Thursday, December 31, 2009

Coming soon...London New Year Celebration Pics!



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I am,
merely a Were-
Wolf.
Of light on shadow
Immaterial
Inconstant
Immature.
Maybe.
Wandering the wayfare
cos waylaid
wherefore,
whereart
my wherewithal

A black&white sepia fixed,
in time. Like the hands in my pocket.
And the thoughts in my head
that smell
of madness.

Maybe I should...
Whereto?
Where-but!
Waythere
Way
Over
There.

_________


Friday, December 25, 2009

Once upon a time...

Once upon a time in a land far away, whilst on my travels, beyond the wide blue sea, I was accosted by a couple of bad fellows, who proceeded to deprive me of my wallet. They were an ill mannered navvy sort though they allowed me to keep the clothes on my back; but they took everything else nonetheless. It was a difficult time and I wish to relate my story here. Luckily I had paid my landlady's rent in advance; so for now at least, I was safe from the streets. It is curious. I had always wondered what it would feel like to be destitute and starving. And now here I was. Literally starving. Starving is not so bad if you have drink coursing through your veins to keep the mind from concentrating on the stomach. In a way it's a kind of release. Here you are. Penniless. Starving. Filthy. No girl will look at you on the street cos you reek. You're no longer a man in their eyes. More like a mangy cat. Yet, there's a morbid pleasure in knowing that you can take it and that you don't care.

Do you know, mon p'tit, do you know what it's like to go without eating eh? Forcement, otherwise you wouldn't be scrubbing dishes. Well, i'm not a lowly plongeur; and I went five whole days without eating. Five whole days without even a crust of bread - Jesus Christ!
I tell you, those five days were the devil. Luckily I had my rent paid in advance. I was living in a dirty cheap little hotel in the old quarter. It was called the hotel - , after some famous prostitute who was born in that quarter. I was starving. Do you know what it is to starve mon ami? It is a curious lowly feeling. Too weak to do anything even find work. Can't even go to the cafes cos I hadn't the price of a drink. You can't even walk down the street without fearing you might bump into a friend and have to pay for their drink. It's a intolerable life. Life? It's not even an existence. All I could do was lie in bed and get weaker and weaker and watch the bugs crawl like soldiers in zig-zags across the ceiling. After the fifth day without food I went half mad I tell you. I was staring at the wall. There was an old faded print of a bearded man's head hanging on the wall of my room, and in my delirium I took to wondering who the devil it could be. After an hour or so of serious cogitation I realised it must be some Muslim Saint. I had never taken any notice of such things before. Saints and the like were never tangible things to me. But here, now, as I lay withering and etiolated on these sweat infused dirty bed-sheets with my cheeks sunken in like hollows, an extraordinary thought occurred to me. 'I shall pray!' I said to myself. 'By god I shall pray to this Saint and see whether he helps me!'

So I got down on my knees and clasped my hands together in the form of an open book and read a 'duaa' (prayer).

At first I didn't know what to say to the man. How do you begin? So I thought maybe the best thing to do at first was to ask for forgiveness for not praying as often as he would like me to. I asked him how he was. Asked if he was OK. And then I told him at length of my sorrows. I related my story of the hole in my heart (left ventricle to be precise) and I told told him at length of the emptiness in my stomach. I told the old Saint of my love for chicken drumsticks deep-fried in bread batter...

[to be continued]

Sunday, December 13, 2009

Tonight we're watching...Fantastic Mr Fox!

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I'm taking my nieces to watch this tonight at the Odeon Mezzanine. Though my nieces are only an excuse really. Been meaning to watch this since it was first announced. Like many I loved reading Roald Dahls' indefatigable Mr Fox when I was young. This fresh and new incarnation Directed by Wes Anderson promises to be a quirky and somewhat philosophically inclined existential affair. I'm expecting great animation. Quirky plot. And plenty of food for thought. Will post a foxy and fantastic review afterwards.

Last night I read...Batavia's Graveyard

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Undercover Lonely Planet

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The planet is swarming with the faithful. Like iron filings in a magnetic field they gravitate towards places of worship. Prostrating themselves before the steps of white-washed temples, encircling the ancient ruins of old, visiting the divine caves of the Lady of Fatima for a quick fix, dragging themselves on all fours; heels and elbows, bloodied and bruised, across the high Tibetan plains, and here; in the muddies and eddies of the river Ganges - that floweth from Heaven.

