the question of who is educating whom.
the socks are another issue. some years ago, in the winter, i would say, i need either a man, or a pair of socks in bed to keep me warm. although flattering to the socks, the men are demoted to warmth providing objects, as a consequence i got more than one nasty comment on my nerve to say something like that. i said it, others only thought about it and kept their brilliant little mouths shut. these days i sleep in winter without either, and i am quite content at that. not that i all of a sudden turned asexual, still sleep and sex just do not go together in my book. a man and sleep, does not make for sex either. not here, not in this book of mine. it is winter, and i like winter. it took me a little longer to face the animal whom i am, that little animal that likes to be alone, alone with or without socks. i went over the hundreds of pictures that i took in istanbul in june and what struck me was how much i had enjoyed being "alone" there. while on mission, i was part of a delegation, one night a senior member of the delegation and i went up to the rooftop of some hotel in taksim for some drinks, more discussion of politics, and a great view of istanbul by night, still i was blissfully alone. later in the summer that bliss left me, and that one that had crawled under my skin, started to invade my space. it was not until november when i finally took a stand, faced myself and my hesitation, looked him in the eyes, and said farewell. i can not say that it left me cold and placid. finally i felt alone, and free.
ich bin die welt abhanden gekommen, or so it feels like. disconnect to reconnect. you made a mess of it, unconnected all, and reconnect, slowly reconnect it the way that you want to connect. it could be, dear you, dear me, that it will take several trials. faire et défaire, c'est du travail.
another says that he likes the devil in him, i say that i love my ego, aka bitch, and the muse reminds me of riding the ego. we are all talking of the same thing, like my friend who penned in my notes "everybody thinks about themselves, i think about myself." my penning friend sometimes hints about being a writer, although i have known him for years, i would not know if that is true, it could be, and it does not matter, he is not less or more of a friend because of what he writes or does not write, i have also never used him as a substitute for socks back then. the biggest encouragement i received and continue to receive as a writer is from an american writer, a woman, published, brilliant, accomplished. a few summers ago i found myself having fascinating discussions with her, and feeling rather guilty that i had never read any of what she wrote. finally, months later, i got one of her books in my hands, read it, even liked it; it did not make a difference, it was still great to discuss and argue with her. sometimes she reads my stuff, i get a few words back, and i am never sure of what she means, sometimes i dwell for months on one sentence from her and make that one sentence a source of power. me not being sure and hesitating, that is part of me. but is it?
that other, he is brilliant, that other, he is fascinating. that other, thank the universe, he is thousand of kilometers away, and as close as my instant messenger. when i first read his self description, all sorts of alarms and red flags went up in me. ah, i thought, here is one, he makes it much too easy for me to project onto him, to project all of that... well, you know how projections go! he sounds so much like me, he is sure, and he hesitates. he is wild and very alive, he is loud and wonderful. at a distance, you can not help yourself, you love him, you love life. up close, he scares the living daylights out of you. power, in its raw and most beautiful conjugation. male, again! rats! treason, all over, treason. honest answers, i like, not necessarily at first sight, but i like them, they age gracefully and while at first they seem to be thugs, they end up being your best friends in time of need.
i read something that he wanted me to read, i could barely read it, it overwhelmed all of my registries. fulminant... more than brilliant, not bubbly, not light... touching, scorching, yet it left me with more questions than the answers that i did not have. crack, intellectual pornography? i refuse to make a call on this one: i like it. when i like, it is absolute. to like is far more individual and intimate than to love. i love the whole world, much of it i do not like. i love mankind, i do not like the barriers between men and women, the gender walls, those i do not like. so what is a man, really? am i back to this, again?
is it because the end of the gregorian calendar year is at hand, and once again, this is when i take inventory? last year i tried counting the lovers, or was it the men in my life? i failed, either way i failed.
if nothing else, my ego has left very little room for anybody in this life of mine besides myself: a child of fifteen, a being in a man's world, a woman bent on freedom, a child of privilege in Montreal. on the banks of the saint lawrence river is where i first discovered what i much later learned is called "ki." when in 1981 i saw the shore at del mar, in san diego county, that shore that recalled trafal, my lost trafal, then, my dream was present for a fraction of semblance, and i forgot it all, again, once more. no dream, no ki, just surviving, barely surviving, unaware of each breath of life. forget and remember. the cycle, the tides, all fresh, all forgotten.
this is about language, the trauma was to think that i had been robbed of my language, the gift was that i would explore a whole new one, colonize it, and make it my own. this past year was about reclaiming what is mine, my solitude, my freedom. not reclaiming it by accident, by choice. is any of this personal? it is intimate, not personal.
that other, i thank him for his generosity. it is not easy to get my attention, painful on discovery as it is is, it is so. it seems that i have always listened to another drummer, and that drummer wears socks to bed to keep warm in its solitude. i am an actor who refuses to learn the lines, and will not write the play either, or is it that indeed i have written the play? doubt you should, ponder you ought.
do not attenuate! that script needs scrapping. i am not telling you what to do, i am talking to myself. i have a deep and meaningful relationship with my shoes, and sometimes i stray with the socks.
this morning was no different, i had warned my son that there are some peculiar habits that i have gotten into since i have been living alone, one of these being zazen in seiza, something that aikidoka are known to practice on a regular basis, and that although i would appreciate if he did not make much noise then, there is no need for him to hold back on his normal activities if i am sitting. he grins, a grin that is very his, and comments that anything that keeps my mouth shut is just fine with him, he can deal with that. mother and son have a rather privileged relationship, one i could never have imagined possible, but then i never gave the thing of being a mother much thought, i grew on me and i was very fortunate that he is a rather challenging person with a deep sense of solidarity which often made me ponder the question of who is educating whom.
the socks are another issue. some years ago, in the winter, i would say, i need either a man, or a pair of socks in bed to keep me warm. although flattering to the socks, the men are demoted to warmth providing objects, as a consequence i got more than one nasty comment on my nerve to say something like that. i said it, others only thought about it and kept their brilliant little mouths shut. these days i sleep in winter without either, and i am quite content at that. not that i all of a sudden turned asexual, still sleep and sex just do not go together in my book. a man and sleep, does not make for sex either. not here, not in this book of mine. it is winter, and i like winter. it took me a little longer to face the animal whom i am, that little animal that likes to be alone, alone with or without socks. i went over the hundreds of pictures that i took in istanbul in june and what struck me was how much i had enjoyed being "alone" there. while on mission, i was part of a delegation, one night a senior member of the delegation and i went up to the rooftop of some hotel in taksim for some drinks, more discussion of politics, and a great view of istanbul by night, still i was blissfully alone. later in the summer that bliss left me, and that one that had crawled under my skin, started to invade my space. it was not until november when i finally took a stand, faced myself and my hesitation, looked him in the eyes, and said farewell. i can not say that it left me cold and placid. finally i felt alone, and free.
ich bin die welt abhanden gekommen, or so it feels like. disconnect to reconnect. you made a mess of it, unconnected all, and reconnect, slowly reconnect it the way that you want to connect. it could be, dear you, dear me, that it will take several trials. faire et défaire, c'est du travail.
another says that he likes the devil in him, i say that i love my ego, aka bitch, and the muse reminds me of riding the ego. we are all talking of the same thing, like my friend who penned in my notes "everybody thinks about themselves, i think about myself." my penning friend sometimes hints about being a writer, although i have known him for years, i would not know if that is true, it could be, and it does not matter, he is not less or more of a friend because of what he writes or does not write, i have also never used him as a substitute for socks back then. the biggest encouragement i received and continue to receive as a writer is from an american writer, a woman, published, brilliant, accomplished. a few summers ago i found myself having fascinating discussions with her, and feeling rather guilty that i had never read any of what she wrote. finally, months later, i got one of her books in my hands, read it, even liked it; it did not make a difference, it was still great to discuss and argue with her. sometimes she reads my stuff, i get a few words back, and i am never sure of what she means, sometimes i dwell for months on one sentence from her and make that one sentence a source of power. me not being sure and hesitating, that is part of me. but is it?
that other, he is brilliant, that other, he is fascinating. that other, thank the universe, he is thousand of kilometers away, and as close as my instant messenger. when i first read his self description, all sorts of alarms and red flags went up in me. ah, i thought, here is one, he makes it much too easy for me to project onto him, to project all of that... well, you know how projections go! he sounds so much like me, he is sure, and he hesitates. he is wild and very alive, he is loud and wonderful. at a distance, you can not help yourself, you love him, you love life. up close, he scares the living daylights out of you. power, in its raw and most beautiful conjugation. male, again! rats! treason, all over, treason. honest answers, i like, not necessarily at first sight, but i like them, they age gracefully and while at first they seem to be thugs, they end up being your best friends in time of need.
i read something that he wanted me to read, i could barely read it, it overwhelmed all of my registries. fulminant... more than brilliant, not bubbly, not light... touching, scorching, yet it left me with more questions than the answers that i did not have. crack, intellectual pornography? i refuse to make a call on this one: i like it. when i like, it is absolute. to like is far more individual and intimate than to love. i love the whole world, much of it i do not like. i love mankind, i do not like the barriers between men and women, the gender walls, those i do not like. so what is a man, really? am i back to this, again?
is it because the end of the gregorian calendar year is at hand, and once again, this is when i take inventory? last year i tried counting the lovers, or was it the men in my life? i failed, either way i failed.
if nothing else, my ego has left very little room for anybody in this life of mine besides myself: a child of fifteen, a being in a man's world, a woman bent on freedom, a child of privilege in Montreal. on the banks of the saint lawrence river is where i first discovered what i much later learned is called "ki." when in 1981 i saw the shore at del mar, in san diego county, that shore that recalled trafal, my lost trafal, then, my dream was present for a fraction of semblance, and i forgot it all, again, once more. no dream, no ki, just surviving, barely surviving, unaware of each breath of life. forget and remember. the cycle, the tides, all fresh, all forgotten.
this is about language, the trauma was to think that i had been robbed of my language, the gift was that i would explore a whole new one, colonize it, and make it my own. this past year was about reclaiming what is mine, my solitude, my freedom. not reclaiming it by accident, by choice. is any of this personal? it is intimate, not personal.
that other, i thank him for his generosity. it is not easy to get my attention, painful on discovery as it is is, it is so. it seems that i have always listened to another drummer, and that drummer wears socks to bed to keep warm in its solitude. i am an actor who refuses to learn the lines, and will not write the play either, or is it that indeed i have written the play? doubt you should, ponder you ought.
do not attenuate! that script needs scrapping. i am not telling you what to do, i am talking to myself. i have a deep and meaningful relationship with my shoes, and sometimes i stray with the socks.
Saturday, 25 December 2004
my 2004 christmas story
more than twenty two years ago i married a swiss. today i saw this same man with tears in his eyes. he had not seen our son for more than three years.
i was sitting around still in pajamas this afternoon when the phone rang, he asked if our son was around. i passed the phone to the other side of the house and after a few minutes, our dear son tells me that i better put some clothes on, he is going to be here within five minutes. he, the son, grinned and i jumped under the shower. i can take a shower like a cadet in 3 seconds flat, still by the time i was out, we already had guests at the door.
they, he and his second wife, did not get past the hallway, they were on their way to Crans Montana for skiing, and it was getting late. indeed, it was getting late if they still wanted to make it to Montana.
of all the men in my life, this one had the roughest time with me. the story of our divorce outstrips many a dramatic play in how two otherwise half reasonable people can make each other go through hell. this is one subject i have never touched in any of my writing, it is often at some level a meta inspiration, but never directly. but today, it was good to see that i was happy that he could see his son, and that the last minute drop by announcement did not bother me in the slightest bit.
i think he paid a rather high price for one mistake in his life. one moment that changed his life for ever, and the consequence of which was that our son was raised by me, and grown to be a wonderful young man without him seeing the small steps, the struggles, the conflicts, the little joys on the way. i can feel his tears, i share them. we have a wonderful son.
i was sitting around still in pajamas this afternoon when the phone rang, he asked if our son was around. i passed the phone to the other side of the house and after a few minutes, our dear son tells me that i better put some clothes on, he is going to be here within five minutes. he, the son, grinned and i jumped under the shower. i can take a shower like a cadet in 3 seconds flat, still by the time i was out, we already had guests at the door.
they, he and his second wife, did not get past the hallway, they were on their way to Crans Montana for skiing, and it was getting late. indeed, it was getting late if they still wanted to make it to Montana.
of all the men in my life, this one had the roughest time with me. the story of our divorce outstrips many a dramatic play in how two otherwise half reasonable people can make each other go through hell. this is one subject i have never touched in any of my writing, it is often at some level a meta inspiration, but never directly. but today, it was good to see that i was happy that he could see his son, and that the last minute drop by announcement did not bother me in the slightest bit.
i think he paid a rather high price for one mistake in his life. one moment that changed his life for ever, and the consequence of which was that our son was raised by me, and grown to be a wonderful young man without him seeing the small steps, the struggles, the conflicts, the little joys on the way. i can feel his tears, i share them. we have a wonderful son.
went to sleep and woke up
thinking of Christoph Geiser. he lives close by, at one time we were even practically next door neighbors. that was during the time when i was spending most of my time in the Frankfurt area, and keeping up residence in Berne for some practical administrative reasons, to say nothing of my love affair with the Aare and my friends here.
Christoph Geiser's books be-marvel me. i could forget anything at all, if only i could write a tiny little bit as well as he does. i approach his prose with caution, he writes in german, i am always afraid of not being able to give it the due appreciation. i had one hell of a time learning german, and it took me a few years before i started to see the beauty and power of that language; it was not until i started to read Geiser that i discovered its unlimited beauty. the lesson for me, was not so much about the language, that is a tool, but how you use the tool and tis limitations. regardless of how ugly the tool is, how limited it is, it is not the tool that creates the work of art, it is the artist.
