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So today that comic thing happened. Hopefully it remains comic. Hopefully I'll learn tomorrow.

Edit: Whew.

The Horse

Nosze to zdjecie w komorce od 2 lat. Sciana pokoju matki:


Detal:


Pointy nie bedzie.

Overflow

I had a bunch of stuff to write about, but it's more and more difficult for me to actually post here. Or rather: it's more and more out of the way. I dump all the trivia into my Facebook feed, and the other stuff just dissolves after a day or two anyway, so why bother.

I'd like to have some kind of record* though, especially about the good stuff.

My birthday was last week. I threw a huge party for way too many people (It got freaky, I figured at least half of them wouldn't be able to make it, so I overshot with the invites, but then most of them actually showed up.) I don't remember any single conversation I had, which is weird, since I'm told I wouldn't shut up for the entire evening, and my throat was sore the next day, but that always seems to be the case for the host. Anyway, people claim to have had fun, and I got some awesome gifts, including the first volume of Absolute Sandman (incidentally, it took my mother about 6 minutes today before she spilled wine all over it, so that was fun) and a very cool boardgame, and a new toilet seat (that's right, you heard me), and a Polish, personalized rendition of this song. Because my friends are awesome.

As I was cleaning up on the next day, I kept remembering funny stuff from the evening before. I had it listed in my head for that entry that never materialized, but now I just remember Waste doing a short presentation of nerdcore, completely out of the blue.

It felt really nice to know that people came. As base as that sounds.

Then I went to lunch with a friend who came over from Krakow. It was a very long ride, and the tram broke down two stops before my destination, so I had to leg it. The sun was shining, I had this playing...


Life felt very good.

On the next day I got a full-blown sinus infection.

Took me a week to get better, but I finally did (sort of), so today my parents came over, and took me out to lunch at a bar mleczny in Praga, and a coffee (also in Praga, at a surprisingly hip cafe that they claim is their favorite - apparently they really get around). Life was really, really good again. I hope it keeps doing that, as often as possible.

* and now Famous Blue Raincoat is playing in my head. Brains are silly.

Perspective

Either I am developing some sort of mild social anxiety disorder, or I am only now becoming aware of having had one all along.

A week ago I was invited to a birthday party. Every single thing screamed: go there. I liked the host, but felt I didn't have enough opportunities or platforms to socialize with them. I didn't know any of the other guests, so it constituted "putting yourself out there". And the guest list consisted almost exclusively of gay menfolk.

My reaction? A bout of anxiety. At some point (at around 3 days to D-Day) I had to tell myself I'm not going *wink wink*, so that I would stop stressing about it. And I didn't make up my mind literally until I had to go out this very second to buy a birthday cake, because they were closing the bakery in 25 minutes. And I only did that after calling a friend on a complete whim (safety blanket response) and learning that I couldn't come over to them instead and whine about being fucked up, because... they had a legitimate reason for me not to do that.

Eventually I did go, even though when I put on my "I am a viable sex object" shirt, one of the buttons fell off, which I took for a bad omen. And of course everything was OK, if a bit awkward at first. And of course the coolest people there (or rather: the people I clicked with most) were a straight couple, since I was built to die alone. No prospects materialized, but, you know, the sky didn't exactly come crashing down either, and I actually had fun and a few good laughs - particularly when I sat down to eat some cake and saw this to my left:


And yet I haven't had this much anxiety about anything in at least the last year or so. Shit really freaked me out. I hope it's a phase.

Tomorrow starts today

"Absynth features three main synthesis modules which can be customized to a particular synthesis type, such as Subtractive, Frequency Modulation, Amplitude Modulation, or Granular, as well as direct sampling of raw audio data. It has a single filter (12/24 dB LP, HP, BP, Notch, and Comb), as well as a distortion algorithm, and effects including three resonant filters, "pipe" reverb, and multi-tap Delay. A modulation matrix allows the user three LFOs.

