You know what I was saying the other day about Arcade Fire? Final Fantasy is also very sweet. And also very tinkly. It's like a Belle and Sebastian that can actually play their (his?) instruments properly. And any musical entity that calls its debut album He Poos Clouds is all win, even if I don't understand Dungeons and Dragons. I wonder if people still play that.
Anyways, look at this Owen Pallett, it's ridiculously awesome:
giovedì, ottobre 15, 2009
mercoledì, ottobre 14, 2009
Take your tradition and shove it up your revolting dairy farmer
The natives are restless, to the degree their protests - oh, it's the one and only thing I love about the fucking Belges, they are walking surreal - have made it into Picture is Unrelated. I buy directly from the farmers at the market, and fail to understand why the entire city of Brussels doesn't do so. So I don't really care if the farmers feel like their wholesale prices suck. And frankly I'd be wallowing through a bit more tearjerks of fucking sympathy if I didn't remember the rabidity with which our vendor jacked up the farmer's market prices in 2007 when there was an upswing in wholesale prices. Didn't hear them fucking whining about a free market then.
But still, this is Europe and what do you expect. Farming is tradition, as is assaulting working class police officers who didn't cause and can't fix your fucking problems, and some of these families have done nothing else in all of recorded history, why should they stop now just because any value-subtracted, long-life dairy product like skim milk or butter is much, much cheaper and not worse if you source it from some poor country somewhere where farmers are too busy starving and killing themselves to spray milk on a cop?
My attitude to tradition is undergoing a bit of a walloping at the mo, by the way. I guess it's hearing all the North American outrage about those dumbass Australians who minstreled up the Jackson Five and got told by Harry Connick Jr. Everybody mentions it to me because everybody knows I intend to go there and everybody wants to know what I think about living in such a fucking racist country.
And my answer to that is that racism in honky Australia is one of the top three things making me nervous about living there. The way they treat Aborigines makes it look like honky Canada is giving the First Nations a fucking multi-generational spa-and-tonguebath treatment (and honky Canada really isn't giving them a spa-and-tonguebath treatment). I'm guessing already that as soon as I start shit-talking to anybody there about how cuntly that is, they'll dismiss my "ooo er so they don't have any fucking land rights" as Yankee political correctness, even though I'm not Yankee, and even though I'm pretty sure I'm not politically correct, and then I'll get mad, and I understand they're punchy sorts of people, and then, you know, it'll just be a bad scene.
But you know what happens to children at Christmas if they'd bad where I live now? Zwarte Peter (who by different accounts is either Sinterklaas's Moorish 'helper' who he liberated, or a black devil he enslaved) carries some willow switches down the fucking chimney to beat the kid up. And people black up to play him, on television, on the streets, at kid's parties, with big fucking red Meg Ryan lips and everything. It causes the absolute minimum of outrage and nobody uses Zwarte Peter to talk about how fucking racist Belgians and Dutch people are, even thought Belgians and Dutch people have a couple of the most august and recent histories of massive colonial exploitation and slave trading. It causes the minimum of outrage because it's fucking tradition.
So you know what I think living in a fucking racist country like Australia is going to be like? Like here but better. Fewer goddamn traditions. Cultural bankruptcy, I'm starting to think, may not be 100% bad.
But still, this is Europe and what do you expect. Farming is tradition, as is assaulting working class police officers who didn't cause and can't fix your fucking problems, and some of these families have done nothing else in all of recorded history, why should they stop now just because any value-subtracted, long-life dairy product like skim milk or butter is much, much cheaper and not worse if you source it from some poor country somewhere where farmers are too busy starving and killing themselves to spray milk on a cop?
My attitude to tradition is undergoing a bit of a walloping at the mo, by the way. I guess it's hearing all the North American outrage about those dumbass Australians who minstreled up the Jackson Five and got told by Harry Connick Jr. Everybody mentions it to me because everybody knows I intend to go there and everybody wants to know what I think about living in such a fucking racist country.
And my answer to that is that racism in honky Australia is one of the top three things making me nervous about living there. The way they treat Aborigines makes it look like honky Canada is giving the First Nations a fucking multi-generational spa-and-tonguebath treatment (and honky Canada really isn't giving them a spa-and-tonguebath treatment). I'm guessing already that as soon as I start shit-talking to anybody there about how cuntly that is, they'll dismiss my "ooo er so they don't have any fucking land rights" as Yankee political correctness, even though I'm not Yankee, and even though I'm pretty sure I'm not politically correct, and then I'll get mad, and I understand they're punchy sorts of people, and then, you know, it'll just be a bad scene.
But you know what happens to children at Christmas if they'd bad where I live now? Zwarte Peter (who by different accounts is either Sinterklaas's Moorish 'helper' who he liberated, or a black devil he enslaved) carries some willow switches down the fucking chimney to beat the kid up. And people black up to play him, on television, on the streets, at kid's parties, with big fucking red Meg Ryan lips and everything. It causes the absolute minimum of outrage and nobody uses Zwarte Peter to talk about how fucking racist Belgians and Dutch people are, even thought Belgians and Dutch people have a couple of the most august and recent histories of massive colonial exploitation and slave trading. It causes the minimum of outrage because it's fucking tradition.
So you know what I think living in a fucking racist country like Australia is going to be like? Like here but better. Fewer goddamn traditions. Cultural bankruptcy, I'm starting to think, may not be 100% bad.
martedì, ottobre 13, 2009
A statement of the obvious
The Arcade Fire is fucking ace. That's so obvious I feel a little silly typing it out. But I've forgotten about it for awhile as it's a bit too tinkly for the F-word so it doesn't get played at home, and for the past year or so my work has been so wordy that I don't think I've listened to music at the office for ages. But now that it's getting a little more spatial I can listen to music in a serious way at the same time, and it's been so nice to have Funeral and Neon Bible playing away.
Aside from the charm of the music, which I do find charming on its own merits, the Arcade Fire gives me pleasure by making me imagine a world where mainstream soul and R&B and fucking everything didn't suffer from a massive and indiscrimate uptake of electronic musical effects. Obviously I love electronic musical effects, but something went wrong somewhere. We're not in a situation where everybody is still touring with horn sections and that lots of big bands are soaking up all of those wandering lost uni music grads. Nope. Just Arcade Fire, and Final Fantasy, and a bunch of other Canadian and European weirdos who I never hear of until it's far too late - case in point:
Broke up ten fucking years ago . . .
Aside from the charm of the music, which I do find charming on its own merits, the Arcade Fire gives me pleasure by making me imagine a world where mainstream soul and R&B and fucking everything didn't suffer from a massive and indiscrimate uptake of electronic musical effects. Obviously I love electronic musical effects, but something went wrong somewhere. We're not in a situation where everybody is still touring with horn sections and that lots of big bands are soaking up all of those wandering lost uni music grads. Nope. Just Arcade Fire, and Final Fantasy, and a bunch of other Canadian and European weirdos who I never hear of until it's far too late - case in point:
Broke up ten fucking years ago . . .
lunedì, ottobre 12, 2009
Take your culture and shove it up your abandoned paper mill
It's sinking in that in the best-case professional scenario of the moment, I'm going to be working two jobs for the next eleven months. Or 1.5 jobs. Oh well, if I'm awake and forced to be at my desk I may as well be working. It's all for a good cause - working from home in a self-directed manner in the Antipodean subtropics - and hopefully I'll find out whether it's a realistic cause by Christmas.