Christoph Geiser's books be-marvel me. i could forget anything at all, if only i could write a tiny little bit as well as he does. i approach his prose with caution, he writes in german, i am always afraid of not being able to give it the due appreciation. i had one hell of a time learning german, and it took me a few years before i started to see the beauty and power of that language; it was not until i started to read Geiser that i discovered its unlimited beauty. the lesson for me, was not so much about the language, that is a tool, but how you use the tool and tis limitations. regardless of how ugly the tool is, how limited it is, it is not the tool that creates the work of art, it is the artist.
i do not like xmas, i do not love
i have no gurus
i have passions
i have no idols
i have desires
i have no icons
i have nothing
your life wants to touch mine, it does.
it did, it did before you knew it
we are one, we were always so.
before, after and during birth
before, after and during death
your life touches mine...
you reach out, i turn away.
i can not
i hesitate...
i want out...
not another one,
not seduction again.
semiotic remains,
dead buddhas,
agonized memories.
guilt is pretense.
i can not, i shall.
may you have the boldness of resolve,
the adventure of roses,
the wildness of the gentle waters,
the insatiability of the unborn,
the tenacity of the dead,
all of that and then nothing more,
then again,
the path is always yours.
you are alone.
you are alone in the crowd,
you are alone in the house,
you are alone in your life,
you are alone.
you are alone in your family.
alone and connected.
what difference would it make?
here, there, anywhere.
now. just now.
impersonal it is.
embrace.
i have passions
i have no idols
i have desires
i have no icons
i have nothing
your life wants to touch mine, it does.
it did, it did before you knew it
we are one, we were always so.
before, after and during birth
before, after and during death
your life touches mine...
you reach out, i turn away.
i can not
i hesitate...
i want out...
not another one,
not seduction again.
semiotic remains,
dead buddhas,
agonized memories.
guilt is pretense.
i can not, i shall.
may you have the boldness of resolve,
the adventure of roses,
the wildness of the gentle waters,
the insatiability of the unborn,
the tenacity of the dead,
all of that and then nothing more,
then again,
the path is always yours.
you are alone.
you are alone in the crowd,
you are alone in the house,
you are alone in your life,
you are alone.
you are alone in your family.
alone and connected.
what difference would it make?
here, there, anywhere.
now. just now.
impersonal it is.
embrace.
i wake up on december 23, get busy and did not post this
i wake up, and it is morning again
i wonder, how did this all come to be...
there is a time when all prose fails me, and i want to write more than ever then.
i welcome what comes into my life:
the arrivals,
the departures,
the affluence,
the well-being,
the pain,
the joy,
the suffering,
the love.
then i stop. i think of war. i think of men killing men. i think of women killing women. i think of them killing each other.
i think of Friedrich Nietzsche, i remember that he said that insanity in individuals is something rare, but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. it makes me wonder...
as the year comes to a close, i find myself looking back and trying to take stock. the whole thing of being in love or what on earth that might be, had me in check most of the year. how can that be, i ask myself?
yesterday, a friend of mine called to wish me a good year. when i got off the phone, i remarked to my son "now, there is one faithful man!" at each corner of my life, there seems to be very many kind and loving people. yesterday, besides taking care of some very urgent administrative details, i did no serious work, i am enjoying the company and tending to the close of the year ceremonies that include a few outings with the various groups that i work or am involved with, and quite a bit of administration. it was in the afternoon that i got a very unexpected email from a most kind soul. awesome, not awesome, miraculous. sometimes i know when my wonderful ego has to let out a jagged edge, and sometimes i let it indulge in showing its ugly face. knowledge is seldom good counsel.
this season, the season of the winter solstice, the season that i prefer to spend in the persian gulf, the season during which i tend to be much too critical of european culture, and i, inspite of all my prejudices and resistance, get bestowed with the most wonderful gifts. "how lucky can i be?" that was song sung at the beach last january, wasn't it?
earlier today i was in tears with laughter: my son and i try to figure out how a playstation2 works on this system at the house of a friend. i get bored with any video game, and he is one mean multiplayer gamer. my myopic son left his gasses in california and the optometrist does not have the new ones ready yet, i am helpless with a joy-stick controller. we tried to race each other, he couldn't see the screen on the far wall, i could see but it did not help, it was wall to wall driving. we were both rolling on the floor. these are precious moments in one's existence, when nothing makes sense, nothing matters, you are just glad to be alive and be here. you had to be there, it was beautiful.
after our foray with the playstation i invited him for a bier at the tramdepot, it was noon time, however we hardly ever eat at "normal" meal times. i had, of all things, a christmas bier, and he had something also dark while he read the newspaper and i played with the camera. yes, this is unusual, i do not drink much bier, even less in the winter. i think i know why, now i m really sleepy and my brain feels like mush. it could be that this is indeed the reality part of the show.
mother: can i invite you for a bier?
son: sure!
mother: i missed my chance to pervert a minor, you are no longer a minor
son: well... i just changed my mind about that bier
mother: ok, let's turn around
son: nah!
--------------------------------------
mother: i just never drink so early in the day...
son: never too late to start a bad habit!
falling in love, being in love, loving life itself. what does it mean?
i wonder, how did this all come to be...
there is a time when all prose fails me, and i want to write more than ever then.
i welcome what comes into my life:
the arrivals,
the departures,
the affluence,
the well-being,
the pain,
the joy,
the suffering,
the love.
then i stop. i think of war. i think of men killing men. i think of women killing women. i think of them killing each other.
i think of Friedrich Nietzsche, i remember that he said that insanity in individuals is something rare, but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. it makes me wonder...
as the year comes to a close, i find myself looking back and trying to take stock. the whole thing of being in love or what on earth that might be, had me in check most of the year. how can that be, i ask myself?
yesterday, a friend of mine called to wish me a good year. when i got off the phone, i remarked to my son "now, there is one faithful man!" at each corner of my life, there seems to be very many kind and loving people. yesterday, besides taking care of some very urgent administrative details, i did no serious work, i am enjoying the company and tending to the close of the year ceremonies that include a few outings with the various groups that i work or am involved with, and quite a bit of administration. it was in the afternoon that i got a very unexpected email from a most kind soul. awesome, not awesome, miraculous. sometimes i know when my wonderful ego has to let out a jagged edge, and sometimes i let it indulge in showing its ugly face. knowledge is seldom good counsel.
this season, the season of the winter solstice, the season that i prefer to spend in the persian gulf, the season during which i tend to be much too critical of european culture, and i, inspite of all my prejudices and resistance, get bestowed with the most wonderful gifts. "how lucky can i be?" that was song sung at the beach last january, wasn't it?
earlier today i was in tears with laughter: my son and i try to figure out how a playstation2 works on this system at the house of a friend. i get bored with any video game, and he is one mean multiplayer gamer. my myopic son left his gasses in california and the optometrist does not have the new ones ready yet, i am helpless with a joy-stick controller. we tried to race each other, he couldn't see the screen on the far wall, i could see but it did not help, it was wall to wall driving. we were both rolling on the floor. these are precious moments in one's existence, when nothing makes sense, nothing matters, you are just glad to be alive and be here. you had to be there, it was beautiful.
after our foray with the playstation i invited him for a bier at the tramdepot, it was noon time, however we hardly ever eat at "normal" meal times. i had, of all things, a christmas bier, and he had something also dark while he read the newspaper and i played with the camera. yes, this is unusual, i do not drink much bier, even less in the winter. i think i know why, now i m really sleepy and my brain feels like mush. it could be that this is indeed the reality part of the show.
mother: can i invite you for a bier?
son: sure!
mother: i missed my chance to pervert a minor, you are no longer a minor
son: well... i just changed my mind about that bier
mother: ok, let's turn around
son: nah!
--------------------------------------
mother: i just never drink so early in the day...
son: never too late to start a bad habit!
falling in love, being in love, loving life itself. what does it mean?
Sunday, 19 December 2004
animated suspension
a flirting that you are hiding in plain sight. i remember when my most trusted friend from the LA days, now living in Chicago, would tell me that i put out so much noise, that the brilliant signal was hard to detect, unless you had a lock-in attenuator to filter out the noise. not an amplifier, the signal was loud and clear too, just the noise was even louder. filter the noise out, the signal is clear and to not overpower you, you need to attenuate it.
there is a pattern here, and i will get back to this later.
first, 2005:i have plans to go to Rome, Tokyo, and London. i have been invited so far to go to Barcelona -- or somewhere else in Spain, that I can not quite remember -- and Porto in Portugal. i have threatened my good friend in Yemen to go to Cairo. i do not count the trips to Milano, Geneva, Strasbourg, Paris, Brussels, Zurich or Frankfurt, since they are so close by, nor do i count the shuttle missions between the Algarve and Switzerland. i remember telling myself that one reason i quit jetting around as a strategist was because i got tired of... jetting around. so, what on earth am i planning here? where is the noise, what is the signal here?
second, what has made 2004 a year to remember?was it being in Trafal quite a lot? was it the great company in Quarteira? was it being again in Istanbul? was it standing on the edges of international diplomacy? or was it finally just giving in, and having the courage to say "this, i want!" ?
the year was full, of again jetting around, and discovering wifi in all sorts of airports, having surprises and being surprised. the family picnic in Amman, Jordan comes to mind, it was June, and it was starting to get hot, but to be in the middle of a discussion about "da Vinci's code" in arabic, totally blew my mind. goodbye and farewell to many a prejudice about surgeons, ministers and university professors. housewives and architects no longer surprise me, they are capable of anything.
if there is only one experience from 2004 that i get to keep, than it must be the one about the flirt in the south of France. here life was out to teach me a lesson, and the lesson was not about falling on my nose and learn through pain, the lesson was a loving lesson, a generous one.
imagine, here you are being yourself, your usual self, worried about technicalities and issues central to what you have chosen to do in life, but you remain true to yourself, you see a pretty face, a pleasant smile, and without trying you are flirting. you are flirting, it is a reflex, and about one hundred people are around, some notice it, some do not. later you receive a letter, it is not a love letter, it is not a declaration, it is also a note, here is who i am, i am this way. you wonder who wrote the letter and it is then clear to you. there is nothing to do. two egos have caressed each other. you, both, were just being yourselves, not trying. not doing. the magic is perfect, there is absolutely nothing to do.
what a contrast that was from the lectures and the justifications, the apologies unearned, the drama of it all that so much marked the "last love of my life." last night i had a rather good chat with a long time friend who lives in Rome, we passed review on the last year, and it did me a whole lot of good. i forget so easily.
word imagery, yes... the most powerful brushes are alphabetical. i am left wondering, sometimes i just do not feel like indulging my curiosity. smile.
there is a pattern here, and i will get back to this later.
first, 2005:i have plans to go to Rome, Tokyo, and London. i have been invited so far to go to Barcelona -- or somewhere else in Spain, that I can not quite remember -- and Porto in Portugal. i have threatened my good friend in Yemen to go to Cairo. i do not count the trips to Milano, Geneva, Strasbourg, Paris, Brussels, Zurich or Frankfurt, since they are so close by, nor do i count the shuttle missions between the Algarve and Switzerland. i remember telling myself that one reason i quit jetting around as a strategist was because i got tired of... jetting around. so, what on earth am i planning here? where is the noise, what is the signal here?
second, what has made 2004 a year to remember?was it being in Trafal quite a lot? was it the great company in Quarteira? was it being again in Istanbul? was it standing on the edges of international diplomacy? or was it finally just giving in, and having the courage to say "this, i want!" ?
the year was full, of again jetting around, and discovering wifi in all sorts of airports, having surprises and being surprised. the family picnic in Amman, Jordan comes to mind, it was June, and it was starting to get hot, but to be in the middle of a discussion about "da Vinci's code" in arabic, totally blew my mind. goodbye and farewell to many a prejudice about surgeons, ministers and university professors. housewives and architects no longer surprise me, they are capable of anything.
if there is only one experience from 2004 that i get to keep, than it must be the one about the flirt in the south of France. here life was out to teach me a lesson, and the lesson was not about falling on my nose and learn through pain, the lesson was a loving lesson, a generous one.
imagine, here you are being yourself, your usual self, worried about technicalities and issues central to what you have chosen to do in life, but you remain true to yourself, you see a pretty face, a pleasant smile, and without trying you are flirting. you are flirting, it is a reflex, and about one hundred people are around, some notice it, some do not. later you receive a letter, it is not a love letter, it is not a declaration, it is also a note, here is who i am, i am this way. you wonder who wrote the letter and it is then clear to you. there is nothing to do. two egos have caressed each other. you, both, were just being yourselves, not trying. not doing. the magic is perfect, there is absolutely nothing to do.
what a contrast that was from the lectures and the justifications, the apologies unearned, the drama of it all that so much marked the "last love of my life." last night i had a rather good chat with a long time friend who lives in Rome, we passed review on the last year, and it did me a whole lot of good. i forget so easily.
word imagery, yes... the most powerful brushes are alphabetical. i am left wondering, sometimes i just do not feel like indulging my curiosity. smile.
Wednesday, 15 December 2004
semantics and terminology
i trust that you all have a dictionary available to you, either online or offline. you might want to use it while you are reading this posting.
for the last few days a few words have been pestering me, they seem to be rather intrusive.
the list: weblog, blog, post, posting, blogosphere, blogsphere, blogscape, post, posting, intellectual, scholar, semantic, physical, virtual, real.
you will only find about half of these in any dictionary, the other half is "emerging vocabulary," that is, words being born from their context and usage.
i have observed a misconcept around virtual. virtual is real, it just is not physical. somewhere along the line this must be said and clarified, virtual means what exactly?
even virtual reality is rather real, the sensations which are imparted by which ever means, are real, what you feel, nobody can deny, it is your claim, although one can argue extensively over it's physical existence, and end up turning in endless circles as to what makes up sensation and feeling. let me continue my ranting with the following note: you have a life, some of it is physical, some of it virtual, and for your own sake, i hope it all is real, albeit at times totally irrational. no, i have not lost my sense of humor, but have you found it?
i just got off the phone with a good friend of mine, one of those people whose path one day crossed mine, and who to my surprise, in spite of all appearances, is a rather sensitive and empathetic person. tears rolled down my face in this conversation, and it felt wonderful. release is starting to happen. last night i exchanged a few words with a friend who recently broke her nose doing kick-boxing, and it brought back the painful memories of my own broken nose seventeen years ago. imagine seventeen years ago, and the wound is not healed. that wound is real although it has taken me so many years to tend to it finally, you would think it is long gone and forgotten. when i tell you that i am slow, i kid you not. my sister died when i was ten years old, the tears came out 30 years later one day when i was driving from Mainz to Heidelberg. all those years, i wondered why i could not cry. i can cry when i feel safe and protected, will i also be able to cry without a friends shoulder or the comfort of my car? i know i can cry of joy, but when the pain is too intense, i get paralyzed, not even the tears will flow.
they say, it is men that don't cry. here is one woman who can not cry when a good cry would do wonders. tears must come in all sorts of forms and at all sorts of occasions. i distinctively remember one incident when i could not contain my tears in a meeting, it was rage, and i was perfectly comfortable with it, the others in the meeting were having a rather difficult time with my tears, and i was feeling rather good. it was an occasion that did not touch me deeply like either my sister's death or the violent aggression that broke my nose.
nothing is very rational today.
for the last few days a few words have been pestering me, they seem to be rather intrusive.
the list: weblog, blog, post, posting, blogosphere, blogsphere, blogscape, post, posting, intellectual, scholar, semantic, physical, virtual, real.
you will only find about half of these in any dictionary, the other half is "emerging vocabulary," that is, words being born from their context and usage.
i have observed a misconcept around virtual. virtual is real, it just is not physical. somewhere along the line this must be said and clarified, virtual means what exactly?
even virtual reality is rather real, the sensations which are imparted by which ever means, are real, what you feel, nobody can deny, it is your claim, although one can argue extensively over it's physical existence, and end up turning in endless circles as to what makes up sensation and feeling. let me continue my ranting with the following note: you have a life, some of it is physical, some of it virtual, and for your own sake, i hope it all is real, albeit at times totally irrational. no, i have not lost my sense of humor, but have you found it?
i just got off the phone with a good friend of mine, one of those people whose path one day crossed mine, and who to my surprise, in spite of all appearances, is a rather sensitive and empathetic person. tears rolled down my face in this conversation, and it felt wonderful. release is starting to happen. last night i exchanged a few words with a friend who recently broke her nose doing kick-boxing, and it brought back the painful memories of my own broken nose seventeen years ago. imagine seventeen years ago, and the wound is not healed. that wound is real although it has taken me so many years to tend to it finally, you would think it is long gone and forgotten. when i tell you that i am slow, i kid you not. my sister died when i was ten years old, the tears came out 30 years later one day when i was driving from Mainz to Heidelberg. all those years, i wondered why i could not cry. i can cry when i feel safe and protected, will i also be able to cry without a friends shoulder or the comfort of my car? i know i can cry of joy, but when the pain is too intense, i get paralyzed, not even the tears will flow.
they say, it is men that don't cry. here is one woman who can not cry when a good cry would do wonders. tears must come in all sorts of forms and at all sorts of occasions. i distinctively remember one incident when i could not contain my tears in a meeting, it was rage, and i was perfectly comfortable with it, the others in the meeting were having a rather difficult time with my tears, and i was feeling rather good. it was an occasion that did not touch me deeply like either my sister's death or the violent aggression that broke my nose.
nothing is very rational today.