Why? What all this activity? There is much we humans don't understand about the world. Why am I poor and he wealthy? Why did she die? Why the struggle for a bowl of rice? So these rituals; when you look at the pained expressions on the peoples faces, are a grasp in the dark for, what I like to call 'The Grand Mystery', or the infinite unknowable. A grasp in the hope that something of this Grand Mystery will be revealed. But ultimately, though these are journeys to physical places of rock and stone and water, the real destination lies within us - in our hearts and soul. For that's where the mystery lies and where it will be uncovered.


______

Friday, December 11, 2009

and now for something a little different...




Favourite part: 0.57 secs

Thursday, December 10, 2009

Undercover World

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Wednesday, December 09, 2009

Francisco de Goya's 'Los Caprichos'

In the twilight of the 18th century Francisco de Goya made a series of etchings which he called Los Caprichos (The Follies). One of the etchings; my favourite and perhaps the most famous, features a man slumped over his desk in deep sleep. Around him in the dark his unconsciousness is awake in the form of a swarm of threatening night creatures that emerge from the shadows. On the side of the desk facing the viewer is an explanatory inscription that reads: 'El sueno de la razon produce monstruos.' - 'The sleep of reason gives birth to monsters.'

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It is almost a cliche that the world is ruled by unreason. It is easy to see the monsters that stalk us, created and fuelled by emotion, especially those of anger, resentment, intolerance, greed and fear. But reason has been with us throughout history too. Just marvel at the archaeologist's trove of flint axes from the dawn before memory. Admire the street planning of the ancient Pakistani city of Mohenjodaro, the irrigation canals, husbandry, the jewellery of dynastic Egypt. Look at modern life and wonder: consider our cities with their clean and safe water supply, sewage system, telephones, electricity, schools, roads, supermarkets - these are the forethought's of reason and planning. The fruits of applied science. Or, as it say's on my Zanussi washing machine: The Appliance, Of Science.

But reason has not always been benign either. It was reason that converted the spear into the guided missile. It was reason that gave us the gas chambers of Auschwitz, and the torture chambers in the fortress of Spilberk in Brno. It was reason that heralded the extermination of the Amazonian Indians. But from dentistry and central heating to human rights and the rule of law, for every backward step caused by malign use of reason, we take two steps forward. It is because of reason that the average life of today is better than the life of our ancestor's. But beware. Two thirds of the world still live under the pall of unreason - of superstition, ignorance and the associated malaise of negative emotions that fuel conflicts.

Goya's etchings teach us to be wary. We mustn't fall asleep - we mustn't. For the darkness still harbours demons. And our dominion is anything but assured.


______

London Unchromatic

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Thursday, December 03, 2009

The Grand Inquisitor (and what he tells us)

Probably the most celebrated chapter in Fyodor Dostoevsky's masterpiece The Brothers Karamazov, is the one in which we are introduced to the Grand Inquisitor in the poem composed by Ivan Karamazov to his brother Aloysha. In the poem Jesus returns to the world during the time of the Spanish Inquisition. Though he comes down 'softly' and 'unobserved', it is not long before he is recognised by the people, and taken prisoner by the Grand Inquisitor. Jesus is locked up in the ancient palace of the Holy Inquisition, he is questioned, but refuses to answer, only to say that he has come down to give mankind back his freedom.

The Grand Inquisitor laughs in Jesus's face and tells him that humanity is too weak to bear and appreciate the gift of freedom. He say's that man does not seek freedom but bread. People will worship whoever gives them bread - for the cravings of the stomach are staunchest of all. And that humanity needs its rulers to be gods, or if not gods, then at least, to be put there by the blessings of gods. The Grand Inquisitor tells Jesus that his teachings have been amended to deal with the reality of man's true nature: 'We have corrected Thy work and have founded it on miracle, mystery and authority. And men rejoiced that they were again led like sheep, and that the terrible gift of freedom that brought them such suffering was, at last, lifted from their hearts.'