A European friend of ours who recently moved to the Antipodes was over recently and was enthusiastic about the Antipodes, but said that she missed European culture. Missed walking into an old cathedral or something and breathing in the musty, aging air of culture. Me . . . I'm fucking sick of culture, as evidenced by my shitty, ungrateful attitude to Istanbul, which has more culture in its little finger than this whole damn stupid country I live in has in all its museums and churches sewn together. I never really thought I'd get to this point but here I am. I look at a lovely church and see underpaid tradesmen who kept falling to their deaths in defence of a spiritually neutered, murderous state religion. I look at castles and I see an army barracks housing bands of armed fucking thugs. I look at a museum and I see an august history of theft and colonial exploitation. I'm having a hard time appreciating things.
But what I am appreciating in Europe, and I don't know if this is from the part of me that liked the Cure when I was a teenager or if it's just some sort of shift in my brain that's making a Marxist cycle of history the driving thing behind how I'm looking at the world, is the rot and the abandon. The old factories and mines and rotting bourgeois homes, the remaining evidence that this is a continent that used to really, really matter, and now it fucking doesn't. You know where this is going, right? Pictures to follow.
A European friend of ours who recently moved to the Antipodes was over recently and was enthusiastic about the Antipodes, but said that she missed European culture. Missed walking into an old cathedral or something and breathing in the musty, aging air of culture. Me . . . I'm fucking sick of culture, as evidenced by my shitty, ungrateful attitude to Istanbul, which has more culture in its little finger than this whole damn stupid country I live in has in all its museums and churches sewn together. I never really thought I'd get to this point but here I am. I look at a lovely church and see underpaid tradesmen who kept falling to their deaths in defence of a spiritually neutered, murderous state religion. I look at castles and I see an army barracks housing bands of armed fucking thugs. I look at a museum and I see an august history of theft and colonial exploitation. I'm having a hard time appreciating things.
But what I am appreciating in Europe, and I don't know if this is from the part of me that liked the Cure when I was a teenager or if it's just some sort of shift in my brain that's making a Marxist cycle of history the driving thing behind how I'm looking at the world, is the rot and the abandon. The old factories and mines and rotting bourgeois homes, the remaining evidence that this is a continent that used to really, really matter, and now it fucking doesn't. You know where this is going, right? Pictures to follow.
domenica, ottobre 11, 2009
The gamut from delicious to creepy
True to my word, I spent two or three hours of the weekend foraging. Though probably a better word for it would be exploring, since we stayed in the city. The thing that I failed to mention last time was that Europe is very dirty, particularly its cities, and Brussels is one of the dirtiest as far as the north goes. So I hesitate to pick and eat things that have spent their entire life cycle being peed on by dogs or drunks, or inhaling car exhaust straight from the muffler. For example, we have a chestnut tree nearby that I was going to strip until I actually took in its position (dog park, next to busy road, with two drunks sitting at a park bench nearby) and sqeamishness won, especially as I don't like chestnuts all that much.
Mushrooms, however, are fair game. They don't spend that much time growing above ground, so I figure if I find them when they're young, they haven't had time to get peed on or exhausted or such like. And we've had a bizarre combination of patches of warmth with patches of heavy rain, so this weekend there were quite a few mushrooms in my secret mushroom hideouts. But again, the right word is still 'exploring'. I found enough of the very recognizable stump mushrooms to get us the base for two meals, so that was nice, but then I found two other kinds of mushrooms I'm still trying to identify. (Everything I know about mushrooms I learnt from my father, and father only picks four, maybe five kinds, and I don't know everything my father knows. So I don't know all that much.)
One of the other kinds were growing on a stump too, so I have a good feeling about them. In fact I wanted to eat them instinctively. But I have a very bad feeling about these, so much so I didn't even take a sample home for photographing to send to my father:
Don't they look like little ghosts? Like dead things coming out of the soft ground after a rain. God, mushrooms can be creepy. But these ones are extra odd. They don't have any gills underneath - the underneath is as smooth as the outside. Fucking weird mushrooms. I wonder if they came from the same beginning-of-life event that plants and animals did. I believe I've read that sponges may not have. I wonder.
Mushrooms, however, are fair game. They don't spend that much time growing above ground, so I figure if I find them when they're young, they haven't had time to get peed on or exhausted or such like. And we've had a bizarre combination of patches of warmth with patches of heavy rain, so this weekend there were quite a few mushrooms in my secret mushroom hideouts. But again, the right word is still 'exploring'. I found enough of the very recognizable stump mushrooms to get us the base for two meals, so that was nice, but then I found two other kinds of mushrooms I'm still trying to identify. (Everything I know about mushrooms I learnt from my father, and father only picks four, maybe five kinds, and I don't know everything my father knows. So I don't know all that much.)
One of the other kinds were growing on a stump too, so I have a good feeling about them. In fact I wanted to eat them instinctively. But I have a very bad feeling about these, so much so I didn't even take a sample home for photographing to send to my father:
Don't they look like little ghosts? Like dead things coming out of the soft ground after a rain. God, mushrooms can be creepy. But these ones are extra odd. They don't have any gills underneath - the underneath is as smooth as the outside. Fucking weird mushrooms. I wonder if they came from the same beginning-of-life event that plants and animals did. I believe I've read that sponges may not have. I wonder.
giovedì, ottobre 08, 2009
Suicide trees of the world
So this feeling of liking trees better than people probably has a lot to do with social dissatisfactions springing from the unsavoury things being done to and with trees that I come across at my job. A lot of it probably also has something to do with getting really high and watching The Private Life of Plants and thinking it was just the coolest thing ever. (Still do.) A lot more of it also has to do with growing up with a surfeit of trees and a deficit of people, while presently living in a situation with a deficit of trees and a surfeit of people.
(Almost funny story: a couple of nights ago, we were walking home and I - ever a pleasure to live with - was maintaining an unbroken stream of profanities about stupid Belgian wankers, et cetera, incapable of all of the fundaments of livable civilized organization, et cetera, plus the weather sucks . . . on the last stretch, the F-word broke in to request I shut up so we could concentrate on enjoying the evening air. I obliged, but almost without missing a beat a guy ten feet in front of us started being violently, noisily, extendedly sick on the pavement, and a yelling drunk chick thirty feet in front of us started leaning on her car horn. Neither stopped until after the arrival home. Nearly a moment of win, except it was really disgusting and annoying.)
Anyways, wherever the liking-trees-better-than-people has come from, obviously it's made me quite interested in trees, and the more I find out the more interested I'm getting. They are so fucking cool and their reproductive strategies are mind-blowing - or rather, their life cycles are mind-blowing, in the sense that time and mortality to a tree mean something completely different than what time and mortality mean to an animal, that is to us.
I guess the most remarkable example, because of the way these different conceptions of time and mortality intercept with a homonym, is the suicide tree. Say it to some people, and they'll think of the cerbera odollam, an Indian/Malagasy swampy tree, used as an ornamental, whose kernels have been used countless thousands of times to stop the beating of otherwise healthy human hearts in some of the most crowded and impoverished parts of the planet, where our race's life has been, as a generality, fruitful and yet horrendously, unignorably short. And yet not short enough for some. (That having been said there are an awful lot of them in Kerala, which is a remarkable place.)
Say it to others and they'll think of the tachigali versicolor, a central American jungle-y rainforest-y tree that lives to be about a hundred years old, grows to about 50 meters tall, flowers once, and then dies. The thinking goes that the gap it creates in the forest canopy by its death benefits its saplings by letting them get a little more light than they would otherwise, and that the benefit of releasing seeds so seldom (the species has a seeding event every five years or so) is that predators are rather less likely to eat them or the saplings: flowering, seeding and sprouting so intermittently, they would never be a primary food source that predators would learn or evolve to rely on.
(Almost funny story: a couple of nights ago, we were walking home and I - ever a pleasure to live with - was maintaining an unbroken stream of profanities about stupid Belgian wankers, et cetera, incapable of all of the fundaments of livable civilized organization, et cetera, plus the weather sucks . . . on the last stretch, the F-word broke in to request I shut up so we could concentrate on enjoying the evening air. I obliged, but almost without missing a beat a guy ten feet in front of us started being violently, noisily, extendedly sick on the pavement, and a yelling drunk chick thirty feet in front of us started leaning on her car horn. Neither stopped until after the arrival home. Nearly a moment of win, except it was really disgusting and annoying.)
Anyways, wherever the liking-trees-better-than-people has come from, obviously it's made me quite interested in trees, and the more I find out the more interested I'm getting. They are so fucking cool and their reproductive strategies are mind-blowing - or rather, their life cycles are mind-blowing, in the sense that time and mortality to a tree mean something completely different than what time and mortality mean to an animal, that is to us.
I guess the most remarkable example, because of the way these different conceptions of time and mortality intercept with a homonym, is the suicide tree. Say it to some people, and they'll think of the cerbera odollam, an Indian/Malagasy swampy tree, used as an ornamental, whose kernels have been used countless thousands of times to stop the beating of otherwise healthy human hearts in some of the most crowded and impoverished parts of the planet, where our race's life has been, as a generality, fruitful and yet horrendously, unignorably short. And yet not short enough for some. (That having been said there are an awful lot of them in Kerala, which is a remarkable place.)
Say it to others and they'll think of the tachigali versicolor, a central American jungle-y rainforest-y tree that lives to be about a hundred years old, grows to about 50 meters tall, flowers once, and then dies. The thinking goes that the gap it creates in the forest canopy by its death benefits its saplings by letting them get a little more light than they would otherwise, and that the benefit of releasing seeds so seldom (the species has a seeding event every five years or so) is that predators are rather less likely to eat them or the saplings: flowering, seeding and sprouting so intermittently, they would never be a primary food source that predators would learn or evolve to rely on.
mercoledì, ottobre 07, 2009
The land where nerds make their point through song and dance
This came in from two different people within twelve hours, who I think are both happy for me, in that I'm moving to such a dicky country:
I'm happy for me too. (CSIRO, BTW, is an institution even my art-school educated 6-year-expat Antipodean knows about and respects. I guess the Canadian equivalent would be . . . errrrm . . . I'm stuck on that one actually. Probably Neil Young or something.)
I'm happy for me too. (CSIRO, BTW, is an institution even my art-school educated 6-year-expat Antipodean knows about and respects. I guess the Canadian equivalent would be . . . errrrm . . . I'm stuck on that one actually. Probably Neil Young or something.)
martedì, ottobre 06, 2009
The long pigs forage
There's a special joy in foraging. You mushroomers know it. And I'm going to forage the fuck out of Europe until we leave, it's one of my resolutions. Last weekend in Neuss, for example, we foraged for chestnuts, and then when I went out for my morning constitutional yesterday, they were just lying there in the Dudenpark. And it turns out harvesting those fuckers is irresistible. All you do is step on them and they pop out of their horridly spiky casings and there they all, all shiny and begging to be picked up. And for whatever reason, there's a bumper crop this year, so there are great crowds of people pawing and foraging away all over the place. It reminds me, in a rather nice way, how like pigs we are as a species, pawing and foraging away. But those poor fuckers have to use their faces to pick up food, and we have opposable thumbs.
I wonder where we deviated from pigs on the tree of life, considering we have so many of the same eating habits and we can use their organs and apparently we taste just like they do. That never seems be something writers on evolution point out. I wish they would, it's shit like this I want to know, not having it be proved for the umpteenth time that birds are actually dinosaurs. I fucking know that already. Just listen to these fucking birds and tell me they don't sound like fucking dinosaurs:
It's very pretty though.
Less foragey and still foody is the balcony garden. On Monday the remains of all but two of the cucumbers came out with a few mini-ones for the salad that night; yesterday, I ripped up one finished tomato plant and the peas, which were finished ages ago of course, but whose skeletons one of the cucumber plant had been using for support (it's so fucking frustrating to have so little space, but patience, Spliffe, patience, your back garden will come). The rest of the tomato plants are still going fairly strong; up until this weekend we'd been having an unseasonably warm and sunny fall so they're actually peaking just now - don't know if they can pull through without a frost though. The pepper plants are going gangbusters but I don't think the F-word gave them enough container room so I don't know how they'll wind up.
Small sense of panic . . . when the plants are all finished, we have to tape the balcony back up for the winter to keep out the brutal Art Nouveau drafts. Fuck, I hate winter. Oh well, I'll find a way to enjoy it. Next year, baby - sub-tropics.
I wonder where we deviated from pigs on the tree of life, considering we have so many of the same eating habits and we can use their organs and apparently we taste just like they do. That never seems be something writers on evolution point out. I wish they would, it's shit like this I want to know, not having it be proved for the umpteenth time that birds are actually dinosaurs. I fucking know that already. Just listen to these fucking birds and tell me they don't sound like fucking dinosaurs:
It's very pretty though.
Less foragey and still foody is the balcony garden. On Monday the remains of all but two of the cucumbers came out with a few mini-ones for the salad that night; yesterday, I ripped up one finished tomato plant and the peas, which were finished ages ago of course, but whose skeletons one of the cucumber plant had been using for support (it's so fucking frustrating to have so little space, but patience, Spliffe, patience, your back garden will come). The rest of the tomato plants are still going fairly strong; up until this weekend we'd been having an unseasonably warm and sunny fall so they're actually peaking just now - don't know if they can pull through without a frost though. The pepper plants are going gangbusters but I don't think the F-word gave them enough container room so I don't know how they'll wind up.
Small sense of panic . . . when the plants are all finished, we have to tape the balcony back up for the winter to keep out the brutal Art Nouveau drafts. Fuck, I hate winter. Oh well, I'll find a way to enjoy it. Next year, baby - sub-tropics.
lunedì, ottobre 05, 2009
Freezers full of joy
I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer. I spent wide swathes of my life being in places where I was the sharpest knife in the drawer, or at least where I could believe I was, and now I'm not, or at least am no longer capable of believing I am. Fine. I'm making my peace with that. Also periodically there're big reminders I'm not that bright, such as on Friday night, when I went out to the big grocery store to get some other things along with the obligatory beer, saw that it was closed, and went around the corner to the Polish store (and here's where I'm not so bright) for the first time in the 2.4 years I've lived in Brussels.
First of all and obviously they had beer, and being the lightweight new worlder I am I like Polish beer better than Belgian beer, because it's more refreshing and less alcoholic. So good. But then and much more importantly, they had two freezers full of different kind of perogies. After I whine for years - literally, for years - about how I haven't had perogies for years, I go to a fucking store a fucking ten minute walk away from my house and they have two fucking freezers full of perogies. And they have kefir. Poles drink kefir. I knew that, in some shady semi-conscious tranche of my brain, but not being that bright the connections hadn't been made between that tranche of my brain and the tranche that decides where to go to try to buy some fucking kefir, so I've been going to Turkish shops and health food shops and big groceterias and wondering why I couldn't find anything full-fat. Well no more.
Anyways, going to the Polish store and such things are all part of my quest to take the hell of the advantage out of the eleven months we have left here, Brussels as well as the surrounds. I really don't know when or if I'll be back in Europe after we leave. It's hard to believe I'll never be back, but not impossible; we'll never be rich, and I'll want to spend my long-haul vacations in Canada, for obvious reasons. So I'm bearing in mind that this may be my swansong, and bearing in mind that there will almost certainly be a time in the next few years when I look back with nostalgia on my time in Europe, and I'll want the absolute minimum of regrets about whatever in that nostalgia, and the maximum self-congratulation in terms of all the awesomeness.
Still . . . yesterday La New Yorkaise flagged she'd be moving back to the New World before Christmas and I got really jealous.
First of all and obviously they had beer, and being the lightweight new worlder I am I like Polish beer better than Belgian beer, because it's more refreshing and less alcoholic. So good. But then and much more importantly, they had two freezers full of different kind of perogies. After I whine for years - literally, for years - about how I haven't had perogies for years, I go to a fucking store a fucking ten minute walk away from my house and they have two fucking freezers full of perogies. And they have kefir. Poles drink kefir. I knew that, in some shady semi-conscious tranche of my brain, but not being that bright the connections hadn't been made between that tranche of my brain and the tranche that decides where to go to try to buy some fucking kefir, so I've been going to Turkish shops and health food shops and big groceterias and wondering why I couldn't find anything full-fat. Well no more.
Anyways, going to the Polish store and such things are all part of my quest to take the hell of the advantage out of the eleven months we have left here, Brussels as well as the surrounds. I really don't know when or if I'll be back in Europe after we leave. It's hard to believe I'll never be back, but not impossible; we'll never be rich, and I'll want to spend my long-haul vacations in Canada, for obvious reasons. So I'm bearing in mind that this may be my swansong, and bearing in mind that there will almost certainly be a time in the next few years when I look back with nostalgia on my time in Europe, and I'll want the absolute minimum of regrets about whatever in that nostalgia, and the maximum self-congratulation in terms of all the awesomeness.
Still . . . yesterday La New Yorkaise flagged she'd be moving back to the New World before Christmas and I got really jealous.
domenica, ottobre 04, 2009
In which beauty cures recreational poisoning
The weekend in Germany was nice, and has produced the desired effect back-to-back with the weekend in Dordrecht: I really want to stay in Brussels next weekend. Saturday was Unity Day, a stat holiday there, which was good because we were town-bound and if the stores had been open I would have shopped - I'm feeling flush at the moment - even though I don't NEED need anything, because Dusseldorf is a marvellous city for shopping and, whilst expensive in German terms, is damn cheap compared to this price-controlled, socialimistic country I live in.
So we went to Wuppertal, a very pretty industrial/valley town that reminded me of the formerly industrial bits of Yorkshire. The difference is, of course, it hasn't fallen into complete neglect since its heyday ended - not the West German Way, I suppose. It has a suspended monorail, which is awesome and hardly takes up any space since most of its run is over the Wupper (which is full of birds, I think we saw maybe 15 herons or cranes going through the city). A very pretty, efficient thing. Testament to human lack of affiliation with prettiness and efficiency that there aren't more of them elsewhere.
Sunday morning I managed to shake of the effects of far too much drink and smoke and consequent poisoning (and disappointment in it being far too cold for these thin-blooded Europeans and my Antipodean to kayak, though I was in no shape for any kind of physical effort) to join the others at the Hombroich museum island close to Neuss. I don't know the last time I've seen something so lovely. Everything about it was superb - what they had on display, the lunch (included with ticket), and the willows next to the cafeteria with branches drooping to the ground, under which they'd set out tables we could enjoy with the early-winter sun, that kept popping in and out. We'll certainly go back in another season before leaving Europe. It was something that touched me in the same way was the Guell park in Barcelona: so pretty, such a good idea, and a sort of yearning that everybody everywhere in every city have a the chance to have something like that there, something so goddamn lovely.
So we went to Wuppertal, a very pretty industrial/valley town that reminded me of the formerly industrial bits of Yorkshire. The difference is, of course, it hasn't fallen into complete neglect since its heyday ended - not the West German Way, I suppose. It has a suspended monorail, which is awesome and hardly takes up any space since most of its run is over the Wupper (which is full of birds, I think we saw maybe 15 herons or cranes going through the city). A very pretty, efficient thing. Testament to human lack of affiliation with prettiness and efficiency that there aren't more of them elsewhere.
Sunday morning I managed to shake of the effects of far too much drink and smoke and consequent poisoning (and disappointment in it being far too cold for these thin-blooded Europeans and my Antipodean to kayak, though I was in no shape for any kind of physical effort) to join the others at the Hombroich museum island close to Neuss. I don't know the last time I've seen something so lovely. Everything about it was superb - what they had on display, the lunch (included with ticket), and the willows next to the cafeteria with branches drooping to the ground, under which they'd set out tables we could enjoy with the early-winter sun, that kept popping in and out. We'll certainly go back in another season before leaving Europe. It was something that touched me in the same way was the Guell park in Barcelona: so pretty, such a good idea, and a sort of yearning that everybody everywhere in every city have a the chance to have something like that there, something so goddamn lovely.
giovedì, ottobre 01, 2009
The Red Dragon wants to keep it fucking simple
In our ongoing practice and experimentation preceding a planned serious hippy-out in eleven months, we've gone four fifths of the way to deciding that we're going to try to live without an electric washing machine. Or the laundrette. Or dirty clothes. Or nudism. Instead we're getting a Wonder Wash and a spin dryer. I'd like to tell you it's because of our desire to live a greener lifestyle or some such shit, but of course you know me too well (erm, how many long haul flights have I been on in Q3 2009? I think it was six but I may have forgotten about a couple already . . . and how many will I be taking annually after moving to the Dustbowl Down Under? I'd have to plant the fucking Amazon to make up for that shit) and the truth is that when our washing machine died a couple of weeks ago, so did my fucking patience. I'm fucking tired of dealing with a kajillion household items I don't fucking understand so that when they fucking die I have to call some fucking cunt to come fix it for some fucking extortionate price.
Also we're leaving Brussels in eleven months, as noted above, and I don't feel like sinking another €150 into another used unit (even though €150 is quite a bit less than €450, which is what the new washing machines start at here) if there's a possibility I can just sink €50 into a Wonder Wash and a used spin dryer for largely the same results.
Finally I want to check into the Vatican's assertion that the washing machine was a greater boon for the women's liberation movement than the birth control pill. God knows, personally speaking, I'm no great fan of the pill, but God also knows I'm no great fucking fan of the Vatican, so I have to do some personal experimentation before believing the shit that it comes out with. There's a slight problem in our household, ergo est the man does most of the laundry here, but I can ask him how liberated, or not, he feels with the new eqipment and try to run some hypothetical models to see how liberated, or not, a woman would feel in his place.
Also we're leaving Brussels in eleven months, as noted above, and I don't feel like sinking another €150 into another used unit (even though €150 is quite a bit less than €450, which is what the new washing machines start at here) if there's a possibility I can just sink €50 into a Wonder Wash and a used spin dryer for largely the same results.
Finally I want to check into the Vatican's assertion that the washing machine was a greater boon for the women's liberation movement than the birth control pill. God knows, personally speaking, I'm no great fan of the pill, but God also knows I'm no great fucking fan of the Vatican, so I have to do some personal experimentation before believing the shit that it comes out with. There's a slight problem in our household, ergo est the man does most of the laundry here, but I can ask him how liberated, or not, he feels with the new eqipment and try to run some hypothetical models to see how liberated, or not, a woman would feel in his place.
mercoledì, settembre 30, 2009
The trough behind the wave
My brain is nearly broken today. Too much stress but good prospects of it easing off, and a trip to Germany planned for the weekend. With more kayaking. Yay! That will make five countries I've kayaked in. Not bad for someone who hardly knows how to fucking kayak. Next summer I'm going to treat myself to some real coursework with rolls and rapids and things like that. For now it's just the pretty.
Reading The Economic Decline of Empires. You know, for fun. I've only read the first one about the late Roman empire and I'm close to following my advice to Sam - chucking my household into a car and driving away like a madwoman, because it's open season for the rich! So us.
This came in the mail yesterday. I have to start paying more attention to TED.
Reading The Economic Decline of Empires. You know, for fun. I've only read the first one about the late Roman empire and I'm close to following my advice to Sam - chucking my household into a car and driving away like a madwoman, because it's open season for the rich! So us.
This came in the mail yesterday. I have to start paying more attention to TED.
martedì, settembre 29, 2009
Thar be monsters
This is a super-stressful week at work, the sort of week that makes me zone out on videos of kittens and unchallenging American sitcoms just so my brain can untense enough for me to be reasonable with the F-word and then fall asleep. But instead, last night, I watched Coast and then, from the same provider, a BBC documentary about lake monsters.
Coast is a cute show. I don't know if I'll watch the 2 to 4th series, though, as they get rid of the skinny geographer host whose endearing manner reminds me of Geoff the First Time Cottager and put pretty Scottish longhair Neil Oliver on the marqée instead. If I want hot, I'll go ogle the chef at my favourite pizzeria, thank you, when I go to the BBC I want pure fucking geek. Also my part of the coast gets covered in the first series, and now that it's behind me I find myself not caring as much anymore.
We'll see.
The monster one was great. I have a thing for people who spend loads of time and money hunting lake monsters. There's something really sweet about it, almost as sweet as it is silly, but I also find it annoying, as there are so many really phenomonally beautiful and interesting things in the world that actually exist, and why not gawk at those?
But since I started kayaking alone once in awhile, I understand the psychology of sightings a little better. When it's silent and the water is dark, and shapes loom out of it occasionally, and the sounds are odd and once in awhile the way the waves hit your boat sounds like a big solid thing brushing against it, all that shit could be anything. I nearly screamed once on the La Vase when I spotted some bizarre bladdery water weeds because I thought they were a corpse - it took seconds of frantic reasoning with myself to keep looking at them instead of paddling away like a madwoman, and realize they were bladdery water weeds. Also once in Scotland I saw a seal playing on the surface of Loch Lomond, and the way those wee animals swim around, weaving up and down on the surface of the water, looks like all the classic bumpy monster descriptions.
Anyways, here's the documentary, it's good for the evenings your brain hurts and you want to hear the funny way people from Vermont and upstate New York talk.
Coast is a cute show. I don't know if I'll watch the 2 to 4th series, though, as they get rid of the skinny geographer host whose endearing manner reminds me of Geoff the First Time Cottager and put pretty Scottish longhair Neil Oliver on the marqée instead. If I want hot, I'll go ogle the chef at my favourite pizzeria, thank you, when I go to the BBC I want pure fucking geek. Also my part of the coast gets covered in the first series, and now that it's behind me I find myself not caring as much anymore.
We'll see.
The monster one was great. I have a thing for people who spend loads of time and money hunting lake monsters. There's something really sweet about it, almost as sweet as it is silly, but I also find it annoying, as there are so many really phenomonally beautiful and interesting things in the world that actually exist, and why not gawk at those?
But since I started kayaking alone once in awhile, I understand the psychology of sightings a little better. When it's silent and the water is dark, and shapes loom out of it occasionally, and the sounds are odd and once in awhile the way the waves hit your boat sounds like a big solid thing brushing against it, all that shit could be anything. I nearly screamed once on the La Vase when I spotted some bizarre bladdery water weeds because I thought they were a corpse - it took seconds of frantic reasoning with myself to keep looking at them instead of paddling away like a madwoman, and realize they were bladdery water weeds. Also once in Scotland I saw a seal playing on the surface of Loch Lomond, and the way those wee animals swim around, weaving up and down on the surface of the water, looks like all the classic bumpy monster descriptions.
Anyways, here's the documentary, it's good for the evenings your brain hurts and you want to hear the funny way people from Vermont and upstate New York talk.
lunedì, settembre 28, 2009
The director maintained that Geimer was sexually experienced and consented
I wonder if I'd have more sympathy for that kiddy fiddling frog if I liked his shitty movies any better, but even Chinatown left me cold. I'm pretty fond of Charlie Chaplin, after all, who also ditched the States for Europe after banging teenagers. Somehow it doesn't seem like the same thing though. Call me naive but I believe Chaplin's kiddy-fiddling ways never ran to acting like he was the victim of a Lolita and a puritan conspiracy when he got into trouble for giving a thirteen year old Qualudes, stuffing his cock into all of her orifices while she told him not to, and then running off to Europe because he didn't know what the big fucking deal was after he'd told the law, yeah, sure, he'd done it, and what's more the girl hadn't been unresponsive. Damn those Yankee prudes!
But it's alright, Hollywood types are flocking to his defence, using big words like "philistine collusion" that I'm pretty sure they're not aware of the actual literal meaning of, because let's face it - actors aren't paid to not be absolute fucking morons who don't know when to shut up, which is part of what makes the US's cultural and political dialogue so fucking simple-minded. And the French government is leaping in too; why should one of their more successful citizens be thrown to the lions because of ancient history? Sadly the cinematic tastes of the French cultural elite don't outweigh the 'scary' way California doesn't have a statute of limitations on skipping the country when you've pled guilty to drugging and raping a 13-year-old. God, I hate the French political class. Fucking chinless misogynistic dysfunctional emasculated elitist losers.
Have these semi-literate fucktards actually sat through Bitter Moon? The mediocre little turd should have been locked up for that moronic waste of the time/space continuum alone. Only in a culturally impotent vaccuum like western Europe could a man who managed to make sado-masochism gloomy, stupid AND boring get any cultural traction, certainly enough for national ministers to have a little hissy fit when he gets arrested for kiddy-fiddling. Hyperbole aside, just tell me what other culture he could have managed that in. You can't because there fucking isn't one. Fucking hell.
But it's alright, Hollywood types are flocking to his defence, using big words like "philistine collusion" that I'm pretty sure they're not aware of the actual literal meaning of, because let's face it - actors aren't paid to not be absolute fucking morons who don't know when to shut up, which is part of what makes the US's cultural and political dialogue so fucking simple-minded. And the French government is leaping in too; why should one of their more successful citizens be thrown to the lions because of ancient history? Sadly the cinematic tastes of the French cultural elite don't outweigh the 'scary' way California doesn't have a statute of limitations on skipping the country when you've pled guilty to drugging and raping a 13-year-old. God, I hate the French political class. Fucking chinless misogynistic dysfunctional emasculated elitist losers.
Have these semi-literate fucktards actually sat through Bitter Moon? The mediocre little turd should have been locked up for that moronic waste of the time/space continuum alone. Only in a culturally impotent vaccuum like western Europe could a man who managed to make sado-masochism gloomy, stupid AND boring get any cultural traction, certainly enough for national ministers to have a little hissy fit when he gets arrested for kiddy-fiddling. Hyperbole aside, just tell me what other culture he could have managed that in. You can't because there fucking isn't one. Fucking hell.
domenica, settembre 27, 2009
Beneluxury
Dordrecht did the job. I'm almost back on the rag, have another week of absolute shit in front of me, and our washing machine gave up the ghost a few days before we left, but still both the F-word's and my own bad moods were gone by Sunday morning after hours and hours of bike riding on Saturday. And then the Sunday morning kayaking in the Biesbosch was rather grand, many many different types of birds and a fairyish mist coming off the water - also the channels were narrow and overgrown so one got double that little kayak thrill, of "I'm going somewhere other people can't." And flowers, and green, green, green.
As the morning wore on there were more and more people, so I was almost not upset the park centre had "fucked up" (read: "purposefully altered when they got an afternoon group booking") our reservations so we only got three hours instead of five. Not to mention, in the bigger channels my crappy little tub of a kayak handled like a donkey on amphetamines and made me miss my lovely Jemima, that big beautiful 14.5 foot bitch who tracks like a crow flies. But it was magical and it did the job.
We've decided, or rather the F-word has acquiesced following some very undignified begging on my part, to head to the other Stayokay hostels in the Netherlands for weekend trips over the rest of our tenure in Europe. I'm very fond of the Netherlands as a generality, and its proximity, impressions of wide open empty spaces despite super-high population density, and high-functioning marijuana market would be enough to make it a really attractive weekend destination in any case. But on top of all that it has something most of Belgium, northern France and Germany lacks: complete bike-friendliness.
I think it's only in the Netherlands, and possibly some of the Flemish parts of Belgium, that I feel absolutely comfortable hopping on a train, arriving, renting bicycle at the station, and then having absolute liberty and security of movement for my stay because the dedicated bike paths are everywhere, without having to fart around with unfamiliar public transport systems. And I don't have to wear a helmet so I can feel the wind in my hair. That's important. It's something I hadn't really experienced otherwise since being an uncomplexed child of the mid-80's and it's something that it's a goddamn shame drivers are too shitty and dangerous to let children experience now.
It's a feeling I don't doubt people who drive feel all the time, and explains why so many people (especially men) of my acquaintance insist on taking their cars everywhere, even to places like Paris where they'll beggar themselves in parking fees alone. So while I still can, I'm going to enjoy the fuck out of it here in the Benelux; I think it's quite unique in the world.
As the morning wore on there were more and more people, so I was almost not upset the park centre had "fucked up" (read: "purposefully altered when they got an afternoon group booking") our reservations so we only got three hours instead of five. Not to mention, in the bigger channels my crappy little tub of a kayak handled like a donkey on amphetamines and made me miss my lovely Jemima, that big beautiful 14.5 foot bitch who tracks like a crow flies. But it was magical and it did the job.
We've decided, or rather the F-word has acquiesced following some very undignified begging on my part, to head to the other Stayokay hostels in the Netherlands for weekend trips over the rest of our tenure in Europe. I'm very fond of the Netherlands as a generality, and its proximity, impressions of wide open empty spaces despite super-high population density, and high-functioning marijuana market would be enough to make it a really attractive weekend destination in any case. But on top of all that it has something most of Belgium, northern France and Germany lacks: complete bike-friendliness.
I think it's only in the Netherlands, and possibly some of the Flemish parts of Belgium, that I feel absolutely comfortable hopping on a train, arriving, renting bicycle at the station, and then having absolute liberty and security of movement for my stay because the dedicated bike paths are everywhere, without having to fart around with unfamiliar public transport systems. And I don't have to wear a helmet so I can feel the wind in my hair. That's important. It's something I hadn't really experienced otherwise since being an uncomplexed child of the mid-80's and it's something that it's a goddamn shame drivers are too shitty and dangerous to let children experience now.
It's a feeling I don't doubt people who drive feel all the time, and explains why so many people (especially men) of my acquaintance insist on taking their cars everywhere, even to places like Paris where they'll beggar themselves in parking fees alone. So while I still can, I'm going to enjoy the fuck out of it here in the Benelux; I think it's quite unique in the world.
giovedì, settembre 24, 2009
Weekenders in places with names I can't pronounce
Yesterday I called to book 'our' place in the Ardennes, and it was full . . . as was every other place in the area. And despite the dreadful yet fruitful agony of having obtained my full license, I'm not yet allowed to rent a car here - you need to have had the permit for two years - and the F-word won't, so I spent a panicked hour searching for somewhere else to kayak and get fresh air that we could get to with trains.
Well, thank god for this disorganized industrial shithole of a country being next to the Netherlands. We're going here. Dordrecht. An hour and a half away, I've managed to book some boats that look much nicer than the tubs in the Ardennes, and it's next to this, so it's going to be fucking awesome, I'm pretty sure. Even if it pisses down rain all weekend (and we seem to be in the grip of some sort of wildly geographically misplaced Indian summer here so I don't think it will), I'm pretty sure we'll get a lot out of going to a place with folklore this bizarre.
God, I love the Dutch. Not just for the social liberalism and their stunning good looks. I love their weird, too. I'd love Belgians' wierd as well, but it seems to segue into creep far too often for comfort. I think it will be a good policy to spend the maximum amount of time in the Netherlands before we leave. It's just so much less annoying. Shame about the food but one always manages.
Speaking of food, this site makes me hungry.
Well, thank god for this disorganized industrial shithole of a country being next to the Netherlands. We're going here. Dordrecht. An hour and a half away, I've managed to book some boats that look much nicer than the tubs in the Ardennes, and it's next to this, so it's going to be fucking awesome, I'm pretty sure. Even if it pisses down rain all weekend (and we seem to be in the grip of some sort of wildly geographically misplaced Indian summer here so I don't think it will), I'm pretty sure we'll get a lot out of going to a place with folklore this bizarre.
God, I love the Dutch. Not just for the social liberalism and their stunning good looks. I love their weird, too. I'd love Belgians' wierd as well, but it seems to segue into creep far too often for comfort. I think it will be a good policy to spend the maximum amount of time in the Netherlands before we leave. It's just so much less annoying. Shame about the food but one always manages.
Speaking of food, this site makes me hungry.
mercoledì, settembre 23, 2009
Tai chi is a kind of martial art, I suppose
Really need the brief escape to the Ardennes this weekend. Last night in tai chi I spent about 15 minutes of what should have been pure tranquility, what should have been my mid-week détente with my professional stress, wanting to punch these dumb gallic bitches who wouldn't stop chattering in their dumb gallic high-pitched squeaky little voices during the exercises. Punch them right in the mouths. It doesn't matter that I'd cut my hand on their teeth and get an infection, I thought. It'd be worth it. I'd enjoy the memory all my life, long after the antibiotics stop making me poo funny.
Of course I didn't. It would have embarrassed the F-word, who was there too. And even though I certainly wouldn't go to prison as they're too full in this retarded country for anybody who gets a sentence under three years to actually be incarcerated, and even if I did I could just escape via helicopter because these fucking fuckwits here are too fuckwitted to co-ordinate putting up a couple of goddamn wires (the prison in the story, BTW, is a seven-minute walk from our place), it might interfere with my Australian residency application. Lucky gallic bitches.
Anyways, I have my doubts about the tai chi class this year. Too many chattering gallic bitches, it's been moved from seven minutes away (directly across from the prison in the story, actually) to fifteen minutes away, and the timing is way off - 20h30 to 22h. That means I have to eat before-hand, but Wednesday being deadline day I can't do so early enough in the evening to avoid feeling like I'm going through the session with a bowling ball in my tummy. Also I find tai chi beautifully energizing, which means I don't really get any sleep Wednesday nights anymore. And finally, 20h30 is usually the time, these days, that my professional stress catches up with me and I get really good-for-nothing exhausted, making it fucking penitential to go out into the fucking Nordic darkness of the early autumn nightfall.
Of course I didn't. It would have embarrassed the F-word, who was there too. And even though I certainly wouldn't go to prison as they're too full in this retarded country for anybody who gets a sentence under three years to actually be incarcerated, and even if I did I could just escape via helicopter because these fucking fuckwits here are too fuckwitted to co-ordinate putting up a couple of goddamn wires (the prison in the story, BTW, is a seven-minute walk from our place), it might interfere with my Australian residency application. Lucky gallic bitches.
Anyways, I have my doubts about the tai chi class this year. Too many chattering gallic bitches, it's been moved from seven minutes away (directly across from the prison in the story, actually) to fifteen minutes away, and the timing is way off - 20h30 to 22h. That means I have to eat before-hand, but Wednesday being deadline day I can't do so early enough in the evening to avoid feeling like I'm going through the session with a bowling ball in my tummy. Also I find tai chi beautifully energizing, which means I don't really get any sleep Wednesday nights anymore. And finally, 20h30 is usually the time, these days, that my professional stress catches up with me and I get really good-for-nothing exhausted, making it fucking penitential to go out into the fucking Nordic darkness of the early autumn nightfall.
martedì, settembre 22, 2009
The office monkey got her groove back
I've got my groove back at work, thank god. When fresh back from Canada, I couldn't really imagine getting it back ever again. But then Big Report Weeks came and my motivation managed to rise to the challenge, and now I'm sufficiently psyched to be awesome for another year.
Also significant is that my company may have something for me when we make the big move to to the Dustbowl Down Under - nothing close to decided on that score yet - but I'm already doing some tasks associated with the possibility that are very congenial to me, I think more congenial than what I'm doing now, if I can learn how to get good at them. Also one gets the sense Australia is about to descend into chaos so it would be good to have a nice fat slice of income coming in from abroad.
Yeah . . . so many disastrous things get reported about Australia that it gets to sounding apocalyptic, especially in view of the Mad Max Factor. I have visions of myself clutching up my family in five years time and bustling them off to the frigid safety of Canada's backwoods as leathered sodomites on motorcycles chase the townspeople through endless vistas of flood, fire, snakes and blood-red dust while Nick Cave sings "Tupelo".
So you see why I've got to go, right, I mean that sounds fucking awesome.
But when you speak to Australians they claim all the apocalyptic press is just British journalists being monumentally jealous of Australians getting to live in Australia while British journalists have to live in a moldy, violent shithole like Britain where everybody is as drunk as in Australia but they have to live much closer together. And being acquainted with what kind of shitholes the parts of Britain people actually live in are, it's a possibility I really can't discount.
Who knows? Me, hopefully, and soon.
Also significant is that my company may have something for me when we make the big move to to the Dustbowl Down Under - nothing close to decided on that score yet - but I'm already doing some tasks associated with the possibility that are very congenial to me, I think more congenial than what I'm doing now, if I can learn how to get good at them. Also one gets the sense Australia is about to descend into chaos so it would be good to have a nice fat slice of income coming in from abroad.
Yeah . . . so many disastrous things get reported about Australia that it gets to sounding apocalyptic, especially in view of the Mad Max Factor. I have visions of myself clutching up my family in five years time and bustling them off to the frigid safety of Canada's backwoods as leathered sodomites on motorcycles chase the townspeople through endless vistas of flood, fire, snakes and blood-red dust while Nick Cave sings "Tupelo".
So you see why I've got to go, right, I mean that sounds fucking awesome.
But when you speak to Australians they claim all the apocalyptic press is just British journalists being monumentally jealous of Australians getting to live in Australia while British journalists have to live in a moldy, violent shithole like Britain where everybody is as drunk as in Australia but they have to live much closer together. And being acquainted with what kind of shitholes the parts of Britain people actually live in are, it's a possibility I really can't discount.
Who knows? Me, hopefully, and soon.
lunedì, settembre 21, 2009
Buck up - never say die! We'll get along
I think I've found my political Messiah . . . pity he's a kiddie-fiddler who's been dead for 32 years. Oh well. There have been dumber ideological choices made, as mine is on the basis of this rather wonderful movie:
What I noticed all through it is that the pacing is superb. No dead space, no holes. It's an extremely well put-together film, aside from the funniness factor - far better than most American films made before the 50's in terms of just being spectacularly well put-together. And it's fucking funny. Particularly for us pinko stoners.
BTW - here's a Guarniad review from 1936 about the film. It must have been strange back in the days when newspaper entertainment section writers were allowed to use the present perfect and words like "undeliberating". Keep on to the end, to the section about how the Nazis banned it, and of course the moustache . . .
What I noticed all through it is that the pacing is superb. No dead space, no holes. It's an extremely well put-together film, aside from the funniness factor - far better than most American films made before the 50's in terms of just being spectacularly well put-together. And it's fucking funny. Particularly for us pinko stoners.
BTW - here's a Guarniad review from 1936 about the film. It must have been strange back in the days when newspaper entertainment section writers were allowed to use the present perfect and words like "undeliberating". Keep on to the end, to the section about how the Nazis banned it, and of course the moustache . . .
domenica, settembre 20, 2009
In which I fail to count my blessings
People, I'm fucked up. I know I'm fucked up because I was wandering around Istanbul bored off my tits yesterday afternoon, wishing - actually actively desiring - that all the people around me were trees instead.
I don't know whether or not I can really recommend Istanbul as a vacation destination, I don't have enough information after five days. The 'social programme' of the conference would have made me come in my panties five years ago; dinner in a giant Byzantine water cistern, a cruise down the Bosphorus, black tie gala in an early 20th century vizier's yali. But I spent it ovulating, wishing that I was being ploughed by the single attractive man at that fucking sausage-fest of a conference, studiously avoiding him in defense of my monogamism, and thinking about how all the breathtakingly beautiful things I was looking at were representative of a long and super-successful massive oppression of man by his fellow man. I'm fucking laugh-a-minute, people. Laugh-a-fucking-minute.
It was a relief to hit Saturday morning and run away to my much cheaper hotel and to all the sights I wanted to see. The Hagia Sophia, or as a particularly retarded American woman who was accompanying her husband to the conference called it with a rather shocking familiarity, "Sophia"* , was very beautiful and it satisfied the part of me who had had to study it a kajillion times in sundry art and architecture classes to explore it. But not being in a particularly arty frame of mind I was much more impressed by the Blue Mosque next door, which frankly was tidier, and still functioning as a religious institution. I was handed a pamphlet on the joys of Islam on my way in and was so impressed and so moved by the interior that I nearly read it.
And there were lots of other wondrous things about the city, but I only had two days to look at them, which means I didn't even scrape the surface - what I did was the equivalent of going to Paris, walking from the Arc de Triomphe to the Louvre to Notre-Dame and Sainte-Chapelle, with a quick trip up to the Marché aux Puces (Grand Bazaar, which was nice, I found a bunch of super-cheap fabric). That's why I can't say whether or not I recommend Istanbul as a vacation destination - I still don't know shit about it - not much more than I knew before.
Also, as I mentioned, people, I'm fucked up. It didn't feel exotic to me, it didn't feel exciting; it felt like every other big Mediterranean city I've been to, with touts yelling about how awesome the shit they were selling was, and too many men trying to chat me up in the quest for some fast tail or a North American residency visa, and too many people wandering around, and too many tourists speaking stupidities in snatches of languages I understood, and too much dirt on the ground and shit in the air, and too many drivers acting like brainless cunts.
And I know this sort of misplaced indifference, this 'it's all the fucking same anyways', is a symptom of depression, but I've been depressed, and this isn't depression. This is misanthropy, running away with me. I don't get homesick in the normal sense of the word - I miss my family desperately sometimes, but I don't particularly want to be back in Canada - but sometime in the middle of the Istanbul trip, when I realized that my brain was approaching the experience as simply another stay in a place with too many damn people in it, I thought of so much yearning of kayaking down the La Vase with no people in sight, or right in Lake Nipissing far away from everything, or hiking through the woods with my family, that the tears started to my eyes.
I may as well face it. I was raised in the middle of nowhere, isolated, and while I spent a lot of the time I was being raised wishing that I was somewhere with more people, trees and fresh air were my constant companions and trees and fresh air are probably where I need to go. Particularly on my vacations, since the wait until I can take myself there more permanently seems interminable. Taking a break from one dirty overcrowded city full of annoying people to go to another has turned out to not be such a hot experience.
Whine . . . complete.
*As in, "the mosaics in Sophia weren't that great. Now look at my photos of them." That wasn't what I was basing my evaluation of her retardation on, BTW - more on her opinion of what a shame it was all the black people who didn't know what they were doing turned out to vote Democrat last year instead of staying home like they usually do. Sure lady, like white Americans have a fucking clue what they're doing if they're trying out any task more complicated than stuffing their fucking cracker face with Twinkies or changing the channel from Fox to Fox News. Of course, there are always exceptions, like anyone reading this blog. Smile.
I don't know whether or not I can really recommend Istanbul as a vacation destination, I don't have enough information after five days. The 'social programme' of the conference would have made me come in my panties five years ago; dinner in a giant Byzantine water cistern, a cruise down the Bosphorus, black tie gala in an early 20th century vizier's yali. But I spent it ovulating, wishing that I was being ploughed by the single attractive man at that fucking sausage-fest of a conference, studiously avoiding him in defense of my monogamism, and thinking about how all the breathtakingly beautiful things I was looking at were representative of a long and super-successful massive oppression of man by his fellow man. I'm fucking laugh-a-minute, people. Laugh-a-fucking-minute.
It was a relief to hit Saturday morning and run away to my much cheaper hotel and to all the sights I wanted to see. The Hagia Sophia, or as a particularly retarded American woman who was accompanying her husband to the conference called it with a rather shocking familiarity, "Sophia"* , was very beautiful and it satisfied the part of me who had had to study it a kajillion times in sundry art and architecture classes to explore it. But not being in a particularly arty frame of mind I was much more impressed by the Blue Mosque next door, which frankly was tidier, and still functioning as a religious institution. I was handed a pamphlet on the joys of Islam on my way in and was so impressed and so moved by the interior that I nearly read it.
And there were lots of other wondrous things about the city, but I only had two days to look at them, which means I didn't even scrape the surface - what I did was the equivalent of going to Paris, walking from the Arc de Triomphe to the Louvre to Notre-Dame and Sainte-Chapelle, with a quick trip up to the Marché aux Puces (Grand Bazaar, which was nice, I found a bunch of super-cheap fabric). That's why I can't say whether or not I recommend Istanbul as a vacation destination - I still don't know shit about it - not much more than I knew before.
Also, as I mentioned, people, I'm fucked up. It didn't feel exotic to me, it didn't feel exciting; it felt like every other big Mediterranean city I've been to, with touts yelling about how awesome the shit they were selling was, and too many men trying to chat me up in the quest for some fast tail or a North American residency visa, and too many people wandering around, and too many tourists speaking stupidities in snatches of languages I understood, and too much dirt on the ground and shit in the air, and too many drivers acting like brainless cunts.
And I know this sort of misplaced indifference, this 'it's all the fucking same anyways', is a symptom of depression, but I've been depressed, and this isn't depression. This is misanthropy, running away with me. I don't get homesick in the normal sense of the word - I miss my family desperately sometimes, but I don't particularly want to be back in Canada - but sometime in the middle of the Istanbul trip, when I realized that my brain was approaching the experience as simply another stay in a place with too many damn people in it, I thought of so much yearning of kayaking down the La Vase with no people in sight, or right in Lake Nipissing far away from everything, or hiking through the woods with my family, that the tears started to my eyes.
I may as well face it. I was raised in the middle of nowhere, isolated, and while I spent a lot of the time I was being raised wishing that I was somewhere with more people, trees and fresh air were my constant companions and trees and fresh air are probably where I need to go. Particularly on my vacations, since the wait until I can take myself there more permanently seems interminable. Taking a break from one dirty overcrowded city full of annoying people to go to another has turned out to not be such a hot experience.
Whine . . . complete.
*As in, "the mosaics in Sophia weren't that great. Now look at my photos of them." That wasn't what I was basing my evaluation of her retardation on, BTW - more on her opinion of what a shame it was all the black people who didn't know what they were doing turned out to vote Democrat last year instead of staying home like they usually do. Sure lady, like white Americans have a fucking clue what they're doing if they're trying out any task more complicated than stuffing their fucking cracker face with Twinkies or changing the channel from Fox to Fox News. Of course, there are always exceptions, like anyone reading this blog. Smile.
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