Tuesday, 14 December 2004
friends
every once i a while i fall into this hole, some call it a cave. i say that i am the particle in the box. i remain inside my walls, bounce of off them, gather momentum and eventually tunnel out. those with a knowledge of quantum mechanics, do recognize the language, it is thus small wonder that quantum mechanics has so often held my attention. i can relate to a world that is quantized, and nonlinear, it is my world, that world that i am so fond of sharing with you.
i have been in my box, i was there during the month of ramadan, and got deeper into the well during the weeks that followed. i pray, that i have finally got enough energy to tunnel out and that me and my belly button are ready to come out of the cave and get some fresh air. i needed this, the cave, the hole, the well, the box, like i need the air i breathe.
although i sometimes shake my head in disbelief about how much drama some people need in their lives, when i take a good look deep down, i am no different. coming to terms with this does not feel wonderful, and the feelings that tend to take me by the guts are harrowingly discomforting. it is anxiety, it is fear, or sometimes it is plain cowardice, and it is all mine. it is not without reluctance that i have began to own up to this.
i was warned by very loving people around me that it might be this way. every single one of them was right, and i did not believe any of it. i am indeed fortunate to have these very loving people around, and when, like last wednesday, one of them needed something from me, i was glad to give it my all. in giving it my all, i got more back than i gave, and that is the miracle of all of this. i wanted to write about last wednesday, but i was stunned. i am slow, and i only can comprehend through my physical body. i have to experience it down to the marrow of my bones. those who would like to see me as the intellectual, mean well, and need new glasses. my ego would love it if i was the intellectual, it could then have a feast at commanding the show. alas, i am not that intellectual.
here is to you:
i have been in my box, i was there during the month of ramadan, and got deeper into the well during the weeks that followed. i pray, that i have finally got enough energy to tunnel out and that me and my belly button are ready to come out of the cave and get some fresh air. i needed this, the cave, the hole, the well, the box, like i need the air i breathe.
although i sometimes shake my head in disbelief about how much drama some people need in their lives, when i take a good look deep down, i am no different. coming to terms with this does not feel wonderful, and the feelings that tend to take me by the guts are harrowingly discomforting. it is anxiety, it is fear, or sometimes it is plain cowardice, and it is all mine. it is not without reluctance that i have began to own up to this.
i was warned by very loving people around me that it might be this way. every single one of them was right, and i did not believe any of it. i am indeed fortunate to have these very loving people around, and when, like last wednesday, one of them needed something from me, i was glad to give it my all. in giving it my all, i got more back than i gave, and that is the miracle of all of this. i wanted to write about last wednesday, but i was stunned. i am slow, and i only can comprehend through my physical body. i have to experience it down to the marrow of my bones. those who would like to see me as the intellectual, mean well, and need new glasses. my ego would love it if i was the intellectual, it could then have a feast at commanding the show. alas, i am not that intellectual.
here is to you:
in a silver box lined with gold
there is a precious treasure
a treasure that you can not see
a treasure that you can not touch
a treasure that you can not taste
a treasure that you can not smell
a treasure that you not feel
listen to yourself.
Monday, 13 December 2004
just when i thought that i knew you
where have you gone?
why do you keep on hiding from me?
why do you refuse to accept that which is so yours?
why do you keep burying your head in the sand?
why deny the evident?
why refuse the dream?
why not dare?
who said that you did not have a right?
who dared to deny it?
remember the dreams...
remember the stars...
remember the ocean...
the sand at your feet,
the tide in the air,
the house...
come back to me,
return to your source
we are one,
we were born together,
without you,
there is no reality,
there is no dream,
there is no vanity.
tell me all, we want to listen.
why do you keep on hiding from me?
why do you refuse to accept that which is so yours?
why do you keep burying your head in the sand?
why deny the evident?
why refuse the dream?
why not dare?
who said that you did not have a right?
who dared to deny it?
remember the dreams...
remember the stars...
remember the ocean...
the sand at your feet,
the tide in the air,
the house...
come back to me,
return to your source
we are one,
we were born together,
without you,
there is no reality,
there is no dream,
there is no vanity.
tell me all, we want to listen.
Monday, 6 December 2004
blogging about blogging: loved, read, wanted, scripted, typed
We are born screaming, it gets loud on earth and in the living room. Peer pressure and authority teach us to keep our loud mouths shut. By the time we arrive at adulthood we are wonderful frustrated voyeurs with an urge to be exhibitionists and loud. We want to be heard, even if it is our fingertips that do the talking.
First they invented the telephone, before that they had to find Canada and colonize it. But then there was a man named Alan Touring, he was brilliant among other things that were a bit more or less nothing they talked about in those days. Somehow Marconi also has had a starring role in all of this. Then even before that, there was Columbus, the total failure in Henry's navigation sailing school, he had to err into the land of the Iroquois, Apache and all those american natives unsoiled by European genes, living in the non-promised land, between the Atlantic and the Pacific salines. The ever so exotic and esoteric physicists took an escape from the tunnels that bang particles together, and gave us the first browser signed "Lac Leman," after the all powerful colonizers, a bit further south, had, in the bitter coldness of that war that never took place other than inside the heads of some men and fewer women, invented the internet. It was not Al Gore. Armed with radio waves, telephone lines, and more expensive typewriters that still can not do the dishes, we are now armed to the teeth to take over the internet that we humans have thus concocted.
Finally there is good news: we can string it all together, the Merriam-Webster Dictionary has deemed the word "blog" worthy of a definition as the word of the year. Blissful, I have been using it for a while, more than months, like years. I like this, personally, it feels like some sort of affirmation, consolation, and reassurance that I do live on this planet, although I keep on having serious doubts that I originate anywhere from within the terrestrial chaos, although I have no doubts as to my nature being of the human kind.
Ever since this announcement the blogsphere has been a bursting supernova of citations and hyperlinking to this now famous honor bestowed upon the humble leggings of a logger word which, will have semioticians and philologists, not necessarily semitic ones, of the world in thousands of years from now, scratching their heads on how from web-log it evolved to blog, while electronic-mail became email. But then, what is a "blogsphere" anyhow?
When I was growing up in Bordeira, and was dreaming of being a farmer, or a physical education teacher -- already then i had been indoctrinated sufficiently to believe that poets need day time jobs -- never did I think that it would come to this: blogging. Worldwide blogging. I was deeply marked and brain washed at an early age by reading Jules Verne and the whole iberian folklore of expansion and discovery. While I was writing my first thesis in California and wishing that the house was all interfaced to a computer and that I did not have to go turn on the sprinklers manually, little did I know that I was just a few years away from interfacing my first instrument to an Apple computer. Things have changed a bit, and I am back, like in California, to using a machine that has Unix in it. It is just that the Vax has gone out of fashion or transmuted into a vacuum cleaner, and the Mac is making a splash, while I have become my own ill qualified, sometimes ill humored, systems administrator. At one level I have the impression of having been there and at another level, I never quite imagined it this way. I grew up with 2001 Space Odyssey and Star Wars as the fodder for unrealistic star gazing. In 2004 these two works of art and fiction come close to being both mythology and religion, while i remain perplexed by this unexpected religion frontier expansion.
To write a blog, that is, to blog, you need a blogging humanoid, called a blogger, and a blogger tool of some vintage or other. After I gave it a go with the browser based blogging tools, I have settled into using ecto, a combination of word processor, html formatter, and uploader. You need all of that besides being on the grid or matrix, connected to the internet. To me the evolutionary aspect of blogging is however not to be found in the technology and the associated gadgets, it is in the people, the blogger. The blogger is a new grit of techno. Bloggers come in three varieties: the totally identified, the virtually identified, and the others.
The third category of blogger is an heterogeneous kaleidoscope of many facets of human expression, it ranges from the kid around the block on the way to becoming a geek, to the bored sales clerk venting his fantasies or just unloading the stories of his life, passing through the traditional mainstream opportunist who has hijacked the idea of a blog and is making something or other out of it, but certainly nothing that is authentically his or hers. Publish or perish has no meaning in the blogsphere, but what happens when you write or publish and nobody reads? The ultimate blogging experience must be the one in that you blog your own silence, and it gets read.
It could be that for most bloggers what matters is to publish, to post on to the blog site, and to have readers is like the frosting on the cake. It is however not necessarily so, this is about exchange of opinions, views, comments, interaction. What distinguishes a real blogger from an impostor is the transparency and authenticity that he or she is willing to lay on the line and on the posts that make up the published blog. This is the new grit, people who publish their meeting notes in blog form, will answer e-mail private inquiries from total strangers, post their travel schedule, and that above all, write and publish what they see with either their experience, cameras, emotions or intellect. The most interesting bloggers that I have been reading, live by what they preach, and not all of them have flawless punctuation. Still it is a pleasure to read their opinions on what they read from mainstream news, world events, and what they experience in their lives. Blogging goes beyond censure, and it respects the opinions of others while giving you all the space to express your own, in your own language.
My own experimentation with blogging started last March. The real reasons for it either elude me or I want to keep them suppressed in the deepest recess of my psyche, but the opportunity was clear. Almost 50 years old, and for the first time in my life I was dumped by a man who never quite made it to my rank of "partner" (at this age the designation "boyfriend" seems a tad displaced). I created a very personal, very private blog and very public, it was my way of both working through the grief, and of telling my closest friends how I was doing and what my thoughts on the matter were. I could have dismissed the whole incident with the words of a friend "he is not worth your time," or with the line from the musical Evita "do all your one night stands give you this much trouble?" I did not want to dismiss it like that, above all, I could not, there was a sweet lesson in it, and I did not want to miss the learning. About 40'000 words later I wrote an epilogue to the story and declared it complete and ready for editing. Their future, the blog's and the story's, both remain unclear while during the process of its creation I gained a bit of clarity as to what I am made of.
Writing a blog is not soul stripping, or soul strip tease, to me it is all about being honest with oneself and the world out there, the community in which we live, our colleagues and friends. Blogging requires integrity, it goes beyond your own private journal written in long hand and that remains confined to your possession. I still keep a long hand journal, a practice which I have not given up in spite of my blogging. While a private journal, or diary, will remain unchecked for facts, veracity, or accuracy, a blog worthy of the name, will be scrutinized by the public eye of your readers. Blogging for business or blogging for life, you can only be yourself, and you have a social responsibility, something quite different from censure, to respect the rights and opinions of others. Those who blog and flourish as bloggers exhibit true self-expression. Blogging is about freedom of expression, and about authenticity. It is also about exprimentation and adventure, it is about reaching out and interacting. Blogging is not new, it started with humanity before there were houses, high rises or high tech. The first bloggers were those who painted the inside of their caves and left their expression for millennia for us to admire. Voyeurs we are, voyeurs and exhibitionists we remain. Nothing has changed in our nature, but the tools look a bit different from those of the Cromagnon man.
First they invented the telephone, before that they had to find Canada and colonize it. But then there was a man named Alan Touring, he was brilliant among other things that were a bit more or less nothing they talked about in those days. Somehow Marconi also has had a starring role in all of this. Then even before that, there was Columbus, the total failure in Henry's navigation sailing school, he had to err into the land of the Iroquois, Apache and all those american natives unsoiled by European genes, living in the non-promised land, between the Atlantic and the Pacific salines. The ever so exotic and esoteric physicists took an escape from the tunnels that bang particles together, and gave us the first browser signed "Lac Leman," after the all powerful colonizers, a bit further south, had, in the bitter coldness of that war that never took place other than inside the heads of some men and fewer women, invented the internet. It was not Al Gore. Armed with radio waves, telephone lines, and more expensive typewriters that still can not do the dishes, we are now armed to the teeth to take over the internet that we humans have thus concocted.
Finally there is good news: we can string it all together, the Merriam-Webster Dictionary has deemed the word "blog" worthy of a definition as the word of the year. Blissful, I have been using it for a while, more than months, like years. I like this, personally, it feels like some sort of affirmation, consolation, and reassurance that I do live on this planet, although I keep on having serious doubts that I originate anywhere from within the terrestrial chaos, although I have no doubts as to my nature being of the human kind.
Ever since this announcement the blogsphere has been a bursting supernova of citations and hyperlinking to this now famous honor bestowed upon the humble leggings of a logger word which, will have semioticians and philologists, not necessarily semitic ones, of the world in thousands of years from now, scratching their heads on how from web-log it evolved to blog, while electronic-mail became email. But then, what is a "blogsphere" anyhow?
When I was growing up in Bordeira, and was dreaming of being a farmer, or a physical education teacher -- already then i had been indoctrinated sufficiently to believe that poets need day time jobs -- never did I think that it would come to this: blogging. Worldwide blogging. I was deeply marked and brain washed at an early age by reading Jules Verne and the whole iberian folklore of expansion and discovery. While I was writing my first thesis in California and wishing that the house was all interfaced to a computer and that I did not have to go turn on the sprinklers manually, little did I know that I was just a few years away from interfacing my first instrument to an Apple computer. Things have changed a bit, and I am back, like in California, to using a machine that has Unix in it. It is just that the Vax has gone out of fashion or transmuted into a vacuum cleaner, and the Mac is making a splash, while I have become my own ill qualified, sometimes ill humored, systems administrator. At one level I have the impression of having been there and at another level, I never quite imagined it this way. I grew up with 2001 Space Odyssey and Star Wars as the fodder for unrealistic star gazing. In 2004 these two works of art and fiction come close to being both mythology and religion, while i remain perplexed by this unexpected religion frontier expansion.
To write a blog, that is, to blog, you need a blogging humanoid, called a blogger, and a blogger tool of some vintage or other. After I gave it a go with the browser based blogging tools, I have settled into using ecto, a combination of word processor, html formatter, and uploader. You need all of that besides being on the grid or matrix, connected to the internet. To me the evolutionary aspect of blogging is however not to be found in the technology and the associated gadgets, it is in the people, the blogger. The blogger is a new grit of techno. Bloggers come in three varieties: the totally identified, the virtually identified, and the others.
The third category of blogger is an heterogeneous kaleidoscope of many facets of human expression, it ranges from the kid around the block on the way to becoming a geek, to the bored sales clerk venting his fantasies or just unloading the stories of his life, passing through the traditional mainstream opportunist who has hijacked the idea of a blog and is making something or other out of it, but certainly nothing that is authentically his or hers. Publish or perish has no meaning in the blogsphere, but what happens when you write or publish and nobody reads? The ultimate blogging experience must be the one in that you blog your own silence, and it gets read.
It could be that for most bloggers what matters is to publish, to post on to the blog site, and to have readers is like the frosting on the cake. It is however not necessarily so, this is about exchange of opinions, views, comments, interaction. What distinguishes a real blogger from an impostor is the transparency and authenticity that he or she is willing to lay on the line and on the posts that make up the published blog. This is the new grit, people who publish their meeting notes in blog form, will answer e-mail private inquiries from total strangers, post their travel schedule, and that above all, write and publish what they see with either their experience, cameras, emotions or intellect. The most interesting bloggers that I have been reading, live by what they preach, and not all of them have flawless punctuation. Still it is a pleasure to read their opinions on what they read from mainstream news, world events, and what they experience in their lives. Blogging goes beyond censure, and it respects the opinions of others while giving you all the space to express your own, in your own language.
My own experimentation with blogging started last March. The real reasons for it either elude me or I want to keep them suppressed in the deepest recess of my psyche, but the opportunity was clear. Almost 50 years old, and for the first time in my life I was dumped by a man who never quite made it to my rank of "partner" (at this age the designation "boyfriend" seems a tad displaced). I created a very personal, very private blog and very public, it was my way of both working through the grief, and of telling my closest friends how I was doing and what my thoughts on the matter were. I could have dismissed the whole incident with the words of a friend "he is not worth your time," or with the line from the musical Evita "do all your one night stands give you this much trouble?" I did not want to dismiss it like that, above all, I could not, there was a sweet lesson in it, and I did not want to miss the learning. About 40'000 words later I wrote an epilogue to the story and declared it complete and ready for editing. Their future, the blog's and the story's, both remain unclear while during the process of its creation I gained a bit of clarity as to what I am made of.
