The Cloud Atlas

It always makes me feel so warm inside when I see that someone has already had the excellent idea I have and made it into something epic :D

And of course that the world will never really run out of ridiculously good books.

Ow. I always knew there is something terrible about Life of Pi, but I never read more than half of it, purposefully, so I never realized just how horrible the truth is - before it all gets scrambled and fantastic in the poor boy's head.

The second literary evening

I am getting better at these. I am much less nervous and I read slower and don't deviate so much. I mean, not that Ii wasn't flawless the first time, but I am even better now :))))

This time we were guests at a small, very nice book store in Ljubljana, so I only took half my entourage - Tamara for moral support and miscellaneous errands, such as making sure my make-up isn't a mess and that Marki isn't left idle... Maruša and Eva, my lovely dancers, Alenka the flute player, who is getting more adult and beautiful every day, and myself. Klara who was doing the logistics and organising got cut off and left behind - and I DID get a very strong "Leave NO BOOk Behind!" vibe, but that was just me panicking. The people of my distribution agency Primus adopted us from the train station, making sure I didn't freak out and run away. All in all, although people were far less than the first time, it was very cool. these were all strangers, no family, no friends, and they were asking me questions and engaging me in dialogue and showing me praise and stuff that makes all the horror worth while. I am still dreadfully uncomfortable on the inside during all these things, but I always pretend to be speaking just to the General and then I'm okay. He still couldn't come due to his work and injury, but we did have such nasty 'break a leg' sex before I took off that I bit hard through the part beneath my lip and had to wear a ton of lipstick to cover it up. :D

Tamara took the photos and kept me calm - thank you, darling! - whereas also special thanks to the owners of the Bookstore Now, Zdaj, and to the cool folks at Primus. And of course my girls from the ensemble. 

 From right to left: The owner Saša, a Primus lady Mirela, and their friends, lovely ladies who spoke very fondly of fantasy books and adventure fiction and whom I liked a lot.

 Me in the center of attention and later on, goofing in front of Tamara to make her job harder

 The fire dancers Maruša and Eva

 Always perfect Alenka. Damn her perfect body and long, naturally rich brown heavy hair :P :)))

 The bookie and praise :D There was also a sunflower near by, but I ate that.

The funny odd strange music across the street

Dunno since when, but certainly since my whole chapter of life titled “Conversations with Theo” began, I’ve started paying attention to a very odd sound happening in my street. For the first time ever since I’m an adult I am trying to look at the things I find fundamental, mathematical, biological, chemical and astrophysical and patch the cracks between them with something profound and benevolent. Not God, per say, because Theo isn’t technically speaking a deity and I’ve never really treated deities as anything more than coffee-time mates, but things that keep us up at night, staring at the wonder we cannot really see, we just love being overwhelmed, and what makes us build churches and temples so much and speak of spirit. Churches/temples/that shit are no more than banks, as we respect and worship money, or hospitals, which we need, or crown spots, which we go to to get our drivers licenses and marriage certificates … And yet they are everywhere, and always. And anyhoo, last night’s literary evening was at a nice, cushy little shop that sells spiritual stuff and I for once didn’t have my aloof cynical wall up while flipping through them, just because. But I digress.

So there is this noise. I can’t really explain it. It sound like somewhere across my street in the opposite building, in one of the apartments, is a child playing a flute. But it is always the exact same sequence of notes or at least eerily similar... Maybe, if I lean my head differently.. Uf, let me see if I can, ugh, try and write those down…  Music is really not my forte …

In the roughest sense it's something like: EEE4, Eb, E4, Eb, E4 -  Eb, F4, E4 (or D4), Eb...

This would sound like a child playing a flute, if it happened once and if it was within other noises. But it’s not. It’s just this sequence. Repeatedly. Sometimes there’s just one, other time it’s for an hour. Sometimes it just keeps playing. I can hear it now. I’ve heard it earlier before I put on the headphones to watch Ridley Scott interviews while the General sleeps. It is not a child, playing a flute or someone whistling. The noises, the tones never deviate. Ever.

My first theory was that it is mechanical, if not electrical. I was thinking perhaps a coffee machine in one of the places that makes coffee, when it’s blowing off steam, somewhere some pipe makes this noise come out in the street. Maybe it just comes out so that only I can hear it (well, no, not like that, I mean anyone standing by that specific window can hear it. I didn’t think I was hearing noises like THAT…). The other thought was that it was a traffic light that signals the position of the ramp or it’s hydraulics. Or something. Really, if I tried to follow it, I would lose it in certain angles. But the tricky bit is - I don’t want to find out what it is. Not really. Not because I would want to know what it is, it'll probably turn out to be something perfectly munbdane like a phone or something... I just never want it to stop. I want to find out what it is because I want to make sure it never stops.I want to be hearing this bizarre constant in all the years that I live in this street.

