Fornax :D

"Good heavens!"
"Exactly :D"

Another lovely balcony viewing with Maja – we watched Le passe, an Iranian – French movie about … well, pretty much a normal family. There is this point at which a very okay man, who just came to France to sign divorce papers, surely thinks: may I please go back to Tehran to calm down?... Okay, so Tehran isn't a bad place, but he could just as well be thinking this about … anyplace bad – Sochi, whatever. They deeply reminded me of my family. So much shit going on, that isn't really any shittier than everyday storms, people looking for deeper meaning where they never is one, people trying to connect the dots and then moving the dots to shape something that would offer redemption… Which wouldn’t change anything. Hopping for an easy answer, a happy ending when there really isn't any such thing in the normal life.. A teenager does something mean and stupid, the jealous infatuated help does something mean and stupid, but it was actually the adults that were doing the mean and stupid thing, because they needed to feel something nice.. It's life, y’know. Soon becoming history.  When are teenagers NOT mean and stupid? Or kids hysterical, acting out? Or adults too quiet, fucking up things because it is getting too complicated to breathe?

It was actually a really good movie. Well, lately every one I saw in Metropol was really good, no shocks there, I'm just surprised I can say that about a movie in which there is screaming, - ones I normally shun..

In all of it, I hated the kids the most, especially the little boy, what a fucking annoying little shithead… But of course it was the adults that were truly acting terrible. Kids were just being expressive. I wonder why I hate kids so much? Is it because I've long lost hope in adults and I actually want the kids to crawl out of it, secretly wishing there's hope for them yet?

Dunno. Probably some Freudian, demeaning answer there. The guy claimed clitoral orgasms are hysterical, which, in itself, makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

The good old days. Good riddance.

First of all, there was no comfy toilet paper. To me that's the first sign.

The good old days. When everyone held hands, everyone was friendly, tolerant, neighborly and well off. When life for all looked like this:

In Reality, it was more like this:

Am I the only person who thinks that we live in excellent times? I was asked this the other day and I had to apologise for thinking life is really good right now. Not saying globally. Just as far as I can see. Western world mentality.

Here’s my logic: - infant mortality is almost null. The rate of people born for a life of pain and illness is almost null. We haven't conquered viruses, but we have tamed many bacteria. Old people live very comfortably, painlessly, hygienically and socially in nice retirement homes. Women are no longer baby factories and rape is illegal. Even in marriage or on dates. Clergy is no longer almighty and practising religious beliefs no longer serves as an excuse to torture somebody. Some prisons feel like spas. Human rights are at its best since forever, even if only recently women could be put in nuthouses just for being sexually active. Insane asylums are actually kind of pleasant. Food is absurdly abundant, so much so that we have to hold back from eating too much of good stuff. Also, now we know what proper nutrition is. It wasn’t always like this. Nobody owns only one pair of shoes anymore. Nobody. And one thick shirt that was passed from the eldest child to the youngest – that’s fairy tale material. Dentistry is effective, if still a fucking fright. Reading isn’t illegal or discouraged. Having a cunt is no longer a curse. Nobody cares about politicians and their lunacies – unlike once upon a time, when a ruler was free to rape your child and throw your parents to the dogs if he or she so felt like it. You are no longer allowed to shoot or hang people just because they looked at you funny or they looked funny to you. Money is not a cast norm – you have it, that’s nice, you don’t have it, you’ll be okay. If two people from extreme social circles go on a date, they have the same things to talk about. They won’t get burnt on a stake. Movies are allowed. EVERYBODY is educated. Everyone is tolerated. Benign drugs are allowed. Don’t remember if prostitution is, but it’s getting there. Fashion is a hobby. You can shave your hair off and nobody will notice. Gay people marry. Short people and people with Dawn's Syndrome can be movie stars, not circus freaks. Children get to play until they’re 35. Dogs live as part of the family. You can travel anywhere, everywhere on this whole planet – some even off it. Technology is available to everybody. Nobody is cold, hungry or sick. Not really. You get paid for planning to do something artistic for fuck’s sakes. People give money to art! In advance! Hello??

Ye, of course the whole planet is not Shangri La and lots of places still suck donkey balls, but not here. People are consta in desperate need and shit still happens, but if poor folk from a hundred years or a really poor part of the world saw our poor folk, they’d laugh. Twelve kids sleeping in the same bed, five under the kitchen table… My dad grew up like that and they were rich in his village! He didn’t feel particularly poor for having no shoes or a tiny blackboard instead of note books to learn on. He quite liked his childhood. By modern standards he was the worst off child ever. But no, he really wasn’t. Kekec was sent off into the highlands to watch over stock when he was, like, ten. These days fucked up spoilt brats are infallible. Kids are treated like gods. Hungry gods. 
I can think of at least one woman who's never worked a day in her life and she lives, single, horny, in an apartment the size or a palace, throwing parties and telling people how poor she is, usually in the span of a day. 
Okay, but then again such have always existed, probably even in caves.

There were times when not having money to pay for food wasn't an economical hiccough - it was a life long tune. Now we just kind of blame "the government and the bankers" and wait for it to pass so we can go back to being all fat and snobbish again.

Whenever I consider poverty - compared to the places I've been and people I've met, my country, these days, sums up to:

People will always whine.

People will always have awfully short-term memory.

There will always be exceptions, but mostly

People will never ever look at their life and think: Lucky me, I have just enough.

Don't write about bombed cities

Was gonna write two short stories, one taking place first in a bombed city and the other one even more depressing. I got turned on by bombing while watching The Book Thief, finding something perversely catharsic in the way that movie ends. The way it was portrayed wasn't, of course, how things get bombed. Nor is it, in retrospect, something to be perversely attracted to. Not even if you are an immune time traveler and tend to gloat about your own temporal immortality. I got punished for thinking it cool. I always do. In nightmares.

       In the story, Paper and Cole sit and smoke, camping romantically on the brim of the Dresden basin, enjoying the show of falling bombs. These characters are nuts as it it, it would just be something they do. But of course that wasn't how the bombing of Dresden went down. There wasn't just one dump of explosives, it was in waves, over three days, the second wave hitting - purposefully - when the rescue teams were helping the damaged of the first one. And it wasn't just the bombs. Bombs are easy. Anyone can drop a bomb, you can drop a big stone for all it cares what building it hits. It was the incendiary sticks, also. Fire. The apeshit that engulfed the city in the form of forced fire was so great the atmosphere actually thought there was a storm. And fire leaves nobody bruised. People in shelters, in hospitals, people running, hiding in water. Everything died. Charred, suffocated corpses of the unfortunate souls in shelters were even photographed, you can see them on Wiki. 

       Half an hour into the research, I was all too well aware that these are not the things one wants to play tourist at. I don't even think I would ever dare go to Dresden city, as lovely as it now may be. There are simply too many screams resonating in the stone, too much horror in a collective memory. There were lots of bombed towns and bridges and train stations and whatnot, even mine. The English bombed pretty much everything they could find on a map during 2.0. But that was just lots of rubble. In Dresden, the Allies went "thorough". I don't know why anyone would want to do that. But I suppose that ugly war got so far in the end, killing endless civilians was the only way. Or something. I dunno. Instead of a chillaxed short story with a few bombs in it, I got a whole evening of disheartened weeping and a shitty nightmare session. Most of the night I was up, awake, kissing General's elbow and arm. He kept waking up, angry with me, angry I fuck around with information I fail to process. To pay him back, I secretly ordered Rommel's fun book on taking over the Kobarid mountain in his, the General's name. This way he'll get a package to his office and will have to pay for it, without knowing it's a book. I'm sneaky that way. I'm only allowed to buy one book a month. He's my sponsor to a life-long addiction. Bills first. Then books. Sounds reasonable? It’s why I invent sideways.

The ice storm

The most dangerous things are usually also the most photogenic..

R.I.P., P.S.H.

Pity you couldn't be happy in what you did, dude. You were good.

Winter alternative to burning bridges :))

Dead Clade walking

Excellent episode of Elementary today.. The juicy stuff of all detective stories: murder! Archaeology! A classy elder lady who writes ... prurient letters! Smugglers! Museums! Oh, my!

Found a couple new things every dinosaurolo...lolologist should know:
- term Dead Clade Walking
- K-T Boundary
- Nanotyrannus (puppies)
... and i really should learn how to spell archaelogy ... It's embarrassing. 



And of course.. "Allow me to return the favour by releasing evil humours from your skull..." :D