Writing a blog is not soul stripping, or soul strip tease, to me it is all about being honest with oneself and the world out there, the community in which we live, our colleagues and friends. Blogging requires integrity, it goes beyond your own private journal written in long hand and that remains confined to your possession. I still keep a long hand journal, a practice which I have not given up in spite of my blogging. While a private journal, or diary, will remain unchecked for facts, veracity, or accuracy, a blog worthy of the name, will be scrutinized by the public eye of your readers. Blogging for business or blogging for life, you can only be yourself, and you have a social responsibility, something quite different from censure, to respect the rights and opinions of others. Those who blog and flourish as bloggers exhibit true self-expression. Blogging is about freedom of expression, and about authenticity. It is also about exprimentation and adventure, it is about reaching out and interacting. Blogging is not new, it started with humanity before there were houses, high rises or high tech. The first bloggers were those who painted the inside of their caves and left their expression for millennia for us to admire. Voyeurs we are, voyeurs and exhibitionists we remain. Nothing has changed in our nature, but the tools look a bit different from those of the Cromagnon man.
Saturday, 4 December 2004
you asked: how are you?
today, i do not think that i am. or else i just do not think, or have no capacity for it.
had a great evening last night, aikido practice was fun, we were only 3. then the "knights of the round table" got together at the usual place in the "länggasse" near the university, and it ended up being a rather late evening including beer, grappa and cigars. this morning i woke up too late to go down to the dojo, now i realize that i ought to have been in basel to attend an event, and that my head is turning a bit, and i need to pull myself together.
sigh!
had a great evening last night, aikido practice was fun, we were only 3. then the "knights of the round table" got together at the usual place in the "länggasse" near the university, and it ended up being a rather late evening including beer, grappa and cigars. this morning i woke up too late to go down to the dojo, now i realize that i ought to have been in basel to attend an event, and that my head is turning a bit, and i need to pull myself together.
sigh!
you asked about it: blog, blogging...
A Penny For...: The latest essay on "Blogging is not for me.":
The latest essay on "Blogging is not for me."
The latest essay on "Blogging is not for me."
Friday, 3 December 2004
how i want to die
clearly, i want to die spent. totally spent, physically, mentally, emotionally, and other-wisely... spent. spent and without excuses describes the ideal state to die.
this is how i want to die after i have done what "i" want to do, and experienced what "i" want to experience. i am tired of mind fucking, i am tired of being accused of being an intellectual. to me there is no greater insult than to be called an intellectual. an intellectual! that is that abstract concept that the dictionary defines first as the power or faculty of knowing as distinguished from the power to feel and to will. i am hard on intellectuals today, they are those people who can rime a few things together in a pseudo-theoretical prescriptive fashion (or fad). they can string together a set of fallacies, gossip, misinformation, or propaganda in some plausible, fictitious way, and then go around selling it as though it was wisdom. somehow, seen in that light it is a club that i do not want to belong to. call me in intellectual, and you will meet the wrath of my vanity, call me a whore, and i will think about it!
sometimes it seems like it takes me forever to get to the other side of what i am trying to get through. the last couple of months have been that way, and i am not out of the hole just yet. i call it a hole, but it is what others call a plateau. it requires a lot of patience, and a great relationship with frustration to go through this and come out on the other side ripping the benefits of pure dedication, failure and a desire to transcend it.
this is how i want to die after i have done what "i" want to do, and experienced what "i" want to experience. i am tired of mind fucking, i am tired of being accused of being an intellectual. to me there is no greater insult than to be called an intellectual. an intellectual! that is that abstract concept that the dictionary defines first as the power or faculty of knowing as distinguished from the power to feel and to will. i am hard on intellectuals today, they are those people who can rime a few things together in a pseudo-theoretical prescriptive fashion (or fad). they can string together a set of fallacies, gossip, misinformation, or propaganda in some plausible, fictitious way, and then go around selling it as though it was wisdom. somehow, seen in that light it is a club that i do not want to belong to. call me in intellectual, and you will meet the wrath of my vanity, call me a whore, and i will think about it!
sometimes it seems like it takes me forever to get to the other side of what i am trying to get through. the last couple of months have been that way, and i am not out of the hole just yet. i call it a hole, but it is what others call a plateau. it requires a lot of patience, and a great relationship with frustration to go through this and come out on the other side ripping the benefits of pure dedication, failure and a desire to transcend it.
Corporate Blogger Code of ethics
PR Thoughts: Blogger Code of ethics:
Blogger Code of ethics:
1. I will tell the truth.
2. I will write deliberately and with accuracy.
3. I will acknowledge and correct mistakes promptly.
4. I will preserve the original post, using notations to show where I have made changes so as to maintain the integrity of my publishing.
5. I will never delete a post.
6. I will not delete comments unless they are spam or off-topic.
7. I will reply to emails and comments when appropriate, and do so promptly.
8. I will strive for high quality with every post - including basic spellchecking.
9. I will stay on topic.
10. I will disagree with other opinions respectfully.
11. I will link to online references and original source materials directly.
12. I will disclose conflicts of interest.
13. I will keep private issues and topics private, since discussing private issues would jeopardize my personal and work relationships.
Disclaimer: The publication and citation of this code by "intutum" does not constitute either an endorsement nor a recommendation of what is being cited. The discussion currently being cited has to do with "corporate" blogging, not with individual private blogging.
Blogger Code of ethics:
1. I will tell the truth.
2. I will write deliberately and with accuracy.
3. I will acknowledge and correct mistakes promptly.
4. I will preserve the original post, using notations to show where I have made changes so as to maintain the integrity of my publishing.
5. I will never delete a post.
6. I will not delete comments unless they are spam or off-topic.
7. I will reply to emails and comments when appropriate, and do so promptly.
8. I will strive for high quality with every post - including basic spellchecking.
9. I will stay on topic.
10. I will disagree with other opinions respectfully.
11. I will link to online references and original source materials directly.
12. I will disclose conflicts of interest.
13. I will keep private issues and topics private, since discussing private issues would jeopardize my personal and work relationships.
Disclaimer: The publication and citation of this code by "intutum" does not constitute either an endorsement nor a recommendation of what is being cited. The discussion currently being cited has to do with "corporate" blogging, not with individual private blogging.
Tuesday, 30 November 2004
the issue of privacy: really old, really good
for a good example of what the internet can be used for and how difficult is is to establish veracity and identity in an e-mail click on the link below:
Urban Legends Reference Pages: Love (The Bryan Winter of our Discontent)
i got a bit distracted today when a friend of mine mailed me a petition to sign, and i went and checked it out. i know this person's enthusiasm and passion, but i also have been using the internet professionally ever since it was created and before there were these little charms of convenience called browsers and mail programs. i am aware that not all that shines is gold. i did the due diligence bit and checked out what was behind that petition, a quick query at trendmicro reveled the petition to be an hoax. i informed my friend. then i went to urban legends just for a quick look, if there is such thing, got distracted and discovered the story of Bryan Winter, one of those whose veracity has not been established.
this is really old stuff, but then so is the bible, the kaaba, and the pyramids, still, they all have stood the test of time in one way or another. the issue is one that is core to my blogging, the demarcation of that fine dividing line between private and public, and the distinction between fact and fiction. in civil society we have the so called personality rights to deal with some of these issues when it comes to privacy, and these ought to be taught in elementary school in all nations with a civil society. in terms of intellectual property, there is also much which one ought to know, and most of those that need to know, do know, still the internet makes publishing accessible to anybody, not just those in the traditional publishing world. with the tools available today on the internet, anybody with a connection to the web is a potential publisher. on this subject i will be writing at length elsewhere, and because of issues of privacy, it will not even be linked to this blog.
i first became aware that not all people can distinguish between fiction and fact this summer during the issuing controversy and polemic over Dan Brown's "the da Vinci code" when i experienced at least one cold fact loving neurosurgeon totally engrossed in the story and me looking at him with big eyes.
in conclusion, two of the great challenges of the open source movement are veracity, and identity which will be needing some innovation in both the way they are established, but also in the way that we think about them.
Urban Legends Reference Pages: Love (The Bryan Winter of our Discontent)
i got a bit distracted today when a friend of mine mailed me a petition to sign, and i went and checked it out. i know this person's enthusiasm and passion, but i also have been using the internet professionally ever since it was created and before there were these little charms of convenience called browsers and mail programs. i am aware that not all that shines is gold. i did the due diligence bit and checked out what was behind that petition, a quick query at trendmicro reveled the petition to be an hoax. i informed my friend. then i went to urban legends just for a quick look, if there is such thing, got distracted and discovered the story of Bryan Winter, one of those whose veracity has not been established.
this is really old stuff, but then so is the bible, the kaaba, and the pyramids, still, they all have stood the test of time in one way or another. the issue is one that is core to my blogging, the demarcation of that fine dividing line between private and public, and the distinction between fact and fiction. in civil society we have the so called personality rights to deal with some of these issues when it comes to privacy, and these ought to be taught in elementary school in all nations with a civil society. in terms of intellectual property, there is also much which one ought to know, and most of those that need to know, do know, still the internet makes publishing accessible to anybody, not just those in the traditional publishing world. with the tools available today on the internet, anybody with a connection to the web is a potential publisher. on this subject i will be writing at length elsewhere, and because of issues of privacy, it will not even be linked to this blog.
i first became aware that not all people can distinguish between fiction and fact this summer during the issuing controversy and polemic over Dan Brown's "the da Vinci code" when i experienced at least one cold fact loving neurosurgeon totally engrossed in the story and me looking at him with big eyes.
in conclusion, two of the great challenges of the open source movement are veracity, and identity which will be needing some innovation in both the way they are established, but also in the way that we think about them.
Monday, 29 November 2004
a letter to a friend
dearest!
i have been very absent from all, especially from this earth. if have not responded to your mails and messages is because there was nowhere where i could begin. i do not understand the process which i am going through these days, it is, at best, very odd.
i have tried calling you on a couple of occasions, either you are not home, or you are busy.
and then, if there is a name to the process that i am going through, it is surrender, but surrender at a level like i have not known before, nor that i could imagine. somehow it is as though my life is disappearing and i exist somewhere and somehow just serving the muses that pass through me. they write, i am just the instrument. i read the stuff that i write, and i wonder how i could write something like that. sometimes it flows, it is then quiet, and it feels like a drug. on a good day i do not know if i am going insane, totally insane, and ready for the clinic or if actually i am fulfilling my life's dream. frankly i do not even care to know which one, it does not make a difference as far i am concerned. this feels like drugs, or what i imagine that being on drugs is like.
there are no crazy and wild adventures in my life, although there are surprises almost each day.
i have my moments when i wish i was more of a functioning machine, and much less the possessed poet that i feel like i am turning... it is good to feel, to have feelings, to be sensitive, but then i have my days, when it all seems much too much... and i could do with a bit more numbness. wide awake at 3 am, has all of a sudden a totally different new meaning. i am ready to curse all arts, all muses, all inspiration. i am ready to curse it and i am ready to embrace it fully, with all of me. what ever me is, it wants to surrender. i am tired of fighting, i am tired of surrendering, i give up, i got to write. if i don't, i am deader than dead.
i think i embarked on this journey about 12 years ago, although i did not realise it then. yesterday, per chance, i sat next to somebody who remembered me from that time. all i remember of the time when i returned to berne after ithaca is one word that has rang inside my head ever since. if there is one word that has lead my life since then, it is that one. why is it that when i have questions about myself, the universe turns around, and it gives me the answers? yesterday was insignificant, and yesterday chanced my perception of what i thought was real. clearly i do not have a clue. i have been here before, and each time i return to this point, it is revelation time, like i had never been here before. for years i struggle, i fight, except that i never quite know what it is, i have a vague idea of the journey, still there is no goal, it is the journey that is important or so it seems.
right now, even my body tells me that all is changing. sometimes i wish that this body and this mind would divorce and give each other a truce, but they seem to not be that far. i am the spectator in this life of mind and body experiencing what being human could be about. i feel that i do not exist, that my will has no consequence, and that somehow, it is those ephemeral dreams that propel me, not automatically, not routinely, but effortlessly. i never thought that this would happen. i do not know what it is. perhaps this is sheer madness. and madness i welcome in this life.
love,
yours to eternity and back again
i have been very absent from all, especially from this earth. if have not responded to your mails and messages is because there was nowhere where i could begin. i do not understand the process which i am going through these days, it is, at best, very odd.
i have tried calling you on a couple of occasions, either you are not home, or you are busy.
and then, if there is a name to the process that i am going through, it is surrender, but surrender at a level like i have not known before, nor that i could imagine. somehow it is as though my life is disappearing and i exist somewhere and somehow just serving the muses that pass through me. they write, i am just the instrument. i read the stuff that i write, and i wonder how i could write something like that. sometimes it flows, it is then quiet, and it feels like a drug. on a good day i do not know if i am going insane, totally insane, and ready for the clinic or if actually i am fulfilling my life's dream. frankly i do not even care to know which one, it does not make a difference as far i am concerned. this feels like drugs, or what i imagine that being on drugs is like.
there are no crazy and wild adventures in my life, although there are surprises almost each day.
i have my moments when i wish i was more of a functioning machine, and much less the possessed poet that i feel like i am turning... it is good to feel, to have feelings, to be sensitive, but then i have my days, when it all seems much too much... and i could do with a bit more numbness. wide awake at 3 am, has all of a sudden a totally different new meaning. i am ready to curse all arts, all muses, all inspiration. i am ready to curse it and i am ready to embrace it fully, with all of me. what ever me is, it wants to surrender. i am tired of fighting, i am tired of surrendering, i give up, i got to write. if i don't, i am deader than dead.
i think i embarked on this journey about 12 years ago, although i did not realise it then. yesterday, per chance, i sat next to somebody who remembered me from that time. all i remember of the time when i returned to berne after ithaca is one word that has rang inside my head ever since. if there is one word that has lead my life since then, it is that one. why is it that when i have questions about myself, the universe turns around, and it gives me the answers? yesterday was insignificant, and yesterday chanced my perception of what i thought was real. clearly i do not have a clue. i have been here before, and each time i return to this point, it is revelation time, like i had never been here before. for years i struggle, i fight, except that i never quite know what it is, i have a vague idea of the journey, still there is no goal, it is the journey that is important or so it seems.
right now, even my body tells me that all is changing. sometimes i wish that this body and this mind would divorce and give each other a truce, but they seem to not be that far. i am the spectator in this life of mind and body experiencing what being human could be about. i feel that i do not exist, that my will has no consequence, and that somehow, it is those ephemeral dreams that propel me, not automatically, not routinely, but effortlessly. i never thought that this would happen. i do not know what it is. perhaps this is sheer madness. and madness i welcome in this life.
love,
yours to eternity and back again
when do i know?
when do i know that i have had enough?
when will i ever learn to keep my mouth shut or my typing fingers still? i am always a bit like the cat that has to leave the tail hanging out, unsure, undecided, hesitating. sometimes i really wish i was not this way, and other times i just wish i would get to know myself in a rush, but i am slow, even in getting to know myself. no, you do not have a chance, you never did. this is all about intellectual intercourse and sexual discourse. no, it is not the other way around. when i first realized that i could one day come to this point, i thought that i would not be able to bear it, to be in the presence of that which is so unknown to me.