Am too tired to write, work or post, really, although it was a nice day and tomorrow it probably will be, also :)) We had two photoshoots, pickies soon. Here's some of the edgy ones... Then off to bed, finally ...

Theron and Fassbender of Prometheus

Ouch! ... Now this is one of those photo shoots that a sane person would say no to. Or risk walking around with a permanent erection for the next few years. Sheeeeshkebab, but are these people ever SIZZLING!

 

Proper scenario in case of meeting aliens:

Should and advanced civilisation ever arrive on our planet in pursuit of contact, this is what you do.

Make them land somewhere very remote, like some ridiculously posh, yet unopened, very clean Dubai hotel in the middle of the desert, or some sublimely romantic village on some remote Irish island, or in the middle of Greenland or something… Just as long as they never ever see places like New Delhi or South LA or pretty much any city in Mauretania. 

Then send some incredibly sophisticated person, I dunno, Michelle Obama or something, someone very calm, clear witted and diplomatic, to say hello. Give them stuff like good cognac to drink, excellent bread to eat, show them a very pretty renaissance painting like the Birth of Venus. Play them some Mozart, give them the collected works of Shakespeare, read a short depressing yet brilliant short story by Hemingway, let a small child recite a haiku, that's possibly not about drunken conversations with the moon. Give them an exotic flower. Maybe a shoemaker’s lamp. Then send them the fuck far away, very fast, before they start asking question. Pray they don’t receive Internet, or can read our minds. Just send them off with a dowry of a white cotton shawl and a beautiful wooden chair and a lovely clay bowl and ask them to speak nicely of us to other civilisations.

Because perish the thought they would ever find out about our religious institutions and paedophiles, about our wall Street greed and dictatorships, the horrid crusades and pollution and natural resources drainage, genocides and war rape, Congo, pharmacy lobbies, Japanese cartoon porn, meth labs and serial killers… Good luck asking them to think nicely of us when talking to other civilisations then.

The thing is, we want the aliens, when they happen, to be ethereal and serene, angelic almost. Like Theo was. Sublime, and mild. God-like, if you will. What we think we would be like, if we found the time and money, to be this slow, this quiet, this beautiful. We want to look at them and see calmness, beauty, health and wisdom of old Buddhist monks, regarding universe and death and all that stuff that doesn’t really change anything, we just don’t like it, because it’s dark… And we always want to go into that selfish direction, thinking – imagine what they can do, imagine what they know. Will they bring us shiny gifts? Will they bring us medicine and resources and science and poetry? In that case we’ll make a really good impression and pretend to be very eager and meager, like Oliver Twist. Please, sir, give us something. We’ll steal from you and dirty your clothes, but please take pity on us, because somewhere within the putrid mess of our fucked up psyches, I’m sure we can find something nice if we dig long enough…

Cause of course if they came to ask something of us, asking *us* for anything, we’ll just fucking kill them all. Cause then they’re pests.

Are you kidding me? We will NEVER be welcomed into that club. NEVER. We are the most selfish, the worst species in the world, and I’m saying this in an affectionate way.

Morning walk/coffee talks :D

These morning walks, followed by regular coffees with Drej are fast becoming my favorite social pastime. They are very real, mind, as often stuff happens during that is quite unpleasant – on one side a pair of crows fighting for half an hour and on the other a pair of poorly mannered teens watching a recording of their weekend party on their cheap phone at full volume – can be quite fucking off-putting. But coffees before us and a gentleman smoking a pipe behind us can be perfect. And then we talk, a lot :D

Today we talked about animals at first, about how hunters shot a bear today who ventured too close to the village and how that pisses some people off. Personally I think each and every one of these noisy people has never even seen a beat in their life and knows nothing about animal behavior or is speaking purely out of their arse, because a) Yes, we do impose on their territory and all animals always impose on others territory and you will never see a bear meet a wolf, because that’s blatant provocation. Bears know very well not to come close to people. If they continue to do so, it’s dangerous. Usually for a reason. B) If you had a  garden and a bear kept coming over, would you be the one to move? No. So until you are in that position, please don’t speak so generally. And c) before people started shooting bears, and other animals, there were just as many deaths by some other incredibly unpleasant factors (no, despite popular belief, before people arrived the world was not a shiny happy garden of Eden where all animals lived in harmony, devoid of illness and famine). Natural predators were just one of them. A lot more animals that are otherwise now shot by hunters, died of rabies, parasites, infections and starvation, as they were left behind by their pack for genetic deformation reasons. So please, people, before you start being loud about these conflicts, you are most welcomed to join the executive boards and propose a more fitting solutions for both parties. Hopefully a world in which we are all healthy and happy and each have an ideal living ground. Deal?

But that was just one part of the debate. The other was about life on other planets and Ridley Scott’s good description of the situation his ill-fated heroes find themselves in the latest movie. Looking for civilized life, running into some very uncivilized behavior. Read the post above on how we should behave should aliens ever come to visit us: