Amber and garnet

About a week ago I suddenly had to decide whether I wanted a Christmas tree or not. Seems trivial, but it kind of meant that for the first time in my life I was forced to wonder if Christmas actually means anything to me. And it kind of snuck up on me. So yeah, that was interesting.

I got a tiny one, some colorful lights, and a couple of ornaments from my family home. The small ones, obviously. For some reason I really hoped I'd find a couple of these small glass lanterns among them. There were two left. I put on... River, I think, and dressed my very own tree. That was... interesting too.

I leave the lights on for the night and turn them off during the day. Dad says I'll burn in my sleep, cause they don't make them like they used to.

It's New Year's Eve tomorrow. Every year the ritual is repeated - declarations of disaffection (probably not the right word, but what the hell), plotting exit strategies... This time I simply refused to think about it though, and it seems that I really don't care. The pose was made flesh. I'm contemplating binging on expensive sweets and trying to make a dent in my movie backlog. Or swapping sweets for booze, and doing the same in the company of Filip. There are other, more social options, but... there are also some ghosts I just don't want to face come midnight. Say what you will about New Year's irrelevance, that one moment is culturally charged enough to punch some realities right through your shell.


I get chills every time I listen to this performance. The first clusterfuck of sound at 1:28 just awestriking.

Collision

Had a wonderful evening. Monika came home from Luxembourg for Christmas and held and an impromptu audience at Ormus' apartment - though I think I was the only person to go there specifically to see her, as most of the other people in attendance didn't even know who she was.

Still, we had a blast, mostly due to a lengthy session of... charades. Yes, apparently we're now all old and bourgeois. It should be noted that our team (me, paivi, Monika and Pawel) won, but the main attraction was watching people try to mime absurd and/or obscure movie or book titles. Special mentions (all successful) go to: Darq for the Charter of United Nations, Monika for Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead (none of us knew the book), Ormus for The British Museum is Falling Down (same as above), and my teammates for guessing my mime of The Salmon of Doubt even though none of us had read it. Surprisingly, the most problematic - and most fun to guess - title of the entire evening was Kapuscinski's Empire, but that's mostly because first we ended up in China and refused to leave, and then Pawel, in the process of trying to steer us back towards the right area, mixed up his books and got fixated on the Shah of Iran.

I've also been catching up on music. I've yet to plow through Florence and the Machine (was less than impressed by Kiss With a Fist, but Janek sent me Howl and my endings were more than tickled) and the new Regina Spektor album, but have already digested Little Boots. I can't say I care for the record as a whole, but towards the end I've found a definite keeper. It's basically Kylie at her best: thoroughly synthetic, clean and clear. A tiny little plastic bauble, all pink and translucent. The soulful kitsch of Scissor Sisters' It Can't Come Quickly Enough, but without the melancholy. The girl's voice is perfectly smooth and featureless, woven seamlessly into the rudimentary synth background, and then there's that tiny flourish in the chorus, when the afterglow of the last consonant in "over" unexpectedly soars higher than the preceding vowel... Yum.



And to top it off - totally random and unsollicited Tom Lenk. My crush lingers on.

Too steep to scale

My slow burn has finally sputtered out completely. It was an easy, gentle way to go. Like what they tell me freezing to death feels like, complete with that sensation of comfort and relief right before the end.

And when I woke up today it was snowing. Externalization complete.

I'm feeling quite good, almost giddy. I think the cold cleared the air or something, and my brain seems to work better as of late - though I still tend to get drowsy at the oddest hours.

I made it to season 4 of Angel. Good God, I don't like any of the characters anymore. And the whole Connor debacle was just beyond painful. The guy that plays him has the most annoying manchild face... he's playing Pete Campbell on Mad Men. Yeah. THAT one. Gunn was boring from the get-go, and they never really figured out anything specific for him to do, so he's just left to lumber around awkwardly, butchering every humorous line they feed him. Fred's twitchy and really blah. I heard Amy Acker was really good on this show, but I'm still waiting to see that. For a moment I thought at least the green demon guy was gone for good, but no. He had to make a return appearance.

And can we please take a moment to talk about Alexis Denisof being all dark and edgy and oozing manliness? The guy's name is Alexis, for crying outloud. He's the posterboy for pansy. That's why they hired him in the first place! He was comic relief on Buffy. Pitful, effete comic relief! Now they got him brandishing axes, playing S/M mindgames and having phone sex with evil lawyers. Worst of all - they had him grow a stubble. A stubble!

Cordelia was fun, but she went poof, so I'm left struggling with a truly terrifying concept - namely that my favorite character on Angel seems to be... Angel. Brrr. Oh how the mighty have fallen.

In better news, the Christmas episode of The Office is true genius, and it's written by Mindy Kaling (aka Kelly Kapoor), which sort of means that all is well with the world.

On the Radio

Wlasnie mi podeslano klip do On the Radio Reginy Spektor i znalazlem w archiwum starego bloga swoje pierwsze impresje z tej plyty.

I po raz n-ty sie ucieszylem, ze mam takie pierdoly spisane gdzies. I zrobilo mi sie przykro, ze teraz tak malo juz pisze i nie bedzie czym pobudzac pamieci.

Problem chyba w tym, ze nie mam jednak az tak duzej swobody w angielskim jak myslalem, wiec kazdy wpis jest jakims wyzwaniem.

Tak wiec... ewolucji ciag dalszy. Zobaczymy, co z tego bedzie.

Good question. NOT!

A snapshot from last night. Ana forgot her cell phone, so she asked me call her a cab. I did, and a couple of minutes later kazia - for no apparent reason - decided that it was now turn for me to call her one. I dialed the number again and had the following exchange:

me: Good evening, I'd like to order a cab to Placeholder Street 16
dispatcher: What for?!

Which might illustrate why I'm still slightly phobic about dealing with the services sector.

Woof woof moo

God it's good to touch base with the hermetic order from time to time. We've all entered new stages of our lives - some more profound than others - and I feel like we're still in the process of finding a way to re-establish our connection in this new reality. But once in a blue moon you meet up, get drunk, and suddenly there's a glimmer of this old, feelgood intensity - set against a new backdrop, but complimenting it rather than flashing in stark contrast.

And it's a heartbreaking sort of pleasure. Like something you're way too young to be nostalgic about.

Transgress a little, Joseph

In this edition of Insomniac Monthly: my slow burn periodically lapses into a sputter, as it is subject to the forces of inertia squared.

Aside from that, I need to be making more money (I've been burning through my savings at an alarming rate over the past few months), and my restrictive information policy is - however indirectly - putting a damper on my social life.

I would also like to post more, but I still have literally nothing to say.

I'm seriously jonesing for a joint pilgrimage to the ducal court. I'm thinking late winer/early spring, circumstances permitting.

Finally, as evidenced by this entry, I'm apparently making a lot of "I" statements, which as we know is the healthiest and most respectful way of addressing your feelings. So kudos to me.

Slow burn

Fall is upon us, and with it everything that it usually seems to bring into my life.

I like clockwork for how you can compare things to it.

Self-fulfiling prophecy

I had to go get my paycheck today (actually, it wasn't even a paycheck, but an envelope filled with cash - welcome to the 21st century). On my way back I decided to treat myself to something special and check out this posh restaurant in my neighborhood. For some reason at first the waiting staff stared at me like I was some sort of alien, so I felt a bit self-conscious. Once I actually ordered my food though, they seemed to relax - probably taking that for sufficient proof that I wasn't there just to take a dump in their fish tank, or something. Anyway, I was bored, and didn't have a book with me, so I started browsing some fancy-shmancy brochure about their selection of teas. It was bilingual (Polish and English), and in addition to some rather hilarious discrepancies between the two versions, it also sported several outright errors in the Polish bits.

As I was leaving, something came over me and I approached a waitress, smiled politely, and said: "Excuse me, I know this is completely out of the blue, but there are several gramatical errors in that leaflet you have on the table. Just in case anyone ever wanted to correct them..." The girl's face immediately went OMG ALIEN!, and her friend started giggling nervously, so I decided it's probably best not to mention there's also a typo in their greeting card, smiled again, nodded good-bye, and walked out.