form, it is about form. it is about trial and error. today i am up a wall, a wall that i do not like, do not appreciate and i am ready to turn it all around, once more. one more time, not for old time sake, just for my own sake. once more, again, now.
when my sister died, i hated every bit of it. i hated that she was dead, i hated that i was alive, i hated that i was writing, i hated that she would never learn to. that feeling never left me, it is still here, it is perhaps the only thought that still makes the tears roll down my face: they are rolling. i want to be mad, and i want to scream, and what do i do? i know why people go to the Himalayas or other mountains, or i imagine that they seek that piece of repast from the torture of the mind, that illusion that we call peace eludes me every and each day. or does it?
there are days, when i say, fuck it all. all of it, the peace keepers, the paratroopers, the legal aids, the famished, the living, the dead. just fuck it all, suicide is pink and it is the ultimate choice. if i do not fear death, can i fear anything or anybody? mace in my eyes, a kick here or there, a lesion, blood, pain... it is all bearable, until it becomes unbearable, and then? then there is no heaven, there is no earth. there you are, newly dead, past moribund, the product of your parents procreation insanity, lifeless. no more guilt, no more pain. they live, you die, there is no guilt, there is no pain. there was not even a big bang either.
one day i sat on a hill overlooking the atlantic, gomera it was, you do remember? you remember the blue of the sky, you remember the smell of the waves, the taste of the air. far on the horizon, the sky kissed the ocean, my ocean, and i kissed death. we made a pact: earth, wind and fire would be ours. you were so very preoccupied with all your machinations, how could you even have dreamt up that i had seen you. lies, all lies. once. just once, stop and experience. just once, stop. once.
nos mensonges, a nous, les mensonges du plaisir, de l'infini.
once more, i turn in desperation, that desperation that i have learned to hide, that desperation that does not know fear, that desperation that fights and kills. who are you being when you are there naked and bare? are you then really naked, or is your skin just exposed? who are you being when you ask me to tell you? who are you being when you tell me of little monsters and wonderful sights? who are you being when you think that i believe any of it? who are you being when you try to justify? once upon a time, you shall never know. for the truth is, that time is past and gone, freshly dead, like a whisper of a desire that was never born.
dare being poetic, do you? do you dare give form to the raw material of your intellect? do you dare using that mind of yours, that curse of mine? dare, just dare, once. once dare to trabble out of there, to ignore the feelings, to surrender to the pain inside your being. venture out from the ringing inside your cranium, dare, just dare going past it, once, twice. dare and die! twice.
not once, not once upon a time, twice.
i am there, where i dreaded to be for ignorance of never having been here, i arrived, and i had not believed i had started the journey. how could it be? how could you leave me alone on this journey? it was your journey, you swore it to me. you swore alliance, allegiance, and eternal misery, but swear you did. or were you just cursing my very existence? i believed in that dream that i thought we could carve out of the jails of mental leprosy. you, me and him. twice, once, now. i am here, the sun is setting, the sky, the ocean, the blue: once.
tears, fire, earth, and the taste of the waves. remember freedom? remember the freedom of waking up and not knowing anything, no time, no place, nothing, no language, no words, no remembrances. no memory of the memories, no existence of the existences, once... just once, freshly arrived, terribly accidented, dismembered, disembodied.
when do i know?
when will i ever learn to keep my mouth shut or my typing fingers still? i am always a bit like the cat that has to leave the tail hanging out, unsure, undecided, hesitating. sometimes i really wish i was not this way, and other times i just wish i would get to know myself in a rush, but i am slow, even in getting to know myself. no, you do not have a chance, you never did. this is all about intellectual intercourse and sexual discourse. no, it is not the other way around. when i first realized that i could one day come to this point, i thought that i would not be able to bear it, to be in the presence of that which is so unknown to me.
form, it is about form. it is about trial and error. today i am up a wall, a wall that i do not like, do not appreciate and i am ready to turn it all around, once more. one more time, not for old time sake, just for my own sake. once more, again, now.
when my sister died, i hated every bit of it. i hated that she was dead, i hated that i was alive, i hated that i was writing, i hated that she would never learn to. that feeling never left me, it is still here, it is perhaps the only thought that still makes the tears roll down my face: they are rolling. i want to be mad, and i want to scream, and what do i do? i know why people go to the Himalayas or other mountains, or i imagine that they seek that piece of repast from the torture of the mind, that illusion that we call peace eludes me every and each day. or does it?
there are days, when i say, fuck it all. all of it, the peace keepers, the paratroopers, the legal aids, the famished, the living, the dead. just fuck it all, suicide is pink and it is the ultimate choice. if i do not fear death, can i fear anything or anybody? mace in my eyes, a kick here or there, a lesion, blood, pain... it is all bearable, until it becomes unbearable, and then? then there is no heaven, there is no earth. there you are, newly dead, past moribund, the product of your parents procreation insanity, lifeless. no more guilt, no more pain. they live, you die, there is no guilt, there is no pain. there was not even a big bang either.
one day i sat on a hill overlooking the atlantic, gomera it was, you do remember? you remember the blue of the sky, you remember the smell of the waves, the taste of the air. far on the horizon, the sky kissed the ocean, my ocean, and i kissed death. we made a pact: earth, wind and fire would be ours. you were so very preoccupied with all your machinations, how could you even have dreamt up that i had seen you. lies, all lies. once. just once, stop and experience. just once, stop. once.
nos mensonges, a nous, les mensonges du plaisir, de l'infini.
once more, i turn in desperation, that desperation that i have learned to hide, that desperation that does not know fear, that desperation that fights and kills. who are you being when you are there naked and bare? are you then really naked, or is your skin just exposed? who are you being when you ask me to tell you? who are you being when you tell me of little monsters and wonderful sights? who are you being when you think that i believe any of it? who are you being when you try to justify? once upon a time, you shall never know. for the truth is, that time is past and gone, freshly dead, like a whisper of a desire that was never born.
dare being poetic, do you? do you dare give form to the raw material of your intellect? do you dare using that mind of yours, that curse of mine? dare, just dare, once. once dare to trabble out of there, to ignore the feelings, to surrender to the pain inside your being. venture out from the ringing inside your cranium, dare, just dare going past it, once, twice. dare and die! twice.
not once, not once upon a time, twice.
i am there, where i dreaded to be for ignorance of never having been here, i arrived, and i had not believed i had started the journey. how could it be? how could you leave me alone on this journey? it was your journey, you swore it to me. you swore alliance, allegiance, and eternal misery, but swear you did. or were you just cursing my very existence? i believed in that dream that i thought we could carve out of the jails of mental leprosy. you, me and him. twice, once, now. i am here, the sun is setting, the sky, the ocean, the blue: once.
tears, fire, earth, and the taste of the waves. remember freedom? remember the freedom of waking up and not knowing anything, no time, no place, nothing, no language, no words, no remembrances. no memory of the memories, no existence of the existences, once... just once, freshly arrived, terribly accidented, dismembered, disembodied.
when do i know?
living on the edge
last night i had a few great dialogues with this historian whom i had not seen for a couple of years. the last time that i had talked to him was on the phone and neither of us was in that good of a shape. life was handing us new challenges, the kind that academia does not prepare you for. he has an affinity for the portuguese language, and i have been slow in discovering my fascination for history.
politically he may well be from the same side of town as i am, but we are, or so it seems to me, or else he is pulling my leg, from different neighborhoods. i am one known for arguing the virtues of a united federalist europe including switzerland, he is one of those whose mind i have yet to penetrate, he likes the status quo. for me the european union is a peace project, for him... well, i am not sure what it is. be it as it may, i asked him to join me at the election night celebration of our party.
dialogue is fun, i really enjoyed our exchange.
politically he may well be from the same side of town as i am, but we are, or so it seems to me, or else he is pulling my leg, from different neighborhoods. i am one known for arguing the virtues of a united federalist europe including switzerland, he is one of those whose mind i have yet to penetrate, he likes the status quo. for me the european union is a peace project, for him... well, i am not sure what it is. be it as it may, i asked him to join me at the election night celebration of our party.
dialogue is fun, i really enjoyed our exchange.
the morning after
thanks for the vote. thanks for the attention.
my thinking went along the lines:
1. the party asked me, and i am willing to serve the community, there is a lot of work to do anyhow even if in this city all seems to work more or less well, with the possible exception that the taxes are too high, the traffic is a mess, and the school system needs some serious innovation.
2. in accepting to be on the list and electable, i made peace with the consequences. if people want me to represent them, i will do it gladly, happily, and to the best of my abilities.
3. campaigning is for attention whores, who are interested in the position, the bright lights, the social status, but who have little to offer otherwise. my vanity would have me not want to be an attention whore... and perhaps i am one anyhow. aren't all bloggers just attention whores?
4. i did not think that i had a chance of being elected, 3rd on the substitute list is better than anything i dreamt of. i got myself prepared for being last, so as to not suffer the disappointment of shattered unrealistic expectations, and i would have been delighted with 3rd from the bottom. this last line of thought tells you how much my own thinking can misguide me.
5. to say that i did not campaign at all is also not correct. when people asked me about it, i told them what my thinking on the matter was. i did engage in a few interesting and very encouraging discussions with people whose opinion i value. their encouragement was however seen in my book as a sign of them being courteous and kind towards me, not a sign that i had a chance of being elected.
6. take it one step at a time.
in conclusion this has been a rather interesting learning experience. among the many lessons learned or revisited are:
1. believe in yourself,if you don't... who will? others will, but you will disappoint them and yourself if you don't.
2. be yourself, it works, it communicates, it wins.
3. there is much that i have to learn about marketing, public relations and what campaigning means.
4. my own thinking is not always the best guide.
5. back to work!
6. sometimes i am right, and i really wish i was not. sometimes i am wrong, and i am rather glad that i was wrong. this election belongs to the latter category.
my thinking went along the lines:
1. the party asked me, and i am willing to serve the community, there is a lot of work to do anyhow even if in this city all seems to work more or less well, with the possible exception that the taxes are too high, the traffic is a mess, and the school system needs some serious innovation.
2. in accepting to be on the list and electable, i made peace with the consequences. if people want me to represent them, i will do it gladly, happily, and to the best of my abilities.
3. campaigning is for attention whores, who are interested in the position, the bright lights, the social status, but who have little to offer otherwise. my vanity would have me not want to be an attention whore... and perhaps i am one anyhow. aren't all bloggers just attention whores?
4. i did not think that i had a chance of being elected, 3rd on the substitute list is better than anything i dreamt of. i got myself prepared for being last, so as to not suffer the disappointment of shattered unrealistic expectations, and i would have been delighted with 3rd from the bottom. this last line of thought tells you how much my own thinking can misguide me.
5. to say that i did not campaign at all is also not correct. when people asked me about it, i told them what my thinking on the matter was. i did engage in a few interesting and very encouraging discussions with people whose opinion i value. their encouragement was however seen in my book as a sign of them being courteous and kind towards me, not a sign that i had a chance of being elected.
6. take it one step at a time.
in conclusion this has been a rather interesting learning experience. among the many lessons learned or revisited are:
1. believe in yourself,if you don't... who will? others will, but you will disappoint them and yourself if you don't.
2. be yourself, it works, it communicates, it wins.
3. there is much that i have to learn about marketing, public relations and what campaigning means.
4. my own thinking is not always the best guide.
5. back to work!
6. sometimes i am right, and i really wish i was not. sometimes i am wrong, and i am rather glad that i was wrong. this election belongs to the latter category.
Sunday, 28 November 2004
the election results are in
i am stunned!
i did not lift a finger. on a list of 19, i came in 8th place. this list won 5 seats in the city parliament, one more than 4 years ago, one of them was elected to the city council, meaning that the one on 6th place will take her place.
i am trying to recover from the fact that people actually voted for me. thanks to all of those who did!
post scriptum: i did go to city hall this evening to find out what the results are, and because i thought it might be fun to watch and take pictures. for clarity, this was not the same event about which i ranted on the previous posting.
i did not lift a finger. on a list of 19, i came in 8th place. this list won 5 seats in the city parliament, one more than 4 years ago, one of them was elected to the city council, meaning that the one on 6th place will take her place.
i am trying to recover from the fact that people actually voted for me. thanks to all of those who did!
post scriptum: i did go to city hall this evening to find out what the results are, and because i thought it might be fun to watch and take pictures. for clarity, this was not the same event about which i ranted on the previous posting.
voting and being here: in spite of all my best intentions and desires
the story of not being a victim, and being happy.
you, the family, friends and fools who know me, you are those that have touched my skin at one time or another, you know that i would rather be in quarteira right now. in spite of all my desires, i chose to be here, in berne, right now.
the votes are cast, and i hope i have no surprises by the time this evening is over, and that my life will not have another major change in it, like being elected to the city parliament. nothing against being in the city parliament, but somehow, although i accepted to be nominated by my party, an election would bring a major breakdown in my life. i do have a good relationship to breakdowns, after all, i do like to fix what is not working.
this morning i went to cast my own ballot: the 3 federal issues were fairly important, stem cell research being one of them. afterwards i walked down to the matte, as i often do to access what i call "my beach" by the aare. half-way down i heard this older lady with her tiny dog, she must have been well over 70, asking in a rather panicky voice where the "wasserwerkegasse 2" was. the people passing by her totally ignored her. i was on the other side of the street, and crossed to her side. she was somehow disoriented, i told her that she was close, about 200 meters from where she wanted to be, and in which direction to go. i was walking in the same direction, she slowly, and surely found her way. she never said thank you, but then, she was rather frightened that she had lost her way. judging from her accent, she was a local. this is berne.
i sit here writing this and realize that i have passed up on my party's invitation to be at a local restaurant wooing the sirens of national television. since my last tv appearance i have come to realize that the only thing that surpasses my lack of desire to have one, is my lack of desire to be in it. christmas is approaching, and i am getting more and more like the scrooge on all issues.
recently, about one month ago, i ended up hugging one fellow whom, about three years ago i would have rather stung unconscientious, a former colleague. how we got to be in each other's arms is in itself quite a bit of a story, one could also call it serendipity. he comes to mind right now for several reasons reasons: one, although i had serious differences of opinion with the colleague, he and i have been able to appreciate those differences and grow past them; secondly, somebody else with the same first name as he, often got all confused as to what the nature of my conflict with his name sake thus creating a total mess of what could have been something beautiful. projections can be very powerful, but if you can not distinguish what is projection and what is not, just throw in the towel, you lost. you can not win, until you concede that you have lost.
it could be that, for all the powers that be, my middle name is "blank canvas." often, i end up being that screen where a lot of unclaimed projections get thrown at. i can not control what others do or not do, but i do have some control on how fast i can move out of the way, and in what direction i redirect those projection energies thrown at me. this morning there was this smiling face of that clown, also known as a man with a few vices, looking at me. it was impersonal. he is in new york now, but his self-portrait is again on my desk since thursday, and i did go to my desk first thing on getting up this morning for some reason that is already forgotten, like good reasons ought to be. nobody can make me fall on my nose faster than this man with a few vices, but then... that is another story. still the reminder of that ease, kindness, and mercilessness that all are so his, so authentic, and so inspiring, is still being written. yes, writing the reminder of ease, kindness and mercilessness is another way of expressing the quest for authenticity.
in thinking of my choice to be here, writing to my friends, in a rather impersonal, albeit very direct and immediate way, rather than to be in a hip place, read, neoclassical boring, with lots of self proclaimed super cool people flirting with tv cameras, i am reminded of those wonderful accusations that the doctor just wants to be in the middle of the spotlight. well, the accuser has come to recant his accusation, and the doctor -- that is me -- does not like incoherent bright lights, she used to work with lasers!