The Grand Inquisitors assertion that men want bread not freedom is closer to the truth than you might want to believe. Man will always demand miracle, mystery and authority. Look at the world we live in today. Today, man gets his sense of the miraculous from science and technology: television, mobiles, the Internet, jumbo jets, artificial fabrics, non-stick pans. These things nourish man's sense of the miraculous as magic did in the past...Dostoevsky's diagnosis of human nature rings true and is unanswerably correct: man will always submit to tyranny and authority. Man does not want to be free. But to be led, because...man is too weak and stupid to make up his own mind about the things that matter. Just look at the film at the top of the charts this week, Paranormal Activity, about...yes, ghosts - look at the Iraq War Inquiry - look at Afghanistan - look at the quagmire in Pakistan - just look at Burma - just look, and you will see, that man prefers to be led by politicians, than the fruits of his own reasoning's.

For some, science is the know-all and answer-all of our problems. But here too we must be careful. Science promises that our most ancient needs will be met. That sickness and ageing and poverty and disease will be eradicated; that the human species will become immortal. But to believe that science alone can and will transform our lot into universal happiness is a myth of gigantic proportions. Science cannot help with ultimate meanings because, their are none. That is not a criticism of science. That is a fact of reality.

The truth that Dostoevsky's Grand Inquisitor teaches us is that humankind has never sought freedom, and never will. We are told by secular religions today that humans yearn to be free; and it is true they find restraint of any sort irksome. Yet, it is rare that individuals value their freedom more than the comfort and repose and non-thinking numbness that comes with servility. It is much easier and more comfortable to be servile and have guaranteed bread than to be critical and worry about whether there will be any bread.

To think that, just because a few people sometimes seek freedom, that all human beings want it, is like thinking that, just because there are flying fish, it is in the nature of all fish to fly.


_________

A little tittle tattle

St. Valentines day is not about love or sex. It is about romance. Romance is that something from which one hopes, one will be led, to love and sex. Romance is the route one must take to love and sex. Romance is not the destination. It is love and sex that are the destination. And therein lies the problem! - for too many people, especially women, confuse the route with the destination. And when they reach the destination (love and/or sex), they are not satisfied, for they ask themselves: 'but where is the romance gone?'

Romance is not love. It is the dream of love. Romance is not sex. It is the foreplay of foreplay. Romance is the spring of loves year. It is the rosy dawn of an effulgent passion-full bright day. When romancing one gives one's desired one flowers and chocolates. These gifts are more apt than you think. A flower seduces a bee with pollen to do its service of fertilization. Chocolate contains phenethylamine (something I learnt in biochemistry class), a chemical produced internally in the brain by people undergoing sexual infatuation. Presented together, both flowers and chocolate, are the ultimate seducer of the seductee. This is also the reason why on Valentine's day sales of lingerie outstrip sales of kitchen cutlery by 10:1, for whereas cutlery is an adjunct of blissful domestic arrangements associated with long-term affections, lingerie however is part of the invitation process as in - come hither sorceress of my loins!

In the austere days of republican Rome, Cato the Censor expelled Lucius Manilius from the Senate for kissing his wife in public. And then since then we have the explosion of chastity that gripped the Middle Ages, Christianity and Islam from AD 400 onwards. Recognising that female beauty is the most powerful drug in the world, theologians have since then, sought to nip the bud of romance, by requiring women to disguise, what biology hath given them; namely their flowing hair and curvaceous hips, under veils and shapeless robes.

In the Middle Ages the fact that birds began to sing and pair and mate in mid-February gave rise to the association between St Valentine's Day and courtship. Chaucer said: '...for this was on seynt Valentyne's day, when every foul cometh there to chase his mate'. Oscar Wilde once said that romance is deception. Deception it may be, but who can deny that romantic illusions; be they delusions, add colour to reality's monochrome, and enliven hope, and are thus a good and welcome illusion therefore!


Oh, the pleasures of love
the deeds of St Valentine's
The silly thoughts that sail
right through my lovestruck mind!

__________

ADoseofPhilosophy - reading & the good life

Reading is one of the essentials of the good life. It is not just the familiar pleasures that come from responsive reading that matter (like fear, excitement, a swashbuckling plot), but rather the effects of these on how we live our lives and see the world. The truth is, that in our society, reading is no longer accorded the respect it deserves. Let me tell you a secret: reading is much more than you think it is.