I left the restaurant wondering what the hell I was thinking, but also nursing a not entirely unpleasant impression of having completed some sort of cycle.

Mutant apocalypse

Every fucking Tori Amos song the last.fm radio plays is a live version taken from the Beekeeper tour. Which is NOT a good thing :/

All the beautiful people

I wonder if that's gonna be my new thing: only updating the blog late at night, when I find myself unable to fall asleep. Seems quite plausible, especially since I finally dragged the laptop from its resting place in the kitchen and put it on the bedside window for easy access. After all, I can't possibly be expected to get up and cover that meter-and-a-half to my desktop, right?

Still working on a comfortable writing position though. It's very important to get the pile of gigantic pillows just right.

So, these are my current dilemmas. And that's actually the definitive manifest. Which bothers me a bit, to be honest. Last night W. took me out to dinner, to celebrate my birthday. It was actually quite unexpected, because it's such a... grown-up thing to do. And we don't do grown-up, ever. We are for each other the security blanket you reach for when life gets a bit too overwhelming, that shot of tried and true you sometimes need to even your keel... I wonder if that's even a word, or an expression, and if it means what I think it does. It just popped into my head literally out of nowhere, and I'm so tired of second-guessing my every sentence that I refuse to research it.

So where was I... Right, our private time capsule. It's actually quite funny - last night I realized that once again I started leaning in to kiss her on the cheek, and had to stop myself, because we don't do that. Because when people first started doing it in high school, we decreed it as lame and affected, and made a pact to boycott the entire thing. And this custom - or lack thereof - survived, fossilized, to this day. Over 10 years. We don't even think about it, it's just not something we do. So peculiar.

But I stopped one layer short of the point - what I wanted to say is that I had absolutely nothing to say. The dinner was incredibly nice, and I felt happy, but as I sat there, listening to her amusing anecdotes, I tried over and over to find something to reciprocate with, and the best I could come up with was a story that my parents had told me 3 weeks ago.

I've no idea what the fuck is wrong with me. I've never had this problem, I was always spewing gibberish left and right. I used to craft the most insignificant, random things that happened to me on my way over somewhere into tiny anecdotes, just so I'd have something for an opening salvo. I don't think my life is any emptier than it was before (how's that for an optimistic statement?), so maybe I've just lost the interest in people required to observe and fish out those amusing details...

I don't know, but either way, I ran out of steam. I leave you with something appropriately broken and hypnotic.

The skinny

Actually, now that I think of it, I don't really have all that much to write about either In Bruges or Bored to Death. Or even a reason to lump them into a single post, aside from the fact that both ultimately proved to be disapointing.

In Bruges actually has a lot going for it. It's an unusual take on a popular cinematic motif - hitmen. It shows them in-between assignments, as they try to make the best of their downtime in a seemingly random location, awaiting further instructions from their employer. The performances are good, and the mood is spot-on (the movie actually plays like one of those quaint British small-town comedies, providing a cool contrast to its protagonists' profession), which makes the final, ridiculous misstep all the more aggravating. I won't reveal any plot points, suffice to say that in the climactic scene one of the main characters makes a certain distinction - whether for comedic or dramatic effect, I'm not even sure - which is not only tasteless in and of itself, but also makes a significant portion of the movie in retrospect seem like the buildup to a cheap gimmick. And you're handed this turd blossom literally moments before the end credits roll, so it essentially remains your last impression.

As for Bored to Death, it doesn't stumble so badly, but that's probably because to do so would constitute some sort of statement, and the show is too intent on charting the bland side of quirkiness for that sort of thing. The characters are about as removed from reality as the Bluth family, but they're mired in aimless Seinfeldian tedium, punctuated by Jason Schwartzman* repeating what some other character just said in the earnest monotone of a stoner's revelation. The premise... Schwartzman decides to advertise himself as a private detective on craigslist. No idea why, as no reason is given. It's not for money - that he gets for writing... something for his millionnaire... friend, I guess. Or boss who's really into micro-managing freelance writers. Oh, and his girlfriend left him, cause he smokes too much pot and drinks too much white wine. I'm at episode three, and it's about Jim Jarmusch giving him his new script to look over (he's a fan, y'know). It's about Frank O'Hara. But Schwartzman loses it, so Jarmusch decides to go with Charlie Kaufmann instead. Yeah. And it's a good thing namedropping and cameos are such strong plot devices, because absolutely nothing more of note happens throughout the entire episode. I suppose, given the title, that might have actually been the idea, but I've seen good (Mad Men), or even decent (Hung) slow-paced shows about nothing much at all, and Bored to Death isn't one of them.

* full disclosure: every time I saw him on the screen I wanted to punch him in the face. I'm not proud of it, but cmon.

Rear view

Can't sleep, so I decided to at least get some work done. That quickly morphed into surfing the Internet. That morphed into talking to Ana (she's slaughtering ogres wholesale for their precious precious, reputation-yielding beads, as one is wont to do at 5am)...

And we ended up discussing guild issues. How novel.

Anyway, I've been meaning to write something about Bored to Death and In Bruges, so watch this space if that's your sort of thing.

A Washingtonian Epilogue

Tonight I went to a quiz thing, in Warsaw.

It's been a year. Nothing has changed. Things just faded.

Swirling

Days went by and suddenly it was time to see Tori in concert. I think I subconsciously downplayed my expectations and all but wiped the upcoming event from the horizon, having been somewhat disillusioned by her latest offerings, and generally disapointed by the last few musical events I went to (for some reason every time I expected transcendence and obviously often that just wasn't the case).

Anyway, we got there at 6p.m., and the proper set began at 9, so I was already a little bit restless. She started off with Give, which is a killer track, but one that did not grab me live. As far as I'm concerned its magic lies mostly in the hypnotic, oriental cadence of the chorus, but on stage it got chopped up and stretched out to the point where it missed all the checkpoints of the sonic imprint I so desperately wanted it to follow. Still, it's a very atmospheric number, and I started getting a slight tingle. She followed up with Hotel which is an awesome, convoluted Siamese quadruplet of a song, but I still found enough purchase outside the experience to note that my favorite piano counterpoint during the "I have to learn to let you crash down" was almost inaudible. Next up were band introductions, followed by Cornflake Girl. I remember thinking "Aw, that's nice..." and then blacked out. I resurfaced towards the end of the concert, during Jamaica Inn, which I loathe, but got immediately sucked back in for the encores. I can't recall a single thought I had during all that time, and I had a lot of trouble piecing the setlist together. It was literally the best Tori gig I've seen in 10 years (I don't remember absolutely anything about my first concert, back in September 1999, so it'll forver remain enshrined). The audience was amazing (one example: everyone started rhythmically clapping during the intro to Space Dog, even before the actual piano part came in; she almost fell off her stool with delighted laughter). And the performance was incredible. Flavor is just magical live, and we got a double punch to the tearduct in the form of solo Upside Down & Gold Dust. There was also the best version of Bells for Her I've ever heard, including all the bootlegs, with a really heavy piano & percussion jam (which might sound weird for those who know the song), and a balls to the wall spectacular rendition of Raspberry Swirl, which she finally made work live* with some rather inspired Donna Summer-esque vocal cascades.

She was totally in her element, and very visibly taken with the extatic response (seriously, Polish audiences deliver). And that actually translated into the setlist - I checked previous shows, and ours was the only one of the entire tour with two encores. It was also 3 songs longer than the usual set (aside from adding a second encore, she also extended the main part of the show by one song). All in all, she played for over 2 hours, and still only set the biggest fireworks off at the end.

So, based on this, and the Sia concert in Dublin, I now firmly believe that the key to a memorable experience is going to the last concert of a given tour. It's so logical it has to be right.

* it never quite did for me

Camp

I got a haircut and kind of look like Sia's manager now. Not sure I'm happy about that.

I'm also enjoying the hell out of Community, the second season of Top Chef, and Fever Ray. And have a couple of pointless stories that might as well wait a few more days. Or weeks.

From time to time my former boss blurts out her impressions on Buffy via gtalk (in real time). She's currently in the 3rd season, so there's quite a lot. It fills me with joy and tearful pride. It's what I imagine watching your challenged child take that first step after all must feel like.

Flotsam

Sunday ended up being horrible. Although nothing happened. Because nothing happened? Suddenly this vague haze of general unpleasantness descended and that was that. I went to sleep knowing that all I had to do was somehow plow through into unconsciousness and have a brand new perspective delivered to my bed come morning. Instead, I got mired in various would- and neverhavebeens, reliving stuff best left decomposed. Finally, in order to clear my mind a bit, I started examining the best and easiest ways of ending one's tenure on this mortal coil (I know that might sound kind of creepy and disturbing, but it's an old, tested, and purely intellectual exercise). However, even that backfired - I started out with a relatively zen sneaking-out-into-a-blizzard scenario, which fit in nicely with trying to get some goddamned sleep, but as I started drifting off and thus lost my focus, my mind took it into hardcore frostbite, getting rescued, having my limbs amputated, and looking for a way to lunge myself jugular-first towards something sharp.

Yeah.

And so, here I am, reading the Internet at 4am. Apparently, all is well with the world.

Collected writings

I had to give up my not-so-leisurely strolls because I'm old now, and crippled (i.e. flat footed), and my joints decided they aren't putting up with them anymore. But you can finally taste fall in the air, and I started really missing my evening ritual, so I figured I'd just get myself those really fancy, personalized orthopedic insoles, and all will be well. The whole process started out very high-tech, with a special sensor mat, and computer imaging, but I think i failed at walking on it correctly, or standing on one foot steadily, or something... Either way, the technician seemed more and more annoyed, until finally he told me to just stand on a sheet of paper and off-handedly traced my foot with a very regular and not at all impressive pen. The final result looked like the work of a very accomplished kindergartener.

In my defense, I had a hard time keeping my balance because I could barely stop myself from laughing: in an apparent bid to add a little bit of oompf to the inherently unsexy ambiance of an orthopedic workshop, someone decided to hang a big, glossy male nude on one of the walls. But in keeping with the overall theme, the dude was draped over a wheelchair. No joke.

Anyway, my cyberfeet will be ready by the end of October. And then - pavements beware.

Religion

Anyone know what the dogmatic reason behind the Catholic NO CONDOMS obssession is? Is it the sanctity of life aspect, or that sperm is da bomb and thou shallt not spill it or subject it to latex?

I actually think it's about time for a change of the guard. For our society to lay down a bunch of rules to confound and incite the people of 4000AD ("What do you mean You shall not download Internet porn. The Internet IS porn.") We got a good start with Scientology, but that let's face it, that thing's already preposterous, so it's probably gonna age in dog years. I predict a major schism in 2020. You read it here first.

And on a related note: cool service.

Harder

A while ago ao gave me a version of The Taming of the Shrew that was part of a BBC mini-series called ShakespeaRe-Told (cringeworthy name, I know). I finally watched it last night, and it is absolutely brilliant. In fact, it was so good I'm totally getting it on DVD for Christmas. I'm posting the same scene ao tempted me with, because it simply has to be seen. And trust me, both Shirley Henderson and Rufus Sewell are spectacular throughout:

For the past 15 minutes I've been trying to come up with a way of expressing how incredibly sexy I find the 3:15-3:20 bit that would make it very clear it's not about violence at all, but as you can see I've had little success. The thing is: granted that an occasional Sunday armstice is observed, a perpetual tug of war really does seem like a dream romantic scenario to me. Unfortunately, it has come to my attention that it's a lot more difficult to meet someone in a metaphorical dungeon.

Australia

Mom sent me this tonight. I love it. Been trying to find an mp3 version, but no luck so far. If anyone's able to overcome the whole transcription issue and actually locate it - I'll be very grateful.

I've been to another themed party recently - this time it was the 60s. I had so much fun at the noir event that I decided I wasn't above spending a little dough to piece together the right look. It kind of paid off, in that almost everyone turned up in costume, so I fit right in. The party itself was pretty stellar - we convened at the birthday boy's apartment, had a bit of various spirits to grease the gears, and then spilled out into the streets of Warsaw, glass in hand, to shock and awe - or as was mostly the case: bewilder and preplex - the uncouth masses. Then we were picked up by a private tram, which drove us across the city to a river-adjacent hotel... I'd write "riverside", but even though the street name has the word "embankment" in it, Vistula was nowhere to be seen. Which might have actually been a good thing.

I hardly knew anyone there, except for the hosts, a couple of very fresh or very distant acquaintances, and a guy I had seen once before - over a year ago, and even that in passing - whom I nonetheless remembered quite well. The guy turned out to be spoken for, and I lost my favorite, and at this point irreplacable, hoodie. That collectively put a bit of a damper on things, so I went home early. It took me a day to live down the dissolution of the shade of a sketch of a prospect, but I'm still bummed out about the hoodie.

On Sunday I'm going to another birthday party. This one's completely prospect-free, so there's a chance my wardrobe will escape intact.

The best part

What's up, you ask? A few things, actually. I will not become institutionally distracted starting this fall, because apparently they've moved the recruitment phase since I last checked, but i'm still seriously thinking of dipping my toe back into academia for a moment. We'll see how I feel about that come June.

I also had a random chat with Asia recently and we came up with what in hindsight seems like a glaringly obvious idea, which for once I would really like to pursue all the way to its inevitable demise at the hands of reality. We're in the very, very early development stages, but we seem to have at least a couple of things going for us, so... damn, I at least want to be able to say I've tried. Sorry about the vagueness, but I already dread people asking me about that thing I meant to do and me having to explain how it all went to hell.

I went out with the three A's tonight, vaguely aware that at some point dancing might be involved (that's: went out dancing, in adjustedspeak). I made every preparation - tried to get wasted with my companions at home beforehand, tarted myself up a wee bit, hummed Kylie in my head... alas, the first place we landed at offered us a thumping beat and not much else (the highlight was a pretty bad remix of a very boring La Roux song). I would have tried at least going through the motions for the sake of the people who invited us there... had I any motions to go through. Unfortunately, that is not the case, so we moved to Kulturalna, where the music was equally thumpy, but with a funky twist. After downing some more vodkas and focusing hard on "having some fun" I managed to enjoy about a number and a half, but then shit got electro, the music left me, and I decided to vacate the premises.

The moral of the story is: I seem to have temporarily misplaced the ability to get drunk socially. I only feel the benefits once I detach, and am suddenly able to languish in the heightened/distorted impact of my own music, and the city pulsing around me in the night. Which, incidentally, often makes the walk home the most enjoyable part of the evening.

Meanwhile, tomorrow could make for a nice and vivid memory, or become an unmitigated disaster. Right now I'm totally not feeling having to prance around a huge shopping mall in full-on 60s picnic garb, but there seems to be no way around it. Then again, hey...

Nope. I got nothing.

Mutant update

Kylie Minogue - Too Far

Some terrible remix. And it really is a pretty good song when you're in the mood for something breathy, frantic, and somewhat unsettling.

The Ol 97s - The New Kid

Live. Which is to say: not that good.

The Fall

Shall I go on?

The case for/against BB

Some time ago I happened upon this song with a rather killer (if somewhat rockchick) intro that got me giddy from the first note. And then the chorus happened. And giddy was a thing of the past, buried under layers of soulcrushing blandness. I was so disapointed I actually shared the story with several people. The song was Another White Dash, the artist - Butterfly Boucher.

Well I recently listened to her 2nd record, and it turns out it's just what she does. Builds up your expectations with something full of promise only to crush them with the most generic chorus you could imagine.

Exhibit A



Exhibit B

I know it's all subjective, de gustibus blah blah blah, but in my case it's literally fusing an instant hit with an instant miss. Sad panda.

Position locked

A while ago I caught wind of two apartments for rent, both cheaper than my current one. For some time now I have been a bit worried about how quickly I seem to burn through cash, so I decided to check them out. The cheaper of the two was on Smocza, so in my current district, even closer to my parents' place, and deep within my comfort zone (across the street from my kindergarten, actually). Unfortunately it was somewhat cramped, hot, and I was warned about psychotic neighbors, all too eager to call the cops on you whenever they don't like the noise level.

The 2nd one was on Narbutta, a quiet, lovely street in Mokotow, the "Holy Grail District" for most Varsovians. By the time I got to see it, I really hoped it would be a dingy little shithole, because the more I thought about it, the more nightmarish the perspective of getting uprooted again seemed. Unfortunately, it was not. It kind of reminded me of Paris. Which I've never ever been to, but it did. Don't make me explain. It was tiny, but very cozy, overlooking a quiet courtyard, and stuff. And my friends live just down the street. The only downsides were the shower (kind of icky, to be honest), and the windows which were supposedly less than hermetic. Oh, and you had to take the rent in cash down to some guy at the French Institute (hey, maybe that's where the Paris part came from).

I spent 2 days agonizing over the issue and trying to make up my mind, before finally deciding to stay at my current place. My reasoning was, obviously, multi-layered and complex, but it all boils down to the fact that I've just grown too attached to it. Once I let the girl from Narbutta know I wouldn't be taking the apartment, I went into the kitchen to make myself some tea, and suddenly felt such a surge of joy and relief... I know it's just a simple psychological mechanism put in place by our alien overlords to make us content with our decisions, but nonetheless I think it was some sort of turning point. I like this place. I like the space, I like the clean bathroom, I like the giant kitchen table, and the crazy couch. I like my queen-sized bed, and my plum-coloured, bulletproof drapes. I don't like the fucking armchair, but at least I can bury it under my clothes, much like I used to when I lived with my parents.

So I guess I'm here to stay.

Southern Comfort

...but with a whimper

I'm back in Warsaw and have no idea what to do with myself with no people or deadlines to meet, no movies to miss, and no food to binge on.

I also happen to be exhausted and couldn't be more thankful for this long-overdue implosion.

My name is Calypso and I have lived alone

On Monday night, most of the Kropka people went out to party. I tagged along, and it was cheek-muscles-cramping-from-smiling amazing. There was singing, and dancing (the first time I saw Rafal and Piotr, aka the Beauty and the Beast dance - both were quite spectacular, if for different reasons), and drinking, and general merriment. And on Tuesday morning I packed my stuff up and went back to Warsaw to see Suzanne Vega live - still undecided whether I would come back to Wroclaw afterwards, despite the previous night's events.

I went to the concert with filmmix and - unexpectedly - Irmina, who got her ticket as part of some despicable corporate tie-in. I spent the first two songs mildly anxious about how bored she would probably be by the experience - Suzanne isn't exactly the most flash-boom-bang type of performer. The gig itself was a bit uneven - I found myself drifting off at times. The middle part was the strongest, with a killer arrangement of Tombstone (which I had never heard live), My Favourite Plum, and of course Left of Center, which I find to be absolutely enchanting live (it's just vocals, bass, and - as is usually the case with Vega - pretty compelling lyrics). She did, however, play Some Journey, which I love, and then came the encores - 4 songs: Calypso (with a killer, spatially nautical electric guitar background), Rosemary, Pornographer's Dream and In Liverpool. It's not even that much of an exaggeration to say they're my 4 favorite songs. Or at least they represent the absolute pinnacles of achievement in the 4 major emotional realms of her music. I was over the moon.

And it turned out Irmina really enjoyed herself, so things were good.

I eventually decided to go back to Wroclaw for the remainder of the festival - mostly because the appartment was in desperate need of cleaning, and I was in desperate need of not having to wash any dishes and/or vacuum anything. I think it was a good idea. I've developed some sort of laid-back rapport with the Kropka managment, so most of the time I just end up lounging at their Wroclaw HQ, translating odds and ends, and enjoying the general ambience.

Last night we went out drinking again, and I finally got to talk to the girl with whom I had clashed during the run-up to the festival. It's a good thing I did, because while we were completely unable to resolve our differences, I at least learned that I'm an incompetent emotional cripple with personal issues, which is in turn a very good thing to know when you're having second thoughts about how you handled a particular situation. I love the sizzling sound guilt makes as it dissolves in a pool of vitriol.

And today marked ao and Irmina's arrival. We went out to dinner, ate some ridiculously delicious stuff (seriously, Wroclaw rocks cuisine-wise, it makes bulimia seem really appealing), and got shitfaced on Sangria. Right now I'm chilling in my hotel room, riding out the last of my buzz, about to pour myself a bath, and get ready for a night out with fun, intelligent, cheerful people... Those Somalian kids have it a bit worse, right?

p.s. part of a short text message from Asia. In Polish, deal with it : "uslyszalam po drodze goscia, ktory spiewal: 'a ja wole moja mame, bo ma oczy jak twoja stara'

Ballpark

- So, what's the story behind your t-shirt?
- Actually this is one of the very few I own that doesn't have one...

...but I do have this one with two unicorns fucking under a rainbow, which would save us both a great deal of time.

Naturally, I didn't say that outloud.

The least you can do
Is be flattered
By affections squandered

Working at the milk farm

They serve breakfast until 10 a.m. but after getting up at 8:45 for 2 consecutive days I was at the end of my rope, decided I won't be terrorized anymore, and slept in. It was glorious.

Then a bubble bath with Anansi Boys (which are better than I thought they'd be), a short hike downtown, a big mocha, and 4 pieces of mozarella & tomato toast. I'm ready to begin work.

3 peons in the gold mine, 3 peons gathering lumber, and a turret up. Bring it on.

Edit: Ok, a kitten just sauntered in, made its way onto the table next to mine, and lied down on it, preparing for a nap. I feel like I'm in the Eastern Bloc's answer to Ithaca.

Edit2: a random dude just picked the cat up apparently only to peer inquisitively at its genitals, and then tossed it back onto the table. My mellow was somewhat harshed.

Unexpected

Fun fact - I just decided: enough of this bullshit, time to start posting on the Polish(ish) blog again. Except apparently it doesn't exist anymore. I mean, it's still there, you can access it, but I can't log into the admin part of it. Which means, I guess, that I'm stuck with this experiment for better or worse.

Anyway, tonight was some sort of solstice. My main problem during the Wroclaw festiwal usually is being very acutely aware of how far away I am from my power source, and not having a dedicated wingman who would alleviate the resulting anxiety. Even when I come here with friends, I'm never the no. 1 person on their priority list, which means that potentially there are times when I'm either on my own or forced to tailor my plans to someone else's agenda.

Which is, as you can imagine, a nightmare in our time.

All this has heretofore been merely a nuissance. This year, however, I have actual unpleasant shit to deal with (or to desperately try to avoid dealing with, as seems to be the case) and could really use some backup. So, naturally, almost none of the usual suspects bothered to come, and those who did are, by nature of the aforementioned shit, benevolently neutral at best.

The critical evening (for reasons too boring to get into) was tonight, and it sent me into a downward spiral followed by a total mobilization. I tapped ley lines I hardly even sensed, just to get through the potential showdown in one piece - or at least have something to fall back on. The bloodbath thankfully never happened, but I was so flush with reinforcements that sudenly I was having the best time, darting strategically to and fro, and reveling in my newfound sense of security.

All in all, a great evening. I just hope that overkill won't result in some sort of mana burn. Hopefully they abolished that mechanism in this edition.

ENH

I arrived in Wroclaw, and there's already shit I don't need.

Life, the universe, and everything

Hung is off to a very slow start, but it did manage to sum up my entire existence in a single, brilliant telephone monologue:

"I wanted to call you, but I've been been drowning in paper all night, the whole law firm is freaking out... I'm not really certain, some bank is going belly up... I don't know, I just make sure all the words are spelled correctly when it does."

Embrace your redundancy.

Things that are black

I think the thing I miss most about my old room is the sound of rain on the street outside my window, and of the odd car driving in the night over the wet asphalt. There's something about nighttime storms that I find incredibly comforting. The more tempestuous the better. Here, none of my windows face the street (thought that's actually a blessing, JP2 is far too noisy), and something's off with the angles - the raindrops never seem to hit them. And when they do, the sound is abrupt and unpleasant.

When my dad was 20, he decided that he would spend his 40th birthday in Vienna, his 50th in New Orleans, and his 60th in Reykjavik. He went to Vienna alone - it was a big deal back in 1989. Mom tells me that she took me to meet him in Budapest, and then the three of us came back home. The only thing I remember about that journey is that I got a Hungarian Tom & Jerry comic book. We didn't have those in Poland yet. Ten years later, he took me to New Orleans - that trip I recall much better, though for me the entire thing was still mainly about seeing Tori Amos live for the first time in my life. But I do remember walking with him down Bourbon Street on his birthday night.

On Tuesday, I bought him tickets to Reykjavik, trying very hard not to think about the whole thing in terms of a "proper sendoff". I could tell he didn't expect it, but we're both titans of emotional display, so the whole exchange took maybe 10 seconds, and then we were off to the next topic. Mom was incredibly happy, and later told me he actually teared up. Of course I never even noticed.

We'll know on Aug 8th when he starts chemo.

The sky is really uncanny tonight, Pitch black. You can almost feel the void beyond. No moon, no stars, not even any of that reflected city glow. And certainly no rain.

Open'er and other festivals

Back from the coast, with somewhat mixed feelings. It was probably my last Open'er (unless the lineup is totally stellar - never say never and all that). Too much of a hassle for too small a gain, at least music-wise. I was only actually having a good time for a few moments during Santigold's set. Otherwise it was a world of meh tempered with hysteria (Crystal Castles, what the fuck?)

...

Aaand I drifted off to do other shit on the Internet. Writing in English still doesn't come naturally. Anyway, there were several surprises. For one, it was probably one of the most effortless group holidays EVER - at least that's how something in my brain chooses to remember it. We had this easygoing cameraderie, and things just flowed naturally. And most of the time I felt perfectly content with where I was at the moment, which is a new development - I usually keep wondering what's going on with the OTHER groups, regret not staying up with the rest, or resent not having the good sense to turn in when I should have. Yet for some reason during this weekend, I felt equally at ease surrounded by friends as I did making my way home by myself (I was usually the first one to call it a night).

But probably the most interesting - at least to me - part of this weekend was that I returned home yearning for a real vacation. Like... at a lake. Or in the mountains. Or something. I don't think I've done that in... well, years. Ten, maybe more.

I won't write about the obvious stuff, because I beat that horse to death in actual conversation, and I won't write about the less obvious stuff, because I just unloaded that part on an unsuspecting victim. So thank you for reading my Open'er odds-and-ends presentation, and good night.

Wholesale

I've a bug infestation in my kitchen. I think I've seen a roach (albeit a small one), some ants, and something about halfway between the two. I reacted with what seems to have become my default response to life's nuissances: resignation laced with a sense of injustice. "I just don't have the mental or emotional resources to be dealing with this right now". Today I finally went shopping and bought some weird cubes of boric something or another that I'm supposed to leave all over the kitchen. The package has this comforting, industrial, DDRish look, which gives me hope. No bright colors, no fancy pictures, just blocks of text, all yellow and black. Because genocide is no laughing matter.

There was another storm today. I don't think we've had a single day without one over the last week. I was walking back home from lunch as the skies darkened and the wind started gathering strength. Always a smell the roses moment for me.

There was this quote... something about life being all the stuff that happens between the noteworthy moments. I think I'm slowly maturing into that school of thought, and it seems that way comfort lies. Barring any paradigm shift (and the only one I can think of is having a kid, so.... yeah) this seems to be the proverbial it. Get a place. Make ends meet. When in doubt - treat yourself to some sour jellybeans. I have a nagging feeling that this realization (or delusion, take your pick) should come as a disapointment, but... not so much. Stuff seems fairly groovy, in a restrained, Canadian anarchist kind of way.

I guess I'm having some sort of not-quite-midlife anti-crisis.

The pegasus lands again

I'm beginning to think there is nothing that can't be made better by the addition of Michelle Forbes, series-wise.

Apart

I've finally experienced this thing most of my friends complained about at one point or another - having all this stuff you want to write down, and losing all interest in going through with it as soon as you sit down at the computer. Hence the prolonged - for me at least - silence.

Work has really picked up. The festival preparations are gradually getting more and more frenzied, but we haven't yet hit the hysteria threshold. Me mostly because I have no way of gauging our progress and so I'm completely oblivious as to how much work awaits us still. Then again, there's the other translating stuff I'm doing at the moment - nothing gruelling, luckily, but the deadlines are absurd. I definitely feel the strain, but at the same time i'm almost grateful for being able to alternate between the two when one gets too stressful or unpleasant.

And things did get unpleasant at one point. The moment I got back from England, I had almost simultaneous head-on collisions with two translators who didn't take too kindly to my proofreading. To make things worse I wasn't without fault either, at least as far as the tone of my initial messages was concerned. It's all over now, and won't ever happen again (one of the few perks of this sort of job - I get to pick who I work with), but I just don't handle that sort of shit too well. But that was literally the only grain of salt so far. I get along with my current boss swimmingly, we babble away on gtalk all day long and I think it's safe to say we're having a blast.

Ana left for the US and it's very weird, even with the transitional phase of her being totally overworked and zombiefied over the last few months. With her gone, and the family no longer providing the background static, it truly feels like I'm flying without a net. Except flying implies motion, and this is just some sort of... stasis, I suppose. Not unpleasant, but confounding.

I feel like I don't see my friends at all. I just don't have the time. And somehow that doesn't really feel bad either. Things just move forward, and I with them, carried by the current. The loneliness thing just got misplaced somehow, I don't even know when. And obviously I'm not exactly turning the place upside down, trying to find it.

They're admitting dad on Monday. They've found another type of cancer in the meantime.

Maybe I'm just not processing all this properly. Maybe processing is overrated.

Bring your own sun

I stopped writing about Birmingham mostly because everything I posted was instantly sucked into my host's RSS feed.

But now I'm back, a wee bit wiser about group dynamics, and ready to mold this episode into a spectacular memory. I expect it won't be difficult at all:

Lest we acknowledge it

It's my second night in Birmingham. I'm writing this from an inflatable mattress in my hosts' workroom, accompanied by two laptops, a sewing machine and a small mirror, which I unsuccessfully attempted to break (I was cursed by a disposable Urban Outfitters bag, you see...)

As you can probably tell, I should be sleeping instead.

Last night was really cool. My hosts threw a birthday/anniversary bash, inviting their various friends from all over the map (I was pretty disalieved with the turnout). Everyone got dressed up in full noir regalia and converged in Mmffbb Mmmm Mffmfff (that's the name of the pub I can't recall) which looks like a full-fledged freemason joint, just without the secrecy. Opulent like you wouldn't believe. After a few drinks we moved to a retro cinema for a private screening of Chinatown (God this movie's weird at times), and finally ended up at Bohdan and Karolina's apartment, concluding the festivities at around 6 a.m. Laughs were had and photos taken, though once again I ended up without a single glamour shot. Mind it, there's some cool and funny ones, just not anything i could look at and say Ok, that's a good one. Which is all the more frustrating since it's not like I'm the Ass-Faced Boy and I'm pretty sure there has to be an angle that doesn't bring out my inner potato.

It's a bit weird visiting the UK without Ana. Instead I share the roof with the Three Graces, a gaggle of delightful - and contrary to this abbreviated description quite different - girls whom I nevertheless hardly know, and who on occassion seem a bit... overwhelmed by flashes of unfiltered me. Much as I would like to just let my freak flag fly, I can't help feeling somewhat self-conscious. Especially when confronted with queries like Seriously though, why are you staying all the way until Thursday? Gosh... Um... Good question, I guess?

That being said, I'm having a wonderful time, basking in Karolina's golden glow and taking full advantage of Bohdan's plug-and-play personality. Already had a couple Smell the Roses moments (you know, when you actually take a step back and go Oh, wow... Happiness) and I'm counting on grabbing a few more for the scrapbook before my time is up.

Ok, finally sleepy. Over and out.

Thrall

Had a rather gloomy day today. Nothing major, just a slightly chillier current making its way to the foreground.

For the life of me I can't figure out what triggered it, so I guess it's random. Unless my ebb and flow is actually affected by the movement of celestial bodies. Which would be weird. And fascinating.

Immersion

I was always tickled by how seamlessly Bollywood actors switch back and forth between English and their native language, even in the middle of very intense exchanges. It just seems so natural, like they're instinctively drawing upon whatever tools best express their emotions at that particular moment. Fascinating as it is, I still had mixed feelings about it, what with the residual stigma of collonialism, and all.

But now I was just flicking through some Swedish film, and noticed the exact same thing. It's not yet as pronounced - the English bits are sparse, and sometimes delivered with such a thick accent that even their own subtitlers seem to treat them as an integral part of the source message, and parse rather than transcribe them (for example, at one point a girl finishes her sentence with You can go now and the English subtitle states Go away). Then again, there's also a scene where a highly agitated guy yells at his cheating girlfriend and halfway through, without missing a beat, chucks in an almost textbook, pronounciation-wise, IN YOUR FUCKING DREAMS.

The stigma? Not so much residual this time, but for some reason I find this sort of hegemony far less objectionable. Some part of me rails against the encroachment, but at the same time it's so... exciting. Another tantalizing whiff of Cyberpunk Now.

Not there

I went to visit Kaska and Piotr yesterday. Piotr made pizza (or rather: two pizzas), we had a few good laughs and more than a few moments of extremely non-PC behavior. Kuba - their son - was adorable, as always. I'm still tickled by how matter-of-fact Kaska is about him. No doting whatsoever. It's such a welcome change from borderline hysterical mothers. Piotr, on the other hand, is very affectionate, which I find equally entrancing. Just not used to seeing that side of him, I guess. A moment in time:

Wiska is playing with Kuba, dangling a plastic bag in front of him, and then hiding it behind her back
Kuba: Not there!
Wiska, extremely excited: He just said "Not there!"
Kaska, barely looking up: Yeah, he does that.
Wiska: But he actually said it a propos, I took away the bag and he went: "Not there"!
Kaska: Well, he says it about a 100 times a day, so chances are he'll sometimes get it right.
Kuba, smiling proudly: Not there!

Friendly fire

Go out to dinner with friends and have your private life inadvertently summed up in 2 sentences.

Alternatively: eat a bagel and stab yourself with a fork.

The choice is yours.

Give

Sorry, haters - TVAB is my favorite, so I was unable to resist this one.

Burn

I came home on one of the new subway cars last night, the ones with a red LED time/date display. Mine read:

So 09.05.09 23:11

And I thought to myself: Wow, subway car. You're incredibly specific in your condescension.

Lokomotywa

Wpadlem na chwile do domu rodzicow wydrukowac umowe. Tym razem wzialem klucze. Matki nie ma, ojciec spi. Nie obudzilem go.

Gdy zasiadlem do komputera znalazlem oparta o monitor pocztowke z parowozem jadacym przez jakies sciernisko (rodzina byla w weekend w Wolsztynie na jakims zlocie starych parowozow z calej Europy).

Pocztowka zaadresowana do nich samych, zgodnie z ojcowska tradycja.

Tak jechalismy.

Wagonow bylo wiecej.

I lato w pelni.

Wyniki w poniedzialek.

Pooh

Turns out the last.fm radio thing isn't broken - it's just that my trial has ended, and now they want me to pay 3 bucks a month for it to continue streaming. I'll have to meditate on it.

If I ran away

On a day like this, there are worse things you could be doing with your time than playing Frozen Charlotte and taking a few minutes to stare at the lilac outside your window.

Just saying.

Grooves

If some alien lifeform were studying my daily routines, they'd probably notice a particular pattern I have followed since my 2nd day here: Take a lemon out of the fridge, slice off a small chunk and squeeze its juice into tea, place the remaining part of the lemon under a small glass dome, doubtlessly designed just for that purpose, proceed to ignore it until it's rife with mold, toss it out, wash the dome, take a lemon out of the fridge...

I went to two recordings today, and was reminded just how much I hate them. For me they're always a game of "spot all your failures". I loathe listening to the lame jokes, and my even lamer attempts at translating them. It turns out some good has come out of the absurd anal retentiveness of the new contract guy - I might have spent an entire week on something I'd usually do in a day's work, but my text was so polished, had been thoroughly checked by so many people, that the recording session was virtually painless. Plus, it was a documentary. That always helps.

Met a cute translator at the studio, I think we even got introduced, but of course the name bounced right off my brain. Also had a bit of a laugh with the nexus girl. Recession is so funny. Ha ha.

My parents went to Cracow for the weekend (and Wroclaw, and Wolsztyn, and Kalisz, and Lodz, all in all, they covered 1500km), so I stopped by today to learn how their trip went, and tell them about Berlin. Halfway through one of mom's stories I caught myself feeling this little spike of misty-eyed exuberance, the sort you sometimes get when you're kind of drunk and having a really good time talking to someone you like. Which was pretty awesome. Dad's going in for tests on Thursday, but they seemed in really good spirits, so... Well, we'll see.

I've been watching the new season of In Treatment and was a bit disapointed at first,that none of the patients' stories drew me in, and some of them even annoyed me. I'm on week five now though, and find myself really looking forward to the Mia sessions, even though I used to find her completely unpalatable. April's ok too, and Gina - the one constant - never fails, because I find Dianne Wiest just too damn engaging. So that makes 3 out of 5. Not bad, I guess. I still liked the first season better, but I also admire how they actually moved shit forward. Paradoxically, I almost like seeing Paul, the main character, reveal in the Gina sessions what an asshole he is, or use these kind of low, transparrent gambits during his own sessions with his patients. It makes him feel so real. And it's quite a progression - it wasn't so pronounced in the first season. The signs were there, but you didn't see him openly struggle with his life.

Aaand that's that.

There is something exciting...

Yesterday, we went with Ana and Yssy to Berlin, to see Sia in concert. I use the word "yesterday" deliberately, because we left Warsaw at 11a.m., and arrived back within 24 hours. And it's a 12 hour roundway trip.

The governmental area of downtown Berlin, around the Hauptbahnhof, is absolutely awestriking. Wide open spaces, clean architectural lines, not a speck of dirt in sight. And very little human presence. The place seemed deserted. It all felt very Gattaca, except in muted (though not oppressive or dull) greys instead of golden browns. And then there was the gothic Reichstag building topped with this futuristic, glass-and-steel dome that nevertheless seemed perfectly integrated into the design.

The concert itself seemed awfully short. Sia was adorable, as always, but much less talkative than in Dublin. I guess that's the difference not being in an English-speaking country and not doing the last performance of the tour makes.


We had several hours to kill before the morning train, so we went wandering around Kreuzberg. But before we even got there, we stumbled upon this... I don't even know what to call it. You walk along this brick wall right by a multi-lane, busy street just off the Ostbahnhof (think the Powązki part of Okopowa, the train station being Klif), and suddenly there's an opening in the wall, from which you hear the sounds of some vaguely tribal music. Beyond it lies a courtyard with some brightly coloured barracks to the sides, undoubtedly housing a bunch of clubs (this time - think Dobra). The inside of the brick wall is painted with vivid, rastafarian graffiti. And then, of course, there's a ramp. Leading up to an artificial, hilltop beach overlooking the river, complete with a beachball net, a tiki-style bar, and the almost opressive smell of weed. We wandered in there at around 11p.m. so I've no idea how the place looks like in sunlight, but the mere fact that you could step off a busy street in fucking industrial, post-socialist East Berlin and find yourself in this pocket universe, cut off from the city bustle... So uncanny.

In Kreuzberg proper we found a relentlessly stylish bar called "Mysliwska" with a photo of Cybulski hanging over the toilet entrance. There was also another one, much more to my liking, with live music, and some sort of secret passage leading out of the men's room (people kept going in, but reappeared out of sequence, and only after an hour or so), but I don't think we ever learned what it was called. Not for lack of trying. We ate mostly fast food (either because we were in a hurry, or because it was the middle of the night). At our last meal in Kreuzberg, the Turkish kebab guy started talking to us in Polish, and told us he has a villa in Zielona Góra.


I returned home with an all too familiar feeling of frustrated wistfulness, as if throughout the entire trip I'd been trying to make out with someone through a windshield - my system's fucked up way of saying it really liked what it saw.

[All photos courtesy of Ana]

Petrie

I could never fully relate to family dramas. I figured it was because my family was exceptionally issue-free. Turns out the reason was my arrested development, and now that I've finally left the nest, I find myself getting a crash-course of all the cliches you could think of. I had them over for dinner last Friday and the whole family dynamic got turned inside out. It's like this heaving, freaky blob that's mutating at the speed of light, up to a point where I'm not sure where we'll be at in a week's time.

I cooked an ungodly amount of pasta with feta cheese, olives and sundried tomatoes, and there was a lot of leftovers. The pasta turned out to be surprisingly good though, so I helped myself to two offerings today. Ergo, no lunch for tomorrow. The whole food logistics thing still eludes me.

Got a haircut. I kinda like it, but there's an issue. I'll see if I can work around it.

Need lots of random stuff for the apartment. Mop head. Scissors. Sugar bowl. Sofa. Extension cord. Salad bowl. Bowls in general. A stick of dynamite to blow the fucking armchair up. I already bought a big-ass knife, a bedspread, and new curtains. They need to be shortened though. Sigh.

You know how sometimes the only way to salvage some relative sense of self worth is by realizing that luckily there isn't enough time in the world for this other person to achieve everything they're capable of? Yeah, I figured you wouldn't.

Shiny

A lot of apartment stuff going on, but I don't really have time to go into that right now, so I'm just posting this brilliant disclaimer I found in one of the festival dialogue lists:

Translators & laboratories: the director, mr. Pasolini, has personally written, timed and layed out the Sinhala to English subtitles. He has requested that you only subtitle what he has subtitled, that you keep his timings and that you keep his layout and punctuation as closely as possible.

That's some hands-on directing.

Deployment

I've been feeling pretty weird for the past few days. Unsettled. This moving-in-installments business is more destabilizing than I thought. Last night I couldn't sleep because suddenly, for no apparent reason, I was convinced I hadn't locked the door on my way out, and someone probably ransacked the place. I went there today after the Easter breakfast under the pretext of moving some of my stuff. Of course everything was fine, and I celebrated by cleaning a window. One out of four. Small victory - small celebration.

Still no idea what to do with the bedroom layout. There's this horrible armchair that's taking up space that I can't get rid of (landlord's decree). And I've no bookshelves yet. And I'm not sure about the positioning of the desk. So that's been keeping me up too. I just want to get it over with though, so I'll probably transport the desktop to the new place tomorrow and that will be that.

Interior design conundrums aside - the only downside of the transition I'm concerned with right now is all the time I'l now be losing worrying about and foraging for food. But I imagine I'll have bigger fish to fry (pun! kinda!) once - finally rid of the family background static - I actually feel the full brunt of the L word. Speaking of which - the new Bat for Lashes is out, and the chorus on this thing amazing (though my favorite is still Glass).

The Chinese were wrong

For reasons not really worth getting into, I hit the Internet to read up a bit on the US public debt. After a while I started feeling as if I were listening to the intro of some postapocalyptic cyberpunk video game. And it's actually not the first time I had that feeling - I got a very similar, surreal vibe when I read last year that Iceland went bankrupt. I guess I'm gonna have to start getting used to it.

It's absolutely terrifying and thrilling at the same time. How often do you witness the collapse of a true empire? It's like we're Byzantium watching Rome fall, except, you know, not at all.

Chwyty

Szukalem polskich piesni religijnych, bo musze przelozyc jakis hymn do filmu, i znalazlem z pomoca bohdana te oto strone ktorej layout doprowadzil do powstania dosyc frapujacych tytulów. Ponizej probka:

Gdy srebrnikow garsc chwyty
Getsemani - spojrz, tam w gorze chwyty
Jakbym bardzo chcial chwyty
Krzyz a na nim Bog chwyty (anty-syty, I suppose)
Naucz nas, Panie chwyty
Oto nadchodza dni chwyty (brzmi nienajlepiej)
Pewnej nocy chwyty (Suddenly intruder)
Rozpiety na ramionach chwyty
Z Twego boku, Chryste chwyty
Zagubiony slad chwyty

Dostalem totalnej glupawki. A niektore i bez chwytow sa masakrycznie ("Na przydroznym krzyzu wykonawca"? WTF?)

Rentboy

On Wednesday, I'm getting the keys to my very first apartment. I'm looking forward to a life revolving around making ends meet and eating cardboard seasoned with cardboard leftovers from the previous day.

It's a 10 minute walk from my parents', even closer to the public transport hubs, and a stone's throw away from the biggest local open-air market. It's smallish, but nice. I'm currently consumed with issues of Internet access and furniture - I need some sort of table/desk for The Room (there's only one, so I don't really know what to call it), and a sofa for the kitchen. I know it sounds weird, but the kitchen's kinda big, and when I went to see the apartment, instead of chairs, there was this purple sofa (unfortunately the previous tenant is taking it with him), and I just loved the idea.

Especially since you can bet I'll have Internet access in the kitchen as well. Even if it means wiring the whole place. I'll have to look into wifi. Can you have both? Reliable, cable broadband for the desktop, and magical airborne Internet for laptop youtube on the loo?

Luckily Demencja's a total ebay freak - seriously, to the point of being certifiable - and she's busy scouring the land for good deals. Actually, she already found a huge pine table for PLN 70 (USD 20, for my huge international readership).

Crazy, crazy stuff.

Shit I pilfered

I found this on gofugyourself a little while back. You can get a few good minutes of giggles out of it, and that's even before you start wondering why Mary-Kate's forehead was redacted.

Then there was this, but I don't remember where I stole it from.

And finally, my favorite movie poster of the year so far:

Kings and Fools

There's this new series called Kings, starring Ian McShane of Deadwood fame, and some other people. It is set in an alternate reality, in a small, fictional, and by all appearances pretty much absolute monarchy located on the eastern coast of North America (its capital is a NYC lookalike called Shiloh). Sounds pretty nifty, right? And it is. Unfortunately, it is also offensively stupid. In freezeframe it's resplendent, but the moment the subject comes back to life, there's gurgling, and drool, and quite possibly feces. And the setup was so promising. The visual tone of the show is pretty spectacular - the city seems quite otherworldly, even though it's obviously New York. A little dab of mysticism nicely rounds up the "dark fable" feel, and there's high politics and court intrigue aplenty. But the actual story...

*spoilers ahead*

The kingdom's embroiled in a positional war (how that's even possible with current technology - no idea, but whatever) with its military superior. The word "outgunned" makes several appearances in the pilot episode. But then it somehow forces its opponent into an armstice by way of a grand symbol - the destruction of one of its invincible Goliath tanks. A wee bit mythical, but fine. Then, the kingdom - for pretty plausible reasons I won't go into - executes a sneak attack against said miltarily superior nation, breaking the truce it just achieved. Fine. And then the kid who blew up their tank before, charges at the enemy lines with a bloody sheet (his brother just died, y'know), and delivers a mindbogglingly ridiculous speech about his nagging deathwish, which convinces them to sign a peace treaty.

Let me translate this into our reality for a moment. It's 1938. Poland, for some reason, invades Germany, and gets its ass handed to it on what used to be its silver platter. Then, a young,Slavic boy is spotted on the battlefield, brandishing a bloody rag. He spews gibberish. Hitler gives peace a chance.

That's not all. There is also a state luncheon scene, in which our young miracle worker of simple origins is addressed directly by a foreign head of state and - would you believe it? - deftly finds just the right response. Which involves saying his brother just died, while sporting an aw-shucks smirk*. I shit you not. And a scene in which the peace treaty doesn't get signed based on some technicality, AFTER which the boy wonder grabs the departing foreign head of state by their arm... and somehow that becomes why the treaty wasn't signed. And, finally, the king ordering the kid murdered, and then changing his mind because the episode is almost over and the writers haven't figured out a good reason for him to change his mind. I'm not sure if that explanation actually made its way into the dialogue, but neither did any other one, so...

Damn. And I really wanted to like it.

* which, granted, is an acting WTF, and shouldn't be blamed on the writers, unless the script actually instructed the guy to grin like an idiot

I dare you not to like this

The finale

I hate to break it to you, Gaius, but the things you mentioned? That's not God. Those are plot holes.

Why is everybody whispering?

Went to Ana's today. Marta made quite possibly the best soup I've ever eaten, and some Indian-style chicken. We stuffed ourselves full of it watching several episodes of the unintentionally hilarious La Femme Nikita (boy, it did not age well) punctuated by clips from 07 zglos sie and The Colbert Report. Good times.

The event was concluded with the following conversation:

me: ...I'm still waiting for a full list - I just know they're gonna show Savage Grace, which is a pretty bad movie.
marta: Is it the one about the family that invented bakelite?
me: What?! No! Why?
marta: Well I remember you telling me about a movie about the people who invented bakelite...
me: That wasn't me.
marta: I'm sure it was you.
me: That's impossible. I don't even know what bakelite is.
marta: It's this synthetic stuff... What's the movie about then?
me: Nothing, really. Incest and dysfunction for the most part. Mother-son stuff.
marta: And you're sure they didn't invent bakelite?
me: No! There's no mention of bakelite throughout the entire movie!
marta: Maybe they're the descendants of the people who invented bakelite?

At that point Marta's relentless pursuit of the bakelite angle overwhelmed me and I dissolved into hysterical laughter. The mystery of the bakelite movie remains unsolved.

Edit: Mystery solved. It was the bakelite movie. I'm stunned.

A world of yes

Photo by Hama Sanders. I love absolutely everything about it.

By the by

Let's talk terrible opening credit songs.

Dollhouse and United States of Tara.

There. I'm glad we had this chat.

Prepare to be routed

The router saga continues. In short, I bought a replacement, but was charged 199PLN instead of the 69PLN that I expected. Initially I went along with it (in my world, money < dealing with crap), but as the day went by I got increasingly annoyed - I mean, that's a LOT of breakfasts - and finally decided to go back and clear it up.

Turns out that brand of routers wasn't in the store's database, so the checkout girl had to input the code manually, or something, and by default charged me for a wifi router, even though I bought an arcane ADSL brick. I got my money back, but had to return the router too, and buy it all over again. And when I did, the lady at the cash register tried to charge me 199PLN for it. This time I was prepared though, and instantly sunk a shiv into her left eye.

Well, not really.

The best part is, I took a good look at all the routers this time, and yeah, they do offer a wifi model from that maker, but for 139PLN.

Nothing else to report.

Mutant update

Alanis Morissette - I Was Hoping

Some live kinda-sorta acoustic version, instead of the studio one. It's actually pretty good though, so no harm done.

No comment

My router is in its death throes, so I went online to check exactly what model it is and what kind of replacement I should be looking for. In the process I familiarized myself with its features, which as it turns out include "Spectral compatibility with POTS" and - more importantly - "Dying Gasp Support (Population Option)".

Err...

Watchmen

Just saw the movie. I tried not to read any reviews, and I didn't re-read the graphic novel beforehand (though I won't pretend the latter was some sort of premeditated move meant to render me as unbiased as possible - I just find it too depressing). I did, however, click on some link at one point and read a bit of someone's critique - mostly about the movie losing focus after the first 30 minutes, and how its "slavish" faithfulness to the source material made it aimless and chaotic.

Well.

I loved it. From start to finish, save for two scenes marred by words too big to fit on any screen (the "What happened to the American Dream?" exchange, and the "Rapists having babies is the shit" speech). I loved the sprawling tableau feel of it, the ambiance- and image-based narrative, the uneven pace, which gave me time to recover from seeing pregnant ladies get shot (someone should look into the therapeutic effects of contemplating Patrick Wilson's chest hair), the title sequence (obviously), the music (ditto), the acting... Jeffrey Dean Morgan was great. Jackie Earle Haley was just stellar. Patrick Wilson either has the best agent ever, or the casting directors for his movies are geniuses. I keep seeing him play basically a variation of the same guy, but he fits the bill every time. I don't know if it's still acting if you're a big blue gob of CGI, but I found myself spellbound by Dr. Manhattan's delivery, so bravo Billy Crudup. For some reason though, I was most impressed by Matthew Goode. I thought he was pitch-perfect, just oozing this larger than life, self-satisfied charisma. I had actually only seen the guy once before - in one of those NYT Style showcases - and remember finding him revoltingly narcissistic (seriously, you might need a palate cleanser after that one - have a Joseph, or a Rosario). So maybe it was just another case of perfect casting? No matter, I don't care. His Ozymandias was spot-on.

You should go see it. Just so it breaks even in overseas gross. It's the right thing to do.

Rapture is near

I can now claim to have worked on movies, comic books, and computer games - the geek triphecta. Ergo, I've peaked at 26, and it's all downhill from here.

Where's the lanky

Every time I see the Wolverine promo pictures I get angry at them for casting Taylor Kitsch (kudos for the last name though) as Gambit. Totally wrong body type and facial features.

I'm very particular about my favorite X-Man.

Terminator has gone preposterous, and Battlestar Galactica merely annoying. The utter self-indulgence of the piano bits in the last ep was so grating. And I can just imagine the circle-jerk over this superfluous bullshit the DVD commentary will inevitably turn into. I wouldn't be surprised if the creators ranked it as one of their favorite episodes, right up there with the god-awful "boxing and flashbacks" one.

Ok, I'm done.

Writing here still doesn't come naturally, but going back to the previous place seems silly. I'm in limbo. Had a remarkably nice week though, at least so far. With more amusement coming my way tomorrow. Who knows, maybe it'll even merit an update.

Birds

The case for the case

Since it seems I'm giving insomnia another spin, I might as well get this one out too:

I've recently found myself defending Dollhouse on several fronts (friends, reputable sites, etc.). Or rather: distancing myself from it outwardly, while trying to diffuse - and hopefully invalidate - the criticisms in my own head. Finally, after seing this, obviously sympathetic, strip, and reading the accompanying commentary, I asked myself: what do I really think about the show? Do I truly sort of like it already? Or is it just a kneejerk reaction, springing from some bizarre loyalty to Joss Whedon? Maybe I'm simply unable to acknowledge this apparently obvious suckage?

The answer came fairly quickly: I will keep watching it - and not as an "expression of gratitude" for his previous works, but simply because a lot of the "other things I can do with my Goddamn television" aren't really worth doing. There's just too much stuff out there, and I'm really tired of endlessly wading through shit to find something memorable. In a world where even the most promising concepts (Psychic bumpkins? Vampires in Louisiana? HBO? Yay!) can turn into borderline hilarious soft porn when made flesh, groping blindly has lost a lot of its allure. So I'm gonna stick with Whedon until Dollhouse gets cancelled, just like I'm probably gonna stick with whatever the guys who made The Wire or Slings and Arrows do next. I just like my chances better with them.

Due diligence

I topped off my stomach flu with a dash of regular flu. Why not be thorough while you're at it?

Turns out I won't be moving out in May, which... well, it did not make me feel great. I had already started making preliminary plans, checking out public transport, etc. I think I really need a tangible proof of progress, of not being stuck in a rut. Especially since it's become apparent that I've not yet fully escaped the death-grip of November. I know it's just a matter of being distracted by some shiny object in more immediate vicinity, but Warsaw isn't exactly sparkling at this time of year. Although - funny story... Except it's not and I seriously hope history isn't repeating itself.

I reacted to the news by having a dream in which I discovered that I'd had a comb-over for the past several years, but it was getting totally ridiculous and I had to decide what to do with it. I'm sure Freud would have a field day with it.

How do I finish this one... obviously this wasn't a fun couple of days, but things aren't really that bad? Sounds about right.