form, she said form. i am looking into form.
you, the family, friends and fools who know me, you are those that have touched my skin at one time or another, you know that i would rather be in quarteira right now. in spite of all my desires, i chose to be here, in berne, right now.
the votes are cast, and i hope i have no surprises by the time this evening is over, and that my life will not have another major change in it, like being elected to the city parliament. nothing against being in the city parliament, but somehow, although i accepted to be nominated by my party, an election would bring a major breakdown in my life. i do have a good relationship to breakdowns, after all, i do like to fix what is not working.
this morning i went to cast my own ballot: the 3 federal issues were fairly important, stem cell research being one of them. afterwards i walked down to the matte, as i often do to access what i call "my beach" by the aare. half-way down i heard this older lady with her tiny dog, she must have been well over 70, asking in a rather panicky voice where the "wasserwerkegasse 2" was. the people passing by her totally ignored her. i was on the other side of the street, and crossed to her side. she was somehow disoriented, i told her that she was close, about 200 meters from where she wanted to be, and in which direction to go. i was walking in the same direction, she slowly, and surely found her way. she never said thank you, but then, she was rather frightened that she had lost her way. judging from her accent, she was a local. this is berne.
i sit here writing this and realize that i have passed up on my party's invitation to be at a local restaurant wooing the sirens of national television. since my last tv appearance i have come to realize that the only thing that surpasses my lack of desire to have one, is my lack of desire to be in it. christmas is approaching, and i am getting more and more like the scrooge on all issues.
recently, about one month ago, i ended up hugging one fellow whom, about three years ago i would have rather stung unconscientious, a former colleague. how we got to be in each other's arms is in itself quite a bit of a story, one could also call it serendipity. he comes to mind right now for several reasons reasons: one, although i had serious differences of opinion with the colleague, he and i have been able to appreciate those differences and grow past them; secondly, somebody else with the same first name as he, often got all confused as to what the nature of my conflict with his name sake thus creating a total mess of what could have been something beautiful. projections can be very powerful, but if you can not distinguish what is projection and what is not, just throw in the towel, you lost. you can not win, until you concede that you have lost.
it could be that, for all the powers that be, my middle name is "blank canvas." often, i end up being that screen where a lot of unclaimed projections get thrown at. i can not control what others do or not do, but i do have some control on how fast i can move out of the way, and in what direction i redirect those projection energies thrown at me. this morning there was this smiling face of that clown, also known as a man with a few vices, looking at me. it was impersonal. he is in new york now, but his self-portrait is again on my desk since thursday, and i did go to my desk first thing on getting up this morning for some reason that is already forgotten, like good reasons ought to be. nobody can make me fall on my nose faster than this man with a few vices, but then... that is another story. still the reminder of that ease, kindness, and mercilessness that all are so his, so authentic, and so inspiring, is still being written. yes, writing the reminder of ease, kindness and mercilessness is another way of expressing the quest for authenticity.
in thinking of my choice to be here, writing to my friends, in a rather impersonal, albeit very direct and immediate way, rather than to be in a hip place, read, neoclassical boring, with lots of self proclaimed super cool people flirting with tv cameras, i am reminded of those wonderful accusations that the doctor just wants to be in the middle of the spotlight. well, the accuser has come to recant his accusation, and the doctor -- that is me -- does not like incoherent bright lights, she used to work with lasers!
form, she said form. i am looking into form.
Saturday, 27 November 2004
Friday, 26 November 2004
life: being an animal
Yahoo! News - Lifestyle Photos - AFP:
Saut, a male white rhinoceros, his female Najin and their four- year-old calf Fatu stands by at the Dvur Kralove zoo, East Bohemia. The zoo is the only place in the world where they have managed to breed the endangered species in captivity(AFP/File/Libor Tasler)
Saut, a male white rhinoceros, his female Najin and their four- year-old calf Fatu stands by at the Dvur Kralove zoo, East Bohemia. The zoo is the only place in the world where they have managed to breed the endangered species in captivity(AFP/File/Libor Tasler)
for english language news junkies: some good "how to, and what to" reads
Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/webfeeds
New York Times
BBC News
(this is not an exhaustive list, but it is a start)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/webfeeds
New York Times
BBC News
(this is not an exhaustive list, but it is a start)
Thursday, 25 November 2004
oh hum!
yes, i am tired of repeating the old clichés.
once a door opens, then it closes, it may never open again, and then it may.
who cares?
i do not.
i care about preciously little
i care about nothing
i don't even know what zen is
sometimes i have the illusion of being alive
other times i imagine that i am dead
who cares?
who could possibly care?
nobody cares.
it is good that is so.
absolutely good.
once a door opens, then it closes, it may never open again, and then it may.
who cares?
i do not.
i care about preciously little
i care about nothing
i don't even know what zen is
sometimes i have the illusion of being alive
other times i imagine that i am dead
who cares?
who could possibly care?
nobody cares.
it is good that is so.
absolutely good.
reinventing myself along the way, deriving inspiration from the bowels of earth, fire and air
my new "icon" and "guru"
the vulture: any of various large raptorial birds of temperate and tropical regions that are related to the hawks, eagles, and falcons but have weaker claws and the head usually naked, that subsist chiefly or entirely on carrion, and that constitute the families Aegypiidae and Cathartidae and include some of the largest birds of flight.
(citation: "vulture." Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged. Merriam-Webster, 2002. http://unabridged.merriam-webster.com (25 Nov. 2004))
the vulture: any of various large raptorial birds of temperate and tropical regions that are related to the hawks, eagles, and falcons but have weaker claws and the head usually naked, that subsist chiefly or entirely on carrion, and that constitute the families Aegypiidae and Cathartidae and include some of the largest birds of flight.
(citation: "vulture." Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged. Merriam-Webster, 2002. http://unabridged.merriam-webster.com (25 Nov. 2004))
Wednesday, 24 November 2004
Tuesday, 23 November 2004
good news
1. the PowerBook is back: new display that no longer creaks like the door in an old haunted house, and the OS did crash and was beyond repair, the HD was fine.
2. denial is the first step towards recovery. one thing is to say "no" another is to decline an invitation.
3. there is no fact or fiction, there is only reality. the truth is the illusion.
4. writing with the old pc was not as bad as i had imagined it. it does have one feature that the mac does not have: the cover opens up 180 degrees, so, i can write fully reclined and like a lazy bum when laying down in bed.
4. it is always great to get a few encouraging words from my play-writer friend wrestling them words between NYC and Paris.
5. why the fuck did you ever get the idea that it was about you? why do you think that anybody cares about your feelings? (one can pretend, the other can believe)
6. if the shoe fits wear it!
7. i wish i was there with you in Mumbai.
2. denial is the first step towards recovery. one thing is to say "no" another is to decline an invitation.
3. there is no fact or fiction, there is only reality. the truth is the illusion.
4. writing with the old pc was not as bad as i had imagined it. it does have one feature that the mac does not have: the cover opens up 180 degrees, so, i can write fully reclined and like a lazy bum when laying down in bed.
4. it is always great to get a few encouraging words from my play-writer friend wrestling them words between NYC and Paris.
5. why the fuck did you ever get the idea that it was about you? why do you think that anybody cares about your feelings? (one can pretend, the other can believe)
6. if the shoe fits wear it!
7. i wish i was there with you in Mumbai.
Monday, 22 November 2004
horse riding in march: my feelings are the shit that i manage and am responsible for
found this old posting on my buzznet while cleaning up the mess on the pc notebook:
monday, 15 march 2004 / berne
another perfect day on this side of paradise.
ecstasy is on one day having it all: work, sun, sex, sauna and sleep.
got up at 5 in the morning, the default value motivated by a meeting with "la pavoni" and a café au soya, something that sounds worse than it tastes. my morning coffee is one vice i refuse to give up. shower, zazen, and a deadline to meet in the service of the economy.
perfect! start the day doing what i like doing and get the work done before lunch. meet with " my banker." home for lunch and some office work. a meeting got moved from yesterday to today. while walking to my meeting and realizing that instead of my mobile i had put the digital camera in my pocket i was faced to having to turn on the camera to find out the time, and in a day like today, the first spring like day of the year, i could not have made a better mistake. a perfect view of the alps did present itself from the terrace of parliament, and i having some time to spare, had the perfect excuse to test the camera and its optics.
walking back from the sauna this evening there was a scene that somehow also belongs to this piece of paradise: the drug dealing downtown berne. a young woman with a face disfigured by lesions and looking rather pale and desperate, muttering to herself. she would have run right into me, had i not been walking alert. a few meters further down i see her again, this time trying to talk to a black man, pleading to him even, and he being rather cool and non reactive. this is a common scene in the streets of the swiss capital, a young white drug addict trying to get some stuff from a dealer. nothing special in the scene, it happens anywhere where there misery, suffering and fear, it happens in chicago, in los angeles, in new york, in kabul, in cairo. it happens. the drug addict is not always white, here he or she often is, and the dealer is not always black, here he or she often is. so you tell me who is slave to whom, and you tell me how we have gotten here?
yes. it was another perfect day on this side of paradise. on checking my email, i got signs of life from that one reality of mine wanting to be a dream.
"to think of you is to indulge in all the freedom in sensual existence. to think of you is to feel at peace and quietly adored in an ocean of existence and possibility, it is to be without need, serene, existing and not existing simultaneously. it is to taste loneliness fully, indulge in the ecstasy of solitude."
monday, 15 march 2004 / berne
another perfect day on this side of paradise.
ecstasy is on one day having it all: work, sun, sex, sauna and sleep.
got up at 5 in the morning, the default value motivated by a meeting with "la pavoni" and a café au soya, something that sounds worse than it tastes. my morning coffee is one vice i refuse to give up. shower, zazen, and a deadline to meet in the service of the economy.
perfect! start the day doing what i like doing and get the work done before lunch. meet with " my banker." home for lunch and some office work. a meeting got moved from yesterday to today. while walking to my meeting and realizing that instead of my mobile i had put the digital camera in my pocket i was faced to having to turn on the camera to find out the time, and in a day like today, the first spring like day of the year, i could not have made a better mistake. a perfect view of the alps did present itself from the terrace of parliament, and i having some time to spare, had the perfect excuse to test the camera and its optics.
walking back from the sauna this evening there was a scene that somehow also belongs to this piece of paradise: the drug dealing downtown berne. a young woman with a face disfigured by lesions and looking rather pale and desperate, muttering to herself. she would have run right into me, had i not been walking alert. a few meters further down i see her again, this time trying to talk to a black man, pleading to him even, and he being rather cool and non reactive. this is a common scene in the streets of the swiss capital, a young white drug addict trying to get some stuff from a dealer. nothing special in the scene, it happens anywhere where there misery, suffering and fear, it happens in chicago, in los angeles, in new york, in kabul, in cairo. it happens. the drug addict is not always white, here he or she often is, and the dealer is not always black, here he or she often is. so you tell me who is slave to whom, and you tell me how we have gotten here?
yes. it was another perfect day on this side of paradise. on checking my email, i got signs of life from that one reality of mine wanting to be a dream.
"to think of you is to indulge in all the freedom in sensual existence. to think of you is to feel at peace and quietly adored in an ocean of existence and possibility, it is to be without need, serene, existing and not existing simultaneously. it is to taste loneliness fully, indulge in the ecstasy of solitude."
alone with my horse
he: darling, talk dirty to me!
she: the kitchen sink, the clothes hamper, the pig pen...
*
he: i think i told you...
she: you think that you think?
*
dialogue is something that does not come easily to me.
*
but frankly, what do you think of somebody who takes one whole year to figure out who is a jerk and who is not?
but things are much improved, it used to take me two years!
*
i have all the compassion for women, or men, who get involved with abusive people. abusive, seems to come in many forms, from the physically abusive to the verbally abusive. sometimes i think physical abuse is easier to heal, the body heals quickly, the body is resilient, the spirit is fragile, the psyche is vulnerable. not absolutely so, but somehow so.
i belong to that category of slow people, who have to experience it down to the marrow of their bones before they have learnt it. i can not read signs, i do not understand meta messages, i need it spelled out in black on white.
sometimes my ego comes to my rescue, in this cryptic case, it certainly did. had my ego not gotten a hold of the fragility of my being, it would be in pieces by now. it was my ego and an harley-davidson that somehow saved me from the abyss.
*
alone at last, and he is here. he, the muse, the one that indulged in returning the mutual caresses of the ego. he simply said: you should not kill the ego, you should learn to mount it, like you learn to mount an horse.
*
the story started for me when i was sixteen, it was Strasbourg. remember Rebecca?
-Rebecca does not remember, Oona holds her hand tenderly. Two sisters, one life.
she: the kitchen sink, the clothes hamper, the pig pen...
*
he: i think i told you...
she: you think that you think?
*
dialogue is something that does not come easily to me.
*
but frankly, what do you think of somebody who takes one whole year to figure out who is a jerk and who is not?
but things are much improved, it used to take me two years!
*
i have all the compassion for women, or men, who get involved with abusive people. abusive, seems to come in many forms, from the physically abusive to the verbally abusive. sometimes i think physical abuse is easier to heal, the body heals quickly, the body is resilient, the spirit is fragile, the psyche is vulnerable. not absolutely so, but somehow so.
i belong to that category of slow people, who have to experience it down to the marrow of their bones before they have learnt it. i can not read signs, i do not understand meta messages, i need it spelled out in black on white.
sometimes my ego comes to my rescue, in this cryptic case, it certainly did. had my ego not gotten a hold of the fragility of my being, it would be in pieces by now. it was my ego and an harley-davidson that somehow saved me from the abyss.
*
alone at last, and he is here. he, the muse, the one that indulged in returning the mutual caresses of the ego. he simply said: you should not kill the ego, you should learn to mount it, like you learn to mount an horse.
*
the story started for me when i was sixteen, it was Strasbourg. remember Rebecca?
-Rebecca does not remember, Oona holds her hand tenderly. Two sisters, one life.
the other muscle
the best coaching of the year for me: you hesitate.
the best line overall: he is not my guru, i'm just interested in what i can learn from him.
the best confession: i wanted to go to japan, and i went, although i left my girlfriend back and i was madly in love with her. he did, and spent five years there.
the best line coming from a therapist, after one has poured out one's soul and confided all of one's misery: too bad for you!
the best revelation: there are some fantastic sex scenes in the movie "samsara."
the worst line: there are those who talk about it, and there are those who do it; they are not the same ones.
at this point, i do not know if i am coming, or if i am going. when you feel totally misunderstood, what do you do?
i am inclined to shrug my shoulders, and think of other thoughts. when i am not communicating, i try and try again. i fail, i fail often, and i keep trying.
i keep on practicing until it is down in the marrow of my bones, as deep as it can get, until it becomes a part of me.
what fool! what fool i am, and what good fortune it is to be such a fool!
the best line overall: he is not my guru, i'm just interested in what i can learn from him.
the best confession: i wanted to go to japan, and i went, although i left my girlfriend back and i was madly in love with her. he did, and spent five years there.
the best line coming from a therapist, after one has poured out one's soul and confided all of one's misery: too bad for you!
the best revelation: there are some fantastic sex scenes in the movie "samsara."
the worst line: there are those who talk about it, and there are those who do it; they are not the same ones.
at this point, i do not know if i am coming, or if i am going. when you feel totally misunderstood, what do you do?
i am inclined to shrug my shoulders, and think of other thoughts. when i am not communicating, i try and try again. i fail, i fail often, and i keep trying.
i keep on practicing until it is down in the marrow of my bones, as deep as it can get, until it becomes a part of me.
what fool! what fool i am, and what good fortune it is to be such a fool!