Graphically-edited assignable envelopes may be assigned up to 68 breakpoints each. In newer versions, breakpoint times and amplitudes may be manipulated further via MIDI controllers, as well as by curvature of the envelope line between breakpoints.

Absynth relies on user-based waveforms; either drawn directly, by manipulation of a sound spectrum, or else extracted from a WAV or AIFF file. Each can be used as an LFO, or an oscillator."

Was looking up this one band on wikipedia. "Absynth" was listed in their instruments. Sounded like a funny name, so I clicked the hyperlink - and that's the definition of what it does. Substractive or granular synthesis and a modulation matrix. Cyberpunk arrived a while ago, except nobody was paying attention. Ok: I wasn't.

Other Women

Far from flawless, and hardly revelatory, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. If "enjoyed" is the proper term here.

Reference point #1 - this is how you do a jawline:

The illusion of effortlessness requires a great effort indeed

Reference point #2 - this is how you pronounce "Sarah the Dancer":

Harness

I have a confession: I believe in petty magic. Or rather - I believe that once it has produced some sort of effect, the nature of a cause is irrelevant. And that the entire human experience is completely dependent upon one's brain/consciousness - which is very fickle. You can have all the reasons to be happy, and still feel miserable if your head doesn't buy it. Therefore the subjective always trumps the objective. And the subjective isn't always rational.

Of course this doesn't mean that I sacrifice goats or try to make sparks fly out of my fingertips, but I do allow myself some leeway when it comes to various trifles. For example, I've always really liked the Moon, for no particular reason. Whenever there's a full moon, I feel a little bit better - and happier. And so, I have made a conscious decision to avoid rationalizing it. To suspend my disbelief just enough so that something as random and easy to come by as the sight of a chunk of spaceborne rock continues to improve my well-being. It's a small price to pay, and I see no harm in it.

Which brings me to The Song of Ice and Fire. I've realized that I respond very favorably to stories that walk that fine line between my brand of "magic" and full-blown fantasy. I really like it when the choice is left up to you - when you're given enough loopholes and backdoors to reality to be able to stitch together a "it's all in their heads" explanation. It's why I loved The Prestige as much as I did (even if my very convoluted alternative reading of the film eventually collapsed under its own weight). And I think it's why I had such a negative response to the appearance of actual dragons at the end of the first book. There's no grey area here, it doesn't get any more high fantasy.

Well, I've almost finished reading book 2, and it only gets worse (or better, depending on your perspective), up to the point where my favorite background player got offed by supernatural means, and the Daenerys sections read like the 1001 Nights. And I have to say it spoils things a bit for me. I feel like this isn't exactly what I signed up for. Granted, Martin worked up a very nifty explanation for this shift, which I totally bought, so the book still gives me a lot of pleasure, but I can't help feeling that the political aspect suffered due to the slew of new dei ex machinae.

Downpour

We had a hardcore storm today. The sky just tore right open, and in through the hole poured a load of water. I barely made it to the tram stop before the first wave, and was safely in the tram by the time the main force arrived. The guy who got in several stops later was not as fortunate, as the deluge caught him on his way back from gym. Now, I know this because a) he was carrying a gym bag and b) he was wearing one of those thin white t-shirts, or as they're known in the context of freak rainstorms: nothing at all.

He was a good sport about it though. Almost as if sensing that it's the only sensible thing to do, he took a spot at the front of the tram, leaning back against the driver's booth, so that everyone could get a good look. You could almost hear the smattering of polite applause. "Well done, sir!"

Yeah

I was at my very funniest that year. This was not the Humor of Cure; it had nothing to do with the healing power of laughter. It was more of an airless, relentless kind of quippiness (...) Every time a complex human emotion threatened to break the surface of my consciousness, out would come some terrible cleverness.