Reading, compared to alternative forms of media, is a particular focused form of activity. By reading I am of course referring to books (and not magazines and newspapers and comics and billboards and breakfast cartons). Reading books is a peculiarly focused activity that takes place in private-time and makes a fundamental difference in the way, say, a movie cannot. A play cannot be stopped and reprised in the way pages can be re-read, whether to relish something extraordinarily good or to understand something better. How many times have you re-read a sentence to saviour its meaning or prose? Exactly. A novel is present all at once, and can be gone over and back, re-entered, skimmed, sampled, devoured, and written all over in the margin, at your leisure. This adds a certain value to its contents. And it is the contents that matter most.

What is the difference between watching a movie and reading the book of the same movie? It is only thorough a book that you can see what someone is thinking and really feeling. Think about it for a second. You can enter some one's mind much better in words than on the big screen. The big screen shows you what the character is doing. Only the written word can tell you what they are thinking. Books allows us to consider our own experiences, seeing in the mirror of the story reflections of our own world and life, and the universal aspect of oneself, at the revealing angles that result from seeing them refracted into other guises. It's like stepping into another's shoes for awhile.

Another is the opportunity that books give us to peer into experiences we ourselves have not had, and might never have, in other lives and 'exotic' ways of life. This gift of books is in my opinion priceless. Being restricted to personal experience and observation of only what lies in one's immediate circles is no guarantor of becoming wise and perceptive. But, to be a fly on the wall in a foreign land, or a far away place in time, observing different lives, watching peoples do things differently, understanding their world view and how they see the world through their eyes; the chance to sympathise with people you will never meet, to partake in choices and desires that have never occurred to one, to feel the fear of a long sea voyage, to understand what it means to be a slave, to trek on a long desert voyage with the Danakil - that is the gift that comes from thoughtful reading. The better the novel, the richer the possibilities it offers in this and all its other dimensions.

Most importantly, good reading promises an enlargement of our sympathies. And sympathy is the basis of the fair moral community. To sympathise and empathise with others is to understand their interests, needs, choices and motives. Because reading promotes insights into oneself and others, it thereby helps promote the good life in the good society.

Please read more. It's good for you! - A dose a day - keeps the devils at bay.


Thevoraciouscaterpillar.com
Readingislikevitaminpills.com
Readingexersisesthebrainmusclestoliftcontinents.com

___________


Monday, November 30, 2009

The cult of free will

I have begun to understand something profound about my life...and, for that matter, about your life, and your life, and your life, and I believe all life in general. This something is the cult of freewill. I would like to expose this pernicious cult of freewill for what it is. A big fat lie. This cult is all pervasive in our Western society and this is what I wish to discuss here tonight. It is an idea that is taught us in schools and on TV and everywhere we care to look. We are subconsciously imbibing this cult via subliminal messages every time we act as consumers or view a billboard or watch a movie in the theatre.

We live our lives as if we had a choice in our decisions. As if we have freewill. We are taught this fallacy in schools though it is not a mainstay of Eastern teachings. President Bush defended the invasion of Iraq on the grounds that we have to protect our freedoms. What did he mean by 'freedoms'? What freedoms was he referring to? I am not talking about freedom as a political idea, but rather, as a philosophical one. What I want to know is this: do I really have a choice in what I do? Do I have a choice in what I read and what I watch and how I think and how I spend my time? And I don't mean choice as in a big brother 1984 style Orwellian State, but rather in the sense that: can I be anyone I want to be? Or am I limited to be who I am already? - To be rid of myself and be someone else Is what I am talking about. Can I do that? And if not, why not?


We are not unified free to do as we please
But buffeted constantly
by the currents of the world
the winds of chance & caprice


We think our actions express our decisions. But do they?
Throughout our lives willing decides nothing. We cannot wake up or fall asleep, remember or forget our dreams, summon or banish our thoughts, fall in love with this person or that, by deciding to do so. Deciding counts for little. How do I know this? I know this because we are creatures of habit. And there is little choice or freewill when it comes to habit:


90% of us order the same dish in restaurants
90% of us read the same newspaper everyday
90% of us do the same activity on weekends
90% of us watch the same types of movies
90% of us hold the same beliefs we had as children
90% of us abide by the same moral principles held by our parents
90% of us live and die within 7 miles of the place we were born
90% of us fall in love and marry someone within that same 7 mile radius


These are not statistics of choice. These are the statistics of the cult of freewill. In a world so big and vast and so full of choices - how can we be so insular and predictable?