Sunday, 21 November 2004
the other side of me
completing that what was long delayed finally happened today: now i have an epilogue to write and 10 days to complete "SCHEMATA."
i feel totally and absolutely pregnant, and my PowerBook has some hardware problems of the acute variety. it is a breakdown in writing comfort, not a breakdown in writing.
nothing went according to plan this weekend! nothing. i took actions that i thought i would never take. i slept today until noon, something that i have not done in ages. i woke up remembering a dream of being in Jordan. i could also say that i miss living in an arabic country and culture. i want to go spend a month again in egypt, but can not quite figure out when i could do that given all the other commitments... life is so short.
i am in love again!
i feel totally and absolutely pregnant, and my PowerBook has some hardware problems of the acute variety. it is a breakdown in writing comfort, not a breakdown in writing.
nothing went according to plan this weekend! nothing. i took actions that i thought i would never take. i slept today until noon, something that i have not done in ages. i woke up remembering a dream of being in Jordan. i could also say that i miss living in an arabic country and culture. i want to go spend a month again in egypt, but can not quite figure out when i could do that given all the other commitments... life is so short.
i am in love again!
Friday, 19 November 2004
the new "da vinci" syndrome: brown, very brown
ah! i have had enough of all of this "da vinci code" narcotic intoxication!
i read the book this summer, it was both thrilling and disappointing. for the thrill part, it is one of the best examples of a cookbook approach to writing. for the other part, it just does no justice to human intellect, endeavor or critical capacity, to say nothing that it casts women in their traditional patriarchally assigned roles thus created by men with some sort of inferiority complex.
now, it is the movie, of course the movie has to be made. in a society thriving on and in instant gratification, the hollywood version must come immediately, without delay, now. that western intellectualism has devolved to immediate gratification consumerism is the kind of progress that one is well advised to question. that the expression now and here is being given a new meaning comes also as a surprise to me.
i read the book this summer, it was both thrilling and disappointing. for the thrill part, it is one of the best examples of a cookbook approach to writing. for the other part, it just does no justice to human intellect, endeavor or critical capacity, to say nothing that it casts women in their traditional patriarchally assigned roles thus created by men with some sort of inferiority complex.
now, it is the movie, of course the movie has to be made. in a society thriving on and in instant gratification, the hollywood version must come immediately, without delay, now. that western intellectualism has devolved to immediate gratification consumerism is the kind of progress that one is well advised to question. that the expression now and here is being given a new meaning comes also as a surprise to me.
Monday, 15 November 2004
my music
if there is one childhood trauma that i have not yet gotten over, it is music.
i love music.
still, 3 instruments later, i can read sheet music and never remember the name of a composer, group, band or whatever labels one ought to remember.
the internet and music were made for me. i can NOW listen to the radio piped in on my mac and at the same time if i hear something that really catches my ear worms dangling from their recliners, i know i can look up the play list and actually figure out who is playing! this is true genius. now just wait until i figure out a bit more about this open access music business stuff, and all the indie music which, until recently i thought it had something to do with indian music à la bollywood.
right now i am listening to a BBC radio scotland. what else?
i love music.
still, 3 instruments later, i can read sheet music and never remember the name of a composer, group, band or whatever labels one ought to remember.
the internet and music were made for me. i can NOW listen to the radio piped in on my mac and at the same time if i hear something that really catches my ear worms dangling from their recliners, i know i can look up the play list and actually figure out who is playing! this is true genius. now just wait until i figure out a bit more about this open access music business stuff, and all the indie music which, until recently i thought it had something to do with indian music à la bollywood.
right now i am listening to a BBC radio scotland. what else?
Thursday, 11 November 2004
after the movie, after the book
lolita! nabokov is always a sobering experience, reading "lolita" even today in 2004 is still mind boggling. as a writer, i can only dream of ever writing anything even close.
last weekend i watched the DVD of the kubrick film based on the same novel. this week i have picked up the novel itself a few times. i read it cover to cover long ago, now i am just looking into various passages and asking myself what makes this novel so spell binding for me.
my immediate train of actions i nothing i want to confess. i am not confessing either, but i was torn between feeling the need for a warm hug from "my lover" and the urge to send a message to "the man" and to just go out for a run in the forest, and scream out loud and then sing a song, a song i have never sung.
while good old hum, lolita's hum, is possessed with a burning passion in his loins for this distant, average and common twelve year old promiscuous thing, something in the prose connects to both the girl and the woman. it is easy to imagine and be transported within his passion, it is just as easy to feel her need for warmth and total detachment from the mores of the times and culture.
although i would, to one close to me, say that the sex -- with him, not with the lover -- was nothing to write poetry about, that it was average, and even not so good, even then, i heard myself say, and i know i felt it, that for a few seconds how absolute his taste was. once the absolute taste is experienced, i have never needed to return to it. that absolute taste closes some incomplete circle, there is no need to return. this is not what has me thinking of him again, no. there is a passion that goes beyond and transcends sexual copulation.
the passion that transcends the animal, the passion that we share, is the passion that has me still wishing i could talk to him. perhaps i can. perhaps i don't dare. he asked me not to contact him ever again, no e-mails, no phone calls, no letters. if i dared, then i would not be respecting his wish. what, where is this engine? what is driving me? and what does lolita have to do with it?
yes, i would like to be reassured that he is all right. what stupidity of mine has me caring about his well-being?
at some simple rational level it is easy to figure out what happened, a trusted friend of mine did put it to me in rather simple and blunt terms.
if this was about rationality, we would not be here now, me writing, you reading. me reading his writing, and me wishing that he would write more, me wishing that he would throw away his rationalisations and his futile infatuation with the intellectual, me wishing he would follow his dreams and desires, me wishing he would let go of all the stoppers and hindrances. i wish him a world that he feels he has not deserved, i wish him his world that he has dreamed. i am again just trying to pick up the pieces of me, the pieces of me here in my lone journey. i want to be left alone, yet... these feelings keep rudely invading my space. how many more muses am i going to need? why do i refuse to accept his scorn towards my good wishes? why do i feel he must understand and somehow feel deep in the marrow of his bones that those moments of bliss and total intimacy are sacred to me?
why is it that i am so stubborn, and so irreverent towards of surface phenomena and keep on digging deeper and deeper? why must i be able to see the gold, when all the others see the dirt, not even the ore?
there is some repast and return to that wonderful space of emptiness and void when i am reminded of the monk in my life. here i could make a full stop, and on good days that is where i am. the monk is neither a substitute, nor a replacement, nor the alternative, the monk is just the monk, isolated, selfish, detached, integral. today is not one of those days. on a day like today my self disappears and that other motor gets going. the motor is self-less, the motor is not mine, i feel possessed, and i feel free in being possessed. the passion possess me and i feel more than alive and more than dead.
the tabu of sex, and the desire that little girls have for the arms of a loving man. while a child will abstract the sex and in some unreconcilable way obtain that assurance which it seeks, this woman went somehow the same unreconcilable way. that is where we are, without reconciliation, un-reconcilable. oops! i refuse to let fear win, even it it is fear that has me this very moment.
back to the drawing board!
last weekend i watched the DVD of the kubrick film based on the same novel. this week i have picked up the novel itself a few times. i read it cover to cover long ago, now i am just looking into various passages and asking myself what makes this novel so spell binding for me.
my immediate train of actions i nothing i want to confess. i am not confessing either, but i was torn between feeling the need for a warm hug from "my lover" and the urge to send a message to "the man" and to just go out for a run in the forest, and scream out loud and then sing a song, a song i have never sung.
while good old hum, lolita's hum, is possessed with a burning passion in his loins for this distant, average and common twelve year old promiscuous thing, something in the prose connects to both the girl and the woman. it is easy to imagine and be transported within his passion, it is just as easy to feel her need for warmth and total detachment from the mores of the times and culture.
although i would, to one close to me, say that the sex -- with him, not with the lover -- was nothing to write poetry about, that it was average, and even not so good, even then, i heard myself say, and i know i felt it, that for a few seconds how absolute his taste was. once the absolute taste is experienced, i have never needed to return to it. that absolute taste closes some incomplete circle, there is no need to return. this is not what has me thinking of him again, no. there is a passion that goes beyond and transcends sexual copulation.
the passion that transcends the animal, the passion that we share, is the passion that has me still wishing i could talk to him. perhaps i can. perhaps i don't dare. he asked me not to contact him ever again, no e-mails, no phone calls, no letters. if i dared, then i would not be respecting his wish. what, where is this engine? what is driving me? and what does lolita have to do with it?
yes, i would like to be reassured that he is all right. what stupidity of mine has me caring about his well-being?
at some simple rational level it is easy to figure out what happened, a trusted friend of mine did put it to me in rather simple and blunt terms.
if this was about rationality, we would not be here now, me writing, you reading. me reading his writing, and me wishing that he would write more, me wishing that he would throw away his rationalisations and his futile infatuation with the intellectual, me wishing he would follow his dreams and desires, me wishing he would let go of all the stoppers and hindrances. i wish him a world that he feels he has not deserved, i wish him his world that he has dreamed. i am again just trying to pick up the pieces of me, the pieces of me here in my lone journey. i want to be left alone, yet... these feelings keep rudely invading my space. how many more muses am i going to need? why do i refuse to accept his scorn towards my good wishes? why do i feel he must understand and somehow feel deep in the marrow of his bones that those moments of bliss and total intimacy are sacred to me?
why is it that i am so stubborn, and so irreverent towards of surface phenomena and keep on digging deeper and deeper? why must i be able to see the gold, when all the others see the dirt, not even the ore?
there is some repast and return to that wonderful space of emptiness and void when i am reminded of the monk in my life. here i could make a full stop, and on good days that is where i am. the monk is neither a substitute, nor a replacement, nor the alternative, the monk is just the monk, isolated, selfish, detached, integral. today is not one of those days. on a day like today my self disappears and that other motor gets going. the motor is self-less, the motor is not mine, i feel possessed, and i feel free in being possessed. the passion possess me and i feel more than alive and more than dead.
the tabu of sex, and the desire that little girls have for the arms of a loving man. while a child will abstract the sex and in some unreconcilable way obtain that assurance which it seeks, this woman went somehow the same unreconcilable way. that is where we are, without reconciliation, un-reconcilable. oops! i refuse to let fear win, even it it is fear that has me this very moment.
back to the drawing board!
a child is born
where is it, that feeling that all is well, where has it gone to?
the picture on the frame on my desk changes almost every week; and it cycles back to those faces that i have grown accustomed to. those thus framed are people who in some way or other inspire me, people whose life somehow has touched or touches my own insignificance. i am discovering that i like people's faces, looking at them live and looking at them in pictures.
this week it is the picture of a friend who lives in germany, an architect. i have spoken with him twice this year, first it was in january when i was lost in the throws of untangling the mess that "the man" and i had managed to create of a relationship that was nothing but a dichotomy in interpretations. i called him last january because i desperately needed the sound of his voice to remind me of what a good relationship is like, and to reassure me that my memories were not deluding me. he was there, he was exhausted and burned out, and he was there to listen and talk to me, to tell me when he did not understand what i was trying to say, to tell me when he understood, he listened. since then, i have written a book and he has become a father, we talked last night again.
relationships are the web of my life. i am not quite sure that i grasp what i write, i spend a lot of time alone, and i do not go out looking for people to talk to, i am happy doing my work in my solitude. when i go out is because i have work to do and need to meet people outside of my office or because i go to my trainings and these do occur within a social context, with people. when i return home, i am happy to again be home alone. when i have a client and we are in a conversation, i am present to the conversation and what is present, it is as though i did not exist, and that i only exist when i am alone.
within all of this, the conversation last night brought a lot of warmth, rekindled a feeling that all is well, and that life is one great and wondrous adventure. there is nothing missing, i feel connected and part of it all, and i am alone. i think of the last time that we saw each other and felt the warmth of each other's skin in that last kiss in basle about six years ago. then, it was the parting of two people who will for ever love one another and that, in spite of their desires, were able to let each other go, to part, and to remain connected. looking back, there is nothing that i would want to change to what was then and to what is now. no regrets.
a child is born!
the picture on the frame on my desk changes almost every week; and it cycles back to those faces that i have grown accustomed to. those thus framed are people who in some way or other inspire me, people whose life somehow has touched or touches my own insignificance. i am discovering that i like people's faces, looking at them live and looking at them in pictures.
this week it is the picture of a friend who lives in germany, an architect. i have spoken with him twice this year, first it was in january when i was lost in the throws of untangling the mess that "the man" and i had managed to create of a relationship that was nothing but a dichotomy in interpretations. i called him last january because i desperately needed the sound of his voice to remind me of what a good relationship is like, and to reassure me that my memories were not deluding me. he was there, he was exhausted and burned out, and he was there to listen and talk to me, to tell me when he did not understand what i was trying to say, to tell me when he understood, he listened. since then, i have written a book and he has become a father, we talked last night again.
relationships are the web of my life. i am not quite sure that i grasp what i write, i spend a lot of time alone, and i do not go out looking for people to talk to, i am happy doing my work in my solitude. when i go out is because i have work to do and need to meet people outside of my office or because i go to my trainings and these do occur within a social context, with people. when i return home, i am happy to again be home alone. when i have a client and we are in a conversation, i am present to the conversation and what is present, it is as though i did not exist, and that i only exist when i am alone.
within all of this, the conversation last night brought a lot of warmth, rekindled a feeling that all is well, and that life is one great and wondrous adventure. there is nothing missing, i feel connected and part of it all, and i am alone. i think of the last time that we saw each other and felt the warmth of each other's skin in that last kiss in basle about six years ago. then, it was the parting of two people who will for ever love one another and that, in spite of their desires, were able to let each other go, to part, and to remain connected. looking back, there is nothing that i would want to change to what was then and to what is now. no regrets.
a child is born!
Tuesday, 9 November 2004
from "SCHEMATA"
"Sometimes it happens... I get into this deep blue funk, the work moves slowly if it moves at all. I feel sorry for myself, and I resent doing so, it spirals to feeling guilty that I feel sorry, and that nothing will ever be the way I dreamt it. All seems wrong, and all seems right at the same time. I withdraw from the world, I want nothing, I want nobody, I do not want to talk, and I do not want to see anybody.
This summer, when someone on learning my profession, tells me that he had lived with a woman of the same profession for six years, I looked at him in awe. My very private thinking in facing such revelation was "no man has ever endured me for so long." who is this man, I asked myself.
This is not how it began, no; it could not begin like that. It began long before that. The first time that I saw him, I had other private thoughts, more along the lines of what an incommensurable macho this man must be, and asked myself how much I could learn from him. Then, a few years went by, and I forgot him. I forgot him until this summer, and I was there where I knew he would be. The rational, the conscientious had forgotten, the other me had not.
Now he is here, and I am confronting myself in all my own pitiful glory and innocence. He is here, and I tell myself that he is more of a challenge than what I can handle. He did not invite himself, he did not invite me, and he is here. I want to deny it, and reality cannot be denied.
Gratitude belongs here."
NOTE: although "schemata" has its own blog, i have not yet put much in it. sometimes, not always, there is reason to my madness.
you, the muse
you are here, now you are on the other shore.
a muse, you!
what on earth happened to the flirt and the monk?
you, the monk.
you, the flirt.
what on earth happened to speaking the unspeakable?
you are not in my heart
you are not in my being
you have landed right smack in the middle of my life, no invitation.
one day, i looked up, you were there: iconoclastic, selfish, human.
how much water flowed under that bridge before then?
silence. pure silence.
i was in the garden by the gingko,
you asked,
i answered.
you are here.
a muse, you!
what on earth happened to the flirt and the monk?
you, the monk.
you, the flirt.
what on earth happened to speaking the unspeakable?
you are not in my heart
you are not in my being
you have landed right smack in the middle of my life, no invitation.
one day, i looked up, you were there: iconoclastic, selfish, human.
how much water flowed under that bridge before then?
silence. pure silence.
i was in the garden by the gingko,
you asked,
i answered.
you are here.
denial
My fondest and clearest encounter with masks is within the work of James Ensor, a Belgian painter. Some of his paintings portray people in society wearing masks, and what masks!!! It is one of the strongest, bluntest criticisms I have ever seen in the visual arts.