I was Thanatos' rodeo clown. I still am. And Eros' as well, as it turns out. Years later, in a tender embrace in bed with my first real boyfriend, he said my name. "Oh, David." I stopped, sat up, and responded in my best Ed Wynn. "Yeeeesssssss???????" This kind of behavior more or less killed things between us.

David Rakoff, Fraud

Finished reading it. Waiting for the paperback version of Half Empty.

Chwila

Wlasnie zadzwonil Michal spytac, co robie, a ja bez glebszego zastanowienia odparlem, ze siedze w hotelu, gapie sie przez okno na deszcz i czekam, az w moim zyciu cos sie wydarzy.

Maly kneejerk, a cieszy. Mam do niego nawet obrazek.

Bubbles filled with smoke

I bought my tickets, and I'm ready to go. Wroclaw is ready for me to go as well, as it just started raining. Again. I shall not be defeated though, I'll have the reception SUMMON ME A TAXI CAB as I step out of the elevator in my non-existent shades. Much like the Jet Set do.

I think it's the longest I've ever stuck around. Full 10 days. It's been very mellow and low-key, with just one night of hectic drunken fun (the remaining nights being less hectic and somewhat less fun, but not necessarily less drunken. I'm all alcohol'd out.)

Yesterday, we had a back to basics kind of moment, when our food took so long to arrive that we actually missed our screenings... and didn't feel particularly bad about it, as the sun was shining, the food was good, and the beer kept flowing (not for me, obviously, but the others seemed to appreciate that aspect as well). We reminisced about the Cieszyn days. Apparently someone actually puked during a screening of Cremaster. Didn't know that story. Made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

We tried playing BSG last night, but we started at 1 a.m. so it didn't end well. Tonight it's Southland Tales (again) followed by farewell drinks at the festival club.

Next year I intend to mingle more. I feel I should be... well, maybe not networking, but at least making sure people know I actually exist. I'm pretty sure most of the festival people don't know who I am, or even that I do anything to make this thing happen. I'm also pretty sure I've already made this declaration at least once.

As usual, the city seemed to be filled with eminently fuckable people. Unfortunately, as usual I didn't get to know any of them. I can't say I'm particularly bummed out about it. Homesick, if anything.

Simply bubbles!

I really don't want to work at the moment, so here's a report from this year's NH festival. Or an attempt, at least.

One of the co-owners of the subtitling company just called another one of the co-owners and said: "Dress up nicely tonight, we'll be doing PR."

I haven't been doing PR at all, not yet at least, but it's been nice regardless. There's less work than last year, and I got put up at a nice hotel very close to the main cinema, so I haven't missed a single screening yet. Not that I've attended that many.

I arrived on Thursday, to torrential rain. Which was nice, since I brought two pairs of shorts and a ton of t-shirts. Wroclaw's main train station is being renovated, so you leave the platforms through this makeshift tunnel lined with aluminum siding. Which apparently gets flooded during the monsoon season. There was actually water streaming down through a crack in the (also aluminum) ceiling, like we were escaping Shawshank, or something. I lugged my ultra-heavy bag through half the city before I found a cab. And the rain lasted two days.

It's sunny now which means that we get to listen to a bad violin rendition of Smells Like Teen Spirit 27 times a day. The office has windows facing the main square of the old town, so there's street performers aplenty. I like the fire dancers, and the ballerina/policeman mime, because they don't make noise. The violin lady is Satan, or at least so we thought until we were subjected to a boy with an acoustic guitar and his own amplifier. Dude wailed like there was no tomorrow, but he didn't return on the next day, so here's hoping in his case there really wasn't.

The food has been good for the most part, and the company - better. It was a bit hectic for the first few days, but things took a turn for the silly and mellow. The moment the braindead gigglefest commences keeps getting pushed earlier and earlier - I think we set a new record with Kasia today, as we simultaneously imploded around 1 p.m.

I saw Southland Tales on a huge screen, and it was hilarious, I'll probably go see it again on Saturday. This movie should not be watched alone.

Yesterday, I got an impromptu in equal parts pleasant, hilarious and disturbing shoulder massage from Rafal, and listened to one of the translators talk about his thesis, the title of which included the words transcendence and singularity. It was really interesting, but also the most challenging train of thought I ever had to follow while drunk. It was all I could do not to pop a blood vessel.

What else... there's lots of jokes, but most of them emerge from the hermetic cesspit of our subtitling coven. The technical guys' favorite pastime seems to be finding quotes from movies that sound like they are referring to us and posting them to Facebook, where they are completely ignored by everyone not currently synchronizing subtitles at this particular festival, and greatly appreciated by the few people who are. Most of whom are in the same room and have already heard/seen the humorous line in question.

Obviously it's great fun.

Unfortunately, now I kind of have to do some work. Asia is stripping in front of me. It's not her point, exactly, but the damage remains, so I'm relocating to the table.

Coordinator out.

Good morning!

I dreamt that I was being terrorized by someone/something monstrous, and that I had one last chance to try to kill it - before something horrible happened - by severing its spine at the base of the skull with a chisel. The horror of the climactic moment was such that I woke up, and felt my right hand still going through a slack, paraplegic version of the stabbing motion.

Out of sequence

I have ended up for the weekend at a spa that refuses to call itself a spa; an "institute" with a terror of the world so crippling as to have no newspapers. No surprise, really, had I but taken the time, prior to my arrival, to seriously parse the terms "self-help" and "retreat." The former unabashedly egocentric, the latter alluding to defeated flight.

(...)

The word I most overhear, flying from mouths like spittle, is "intense." But it usually seems to apply to a massage or a movement class. When I do chance to overhear of a true test of faith and character, one person telling another, "My father died last Christmas and it was fairly intense, so I went to a bereavement workshop, which helped a lot," the response she gets is "Yeah, when everyone in the room is facing the same direction and the energy is aligned, it can be a very powerful force."

(...)

The evening's concerts are held in the Lake Theater, a barn-like structure with a small stage. The overhead light is grimy and yellow and flickering as moths and June bugs ping against the bulbs like rice at a wedding. A young folksinger on guitar and piano is accompanied by her ponytailed husband on bass. The audience is sparse, mostly women, alone and in pairs, the demographic hinted at on the first day. They sit with the studied serenity, the composed posture, that broadcasts for all the world to see "I go to things all the time alone. I don't mind."
In Edith Wharton's House of Mirth, the heroine Lily Bart - no longer as young as she once was, the financial promises made to her failing to pan out, her prospects at marriage dwindling daily, has a friend named Gerty Farish. Gerty is also unmarried. Gerty has no annuity. Gerty takes her meals in public dining rooms with other single women. And she does so good-naturedly. Every time Lily sees Gerty, she experiences an interval of panic. Wharton writes: "...the restrictions of Gerty's life, which had once had the charm of contrast, now reminded [Lily] too painfully of the limits to which her own existence was shrinking."
After a day of angry, dismissive contempt, the blood beats behind my eyes with identification. I am uncoupled by this unexpected Gerty Farish moment in this crowd of women trying to make sense of a world that has ruled them out of hand for the cardinal sin of having dared to remain single past the age of thirty-five. I have sat alone in theaters, restaurants, parks, my back straight, a book, perhaps. I am acquainted with this good posture.
At one point the singer looks over at her husband and they give each other a smile of such amiable companionship, a look of such pleased and secure partnership, that it reaches all of us with the cold immediacy of a slap in the face. It turns out to be true: when everyone in the room is facing the same direction and the energy is aligned, it can be a very powerful force.

David Rakoff, Fraud

He's not always this good, but sometimes he is.

Clusterfuck!

I was just asked how I would translate "commotion [surrounding the treaty]" (except from Polish into English). My brain immediately sprang into action: Kerfuffle! Hubbub! Brouhaha!

None of which, obviously, can be used in a document about some treaty. For I am the master of correct, yet completely useless answers.