My denial thing is really a state of shock. Right now it is just a rather strong suspicion that what has been making me so tired for the last couple of weeks is an allergy to spelt. Tired is not the only symptom, but... This is boring as hell, but it affects me deeply because it affects my well being rather directly. I spent more than 10 years in denial of my food allergies, finally broke down, realized that all denial got me was a tumor that had to be removed surgically, a lot of discomfort, and finally changed my diet radically by eliminating all the stuff I am allergic to (wheat, eggs, cow's milk, apples, lemons). Since then I regained my vitality and well being, and wondered how on earth I survived all those years with such reduced energy levels, and that the damage was not worse. Finally, finally... I had mastered the art of baking bread with spelt flour... (I am picky about what kind of food I eat in terms of quality and flavour) and in the past few weeks I have eaten more bread (spelt) than I had for quite some time (years). Except that my skin is going nuts, one of the signs of my wheat allergy is that awful itch that has me wanting to get out of my own skin, and the tiredness... It is all back, and so far what I have changed about my diet is only that I have taken in quite a bit more of spelt. Unfortunately spelt is a relative of wheat. An allergy or intolerance to wheat does not mean one to spelt, but it can. This is not gluten intolerance. So I am pissed at my own physiology right now. That, and the fact that this is going to have me go through a battery of tests once more and the long issuing discussions with my physician. I find the information on the internet on this totally disinforming, since from one site to the next there will be a lot of contradiction while each one is trying to ply its own merchandise. I may have to hit the scientific literature myself, and I hate to have to do that. I don't know why... but you get the idea. This phase is called denial and there is one whole lot of anxiety about it. In the back of my mind I ask myself, what next? What else will I not be able to eat next?
Perhaps I could use a good mask right now!
(this ranting above was only meant to ease any possible concern about what it might be that has me in a state of denial, and at the same time i needed to vent it out of my system)
My denial thing is really a state of shock. Right now it is just a rather strong suspicion that what has been making me so tired for the last couple of weeks is an allergy to spelt. Tired is not the only symptom, but... This is boring as hell, but it affects me deeply because it affects my well being rather directly. I spent more than 10 years in denial of my food allergies, finally broke down, realized that all denial got me was a tumor that had to be removed surgically, a lot of discomfort, and finally changed my diet radically by eliminating all the stuff I am allergic to (wheat, eggs, cow's milk, apples, lemons). Since then I regained my vitality and well being, and wondered how on earth I survived all those years with such reduced energy levels, and that the damage was not worse. Finally, finally... I had mastered the art of baking bread with spelt flour... (I am picky about what kind of food I eat in terms of quality and flavour) and in the past few weeks I have eaten more bread (spelt) than I had for quite some time (years). Except that my skin is going nuts, one of the signs of my wheat allergy is that awful itch that has me wanting to get out of my own skin, and the tiredness... It is all back, and so far what I have changed about my diet is only that I have taken in quite a bit more of spelt. Unfortunately spelt is a relative of wheat. An allergy or intolerance to wheat does not mean one to spelt, but it can. This is not gluten intolerance. So I am pissed at my own physiology right now. That, and the fact that this is going to have me go through a battery of tests once more and the long issuing discussions with my physician. I find the information on the internet on this totally disinforming, since from one site to the next there will be a lot of contradiction while each one is trying to ply its own merchandise. I may have to hit the scientific literature myself, and I hate to have to do that. I don't know why... but you get the idea. This phase is called denial and there is one whole lot of anxiety about it. In the back of my mind I ask myself, what next? What else will I not be able to eat next?
Perhaps I could use a good mask right now!
(this ranting above was only meant to ease any possible concern about what it might be that has me in a state of denial, and at the same time i needed to vent it out of my system)
Monday, 8 November 2004
confession
The Anti Akademie:
intutum: 11/08/2004 12:44:53 PM
wowowowow! (i could write a few things about this photo -- i have a particularly intimate relationship to masks)
thanks for the visit. i am barely here, or not here at all. or i have discovered something that i do not at all like, and the first step is: denial.
intutum: 11/08/2004 12:44:53 PM
wowowowow! (i could write a few things about this photo -- i have a particularly intimate relationship to masks)
thanks for the visit. i am barely here, or not here at all. or i have discovered something that i do not at all like, and the first step is: denial.
blah blah blah
it is difficult, not just really hard, to formulate what is going through my mind these days. it would be nice if the mind, being empty, could take the assault of anything going through it. it is not so, and there is a flood, the kind of flood of thoughts bumping into the lack of void that makes for all sorts of derailments in my best intentions possible and unavoidable. to derail is not necessarily a bad thing, it is however a test to one's ability, this one's, to deal with being out of equilibrium. this weekend i touched on "home projects" that have been laying around for years. one of these i finished last night at 2 in the morning, that is this morning, in a drive that i can only call compulsive.
yesterday i was tired by 5 in the afternoon, tired hungry and a bit off centre. i went into town twice for shopping, had lots of errands to run because there was a whole slew of things to get, light bulbs, elastic, thermal underwear, storage containers, and a bit of fresh food. after having this pied-à-terre for over 6 years i have finally installed a light bulb hanging from the ceiling in my office. it took me more than 6 years before i got tired of turning on the switch and nothing happening. there are many ways of interpreting this, one could be that i have lots of patience, another is that i am a master of procrastination, another is that i never intended to put up a chandelier or light bulb in that room, or it could simply be because all was well as it was, and a light bulb is nothing but a luxury. in reality, i have only recently hit the light switch, no reaction problem, and that is since the room was rearranged and the standing light is no longer easily accessible when entering the room.
did have a good weekend: today i went out to take some pic and proceeded to forget my camera in the house. it started to rain during my walk, and i returned home with one very yellow gingko leaf in my hand. the gingkoes are now intensely yellow, i do need to make some fotos of that.
yesterday i was tired by 5 in the afternoon, tired hungry and a bit off centre. i went into town twice for shopping, had lots of errands to run because there was a whole slew of things to get, light bulbs, elastic, thermal underwear, storage containers, and a bit of fresh food. after having this pied-à-terre for over 6 years i have finally installed a light bulb hanging from the ceiling in my office. it took me more than 6 years before i got tired of turning on the switch and nothing happening. there are many ways of interpreting this, one could be that i have lots of patience, another is that i am a master of procrastination, another is that i never intended to put up a chandelier or light bulb in that room, or it could simply be because all was well as it was, and a light bulb is nothing but a luxury. in reality, i have only recently hit the light switch, no reaction problem, and that is since the room was rearranged and the standing light is no longer easily accessible when entering the room.
did have a good weekend: today i went out to take some pic and proceeded to forget my camera in the house. it started to rain during my walk, and i returned home with one very yellow gingko leaf in my hand. the gingkoes are now intensely yellow, i do need to make some fotos of that.
Friday, 5 November 2004
the utter violence and irreverence of life itself
as the filtered news from the percy hospital near paris trickle out slowly as to the true condition of one unquestionable and controversial leader, one sarcastic, irreverent, ironic and incorrect observer notes that the man has gone into shock as a result of the outcome of the american presidential election held on tuesday.
Thursday, 4 November 2004
e-tickets and other fuckadelik experiences
1. ok, i love oranges in any form... but that i won the bet with my brother about the outcome of the presidential election, annoys me. granted, i have a very dark sense of humor...
2. trying to book on the web a return trip LAX-BRN or LAX-ZRH for my son is costing me some nerves: either i have the right site and the wrong credit card (drawn on a swiss bank account) or i have the right credit card, but the site will not let me book from LAX, or as with bonus miles on KLM, the ticket gets issued in paper and it can not be sent to the USA by the airline (time for snail mail)??? fuckadelik! i have gotten so used to e-tickets that the thought of a paper ticket is a nightmare!
i ought to be zen about this: on my last trip to the US booked on the portuguese site of KLM and paid with a swiss credit card, got issued an e-ticket. i got to the lisbon airport at some ungodly hour for a 6am flight to amsterdam, and then the check-in clerk discovers that the name on my US passport and the ticket are not the same (i kept my father's name on my US passport, and US regulations require that the names be the same) and this started a process that had 3 clerks working like mad at a computer terminal to get my ticket name to match my passport's name. they had to, for some reason i do not care to understand, go from the e-ticket to a paper ticket and then back to the e-ticket and it seemed that there were about 20'000 code fields that they had to change manually to accomplish this feat. consequence of such exercise was a lot of intercom exchanges between check-in and gate to hold the plane while the "e" paper work was getting done! i have travelled a bit while as a management consultant, but this was the first time the gate had to wait for me, i was the last one on the plane and i got all the dirty looks that the last one does get.
none of this makes any sense, i am going to sleep. in the morning this will look a bit clearer.
2. trying to book on the web a return trip LAX-BRN or LAX-ZRH for my son is costing me some nerves: either i have the right site and the wrong credit card (drawn on a swiss bank account) or i have the right credit card, but the site will not let me book from LAX, or as with bonus miles on KLM, the ticket gets issued in paper and it can not be sent to the USA by the airline (time for snail mail)??? fuckadelik! i have gotten so used to e-tickets that the thought of a paper ticket is a nightmare!
i ought to be zen about this: on my last trip to the US booked on the portuguese site of KLM and paid with a swiss credit card, got issued an e-ticket. i got to the lisbon airport at some ungodly hour for a 6am flight to amsterdam, and then the check-in clerk discovers that the name on my US passport and the ticket are not the same (i kept my father's name on my US passport, and US regulations require that the names be the same) and this started a process that had 3 clerks working like mad at a computer terminal to get my ticket name to match my passport's name. they had to, for some reason i do not care to understand, go from the e-ticket to a paper ticket and then back to the e-ticket and it seemed that there were about 20'000 code fields that they had to change manually to accomplish this feat. consequence of such exercise was a lot of intercom exchanges between check-in and gate to hold the plane while the "e" paper work was getting done! i have travelled a bit while as a management consultant, but this was the first time the gate had to wait for me, i was the last one on the plane and i got all the dirty looks that the last one does get.
none of this makes any sense, i am going to sleep. in the morning this will look a bit clearer.
Wednesday, 3 November 2004
message to my brother via yahoo messenger
intutum: it looks like i might get my oranges!!! (i was really hoping you would get the chocolates) not all hope is lost yet!
and i add: but would kerry really mean anything?
and i add: but would kerry really mean anything?
Tuesday, 2 November 2004
what i want is not worth anything, worse, it does not matter
here i struggle between accounting, SCHEMATA, a working paper chewing the back side of my brains, a few milestones to be carved out of the ether, and then it hits me: what i want is not worth diddly!
here i started yesterday with all noble intentions of following all good advice on building a plot and characters for the novel of the month, the 50'000 words or more of sheer madness, quantity pure, and then it hits me! forget all the advice, what works for others, is not now working for me, either i am not that far, or i am wired a bit differently. then when the pain was almost unbearable one of my muses starts laughing at me in some remote corner of my mind or amentia! he has already been good for more than 40'000 words, and i thought i had chewed on it really well, that my ego had swollen its pride and taken an humble seat at the far left corner of the ring; i need to think again. that may have been what i wanted, it is however not what is happening.
the muse was easy to find, thanks to the laughter and seduction memories of that other one who brought me back to where i wanted to be, i now well know who my muse is in this madness of writing a novel in one month, not him, another, the other is the muse. the muse to me is always the one for whom the story gets told. when writing, the muse is the one listening, actively asking me what i mean and where the thread of the story is. the muse is the one who lets me know what the pace is that keeps its attention. the muse is neutral, not passive, asexual, yet sensuous. this is not how i planned it, this is not what i wanted, it does not matter. it shall be as it is.
here i started yesterday with all noble intentions of following all good advice on building a plot and characters for the novel of the month, the 50'000 words or more of sheer madness, quantity pure, and then it hits me! forget all the advice, what works for others, is not now working for me, either i am not that far, or i am wired a bit differently. then when the pain was almost unbearable one of my muses starts laughing at me in some remote corner of my mind or amentia! he has already been good for more than 40'000 words, and i thought i had chewed on it really well, that my ego had swollen its pride and taken an humble seat at the far left corner of the ring; i need to think again. that may have been what i wanted, it is however not what is happening.
the muse was easy to find, thanks to the laughter and seduction memories of that other one who brought me back to where i wanted to be, i now well know who my muse is in this madness of writing a novel in one month, not him, another, the other is the muse. the muse to me is always the one for whom the story gets told. when writing, the muse is the one listening, actively asking me what i mean and where the thread of the story is. the muse is the one who lets me know what the pace is that keeps its attention. the muse is neutral, not passive, asexual, yet sensuous. this is not how i planned it, this is not what i wanted, it does not matter. it shall be as it is.
Monday, 1 November 2004
not the way i wanted it
all was going well today until about 9 am, then the train got off the tracks. actually much too little went according to plan, i am still feeling short on sleep in spite of sleeping a lot yesterday and napping today. i have a headache and feel... like i am missing movement and sweating!!!
booooooooh duh...
SCHEMATA did not get off to a brilliant start, actually a few words poured out, nothing flowed. breakdown mode is here.
booooooooh duh...
silence
it has been a day of silence. at least apparently so.
last night went to see "the bourne supremacy" with a friend after we went out for a drink in town. all of that after i had done some serious experimentation in the kitchen in making muffins and gugelhopf without the use of either wheat flour, butter, eggs or milk. it was a rather successful round of baking, i now can eat muffins and gugelhopf made with spelt flour, margarine and soya flour and soya milk.
it is pleasantly quiet here -- inside my head -- when it comes to emotions and feelings. what i discovered last week is that i have a new love, my accounting. this discovery came not as almost a shock, it was a shock.
one week ago while in göttingen i spent a lot of sunday sleeping, today was no different. i have been averaging 4 hours of sleep per night, and after one week it seems that my body needs to recuperate.
went for a walk along the aare and took some pics, now loaded on flickr, the fall is rather advanced, the day was a bit gray, and somehow berne has a totally special feel on days like today.
made one great bet with my brother today, one bet that i hope i will lose. if i lose, he gets 1 kilo of swiss chocolates from me, if i win, i get 5 pounds of california oranges from him.
last night went to see "the bourne supremacy" with a friend after we went out for a drink in town. all of that after i had done some serious experimentation in the kitchen in making muffins and gugelhopf without the use of either wheat flour, butter, eggs or milk. it was a rather successful round of baking, i now can eat muffins and gugelhopf made with spelt flour, margarine and soya flour and soya milk.
it is pleasantly quiet here -- inside my head -- when it comes to emotions and feelings. what i discovered last week is that i have a new love, my accounting. this discovery came not as almost a shock, it was a shock.
one week ago while in göttingen i spent a lot of sunday sleeping, today was no different. i have been averaging 4 hours of sleep per night, and after one week it seems that my body needs to recuperate.
went for a walk along the aare and took some pics, now loaded on flickr, the fall is rather advanced, the day was a bit gray, and somehow berne has a totally special feel on days like today.
made one great bet with my brother today, one bet that i hope i will lose. if i lose, he gets 1 kilo of swiss chocolates from me, if i win, i get 5 pounds of california oranges from him.
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