When we greet someone on the street we just act and there is no actor standing behind what we do. Our acts are end points in long sequences of unconscious responses. They arise from a structure of habits and skills infinitely complicated. By the time you are 13 years old, the chances are, you will have already formed the characteristics and belief systems that will define your life. That is why the Jesuits boast: give me a child of eleven and I shall give you the man. Most of our lives are acted and lived without conscious awareness. Below the radar of self awareness. Much of the greater part of everyone's life goes on without thinking.

We think we are in control but we are not. My environment, upbringing, and genes, and predispositions, and circumstances, all connive; in a cosmic conspiracy, in making me do what I do. I was always going to do what I did. I will always do what I will do. I should not be thanked or berated nor harangued for it. If I write a brilliant book - should I be celebrated? What choice did I have over its contents? Did I really write it? Or was it merely the product of unfathomable forces; inexplicable connections and circumstances strung together like beads, or like knots in a tapestry.

Did I plan what I am writing now? Did I consciously 'will' every word and thought into existence before committing it to this entry? Has it taken on the shape I wanted it to, or has it, like most of my writings, taken on a life and form very different to the one I envisaged?

The most beautiful moments in life happen when we discover something we were not looking for. When through grappling in the darkness we find hidden depths or shades we never knew we had. You'll never find these thing if you only swim near the beach you know. You have to wade out into darker colder waters. And that is what differentiates us from the lower animals does it not? The ability to project ourselves into the future and wonder.

________

Friday, November 20, 2009

Rio Film Club - for dedicated hardcore movie buffs only!

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Do you enjoy nothing better than talking non-stop about films to anybody that would listen as well as watching them?
Want to meet new like-minded people to talk about films with who won't get bored with your constant mutterings? Then the Rio Film Club is just for you!


The Club meets every other Sunday (although this pattern can vary occasionally according to the main feature schedule), for the early evening show and after the film heads to the Evin Café for post-film discussion, where you can also enjoy a drink and bite to eat (30 sec walk from the Rio!)

The last and next meetings were and are as follows:


Sun 18 Oct 6.00 - THE IMAGINARIUM OF DOCTOR PARNASSUS

Sun 1 Nov 6.00 - TALES FROM THE GOLDEN AGE
Sun 15 Nov 6.00 - BRIGHT STAR
Sun 29 Nov 6.30 - A SERIOUS MAN



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Not sure what to do this weekend? Bored? Well what are you waiting for mankind! Pop down to Stoke Newington this Saturday evening for Darwin Night! - It's evolving man


SAT 21 Nov • Darwin, Evolution & the Movies (@ The Rio)


Darwin influenced fiction as well as fact and the classic literary works of HG Wells, Edgar Rice Burroughs and Charles Kingsley were all directly inspired by Darwin's theory of evolution and they paved the way for later generations of writers whose work has moved from page to screen. Certainly, the threat (or promise) of future evolution, metamorphosis or mans' descent into savagery have been familiar themes since the movies began. On 24 November 2009 it will be 150 years since On the Origin of Species was published. Time then for a selection of classic movies curated by Carole Jahme, filmmaker and Darwinist, who will introduce both screenings and perform extracts from her 5 star award winning comedy show Carole Jahme is Sexually Selected! enabling the audience to learn about their evolutionary sex appeal by discovering some basic instincts! Mmm....Sounds er interesting.



ALIEN (18) 11.30pm (Saturday 21st Nov, 2009)

(UK/US 1979) dir. Ridley Scott 117m.
Sigourney Weaver, Tom Skerritt, John Hurt, Ian Holm.

In space, nobody can hear you scream! Or so they say. The terror begins when the crew of the spaceship Nostromo investigates a transmission from a desolate planet and makes a horrifying discovery, a life form that breeds within a human host. ALIEN is a landmark triumph of art direction and special effects with a monster designed by surrealist painter H.R. Giger that is a brilliantly original fusion of insect, man and machine. Darwin would have been fascinated.

+ artist’s short film commissioned by the Wellcome Trust

+ introduction/performance from film-maker and Darwinist Carole Jahme

£6.50 (cheaper if you're a poor lazy student. Even cheaper if you're an old age pensioner. Free if you're me)


Thursday, November 19, 2009

2012 - The Review

There was a moment during the watching of '2012', when I realised, I had lost something precious. Something I would never get back. The feeling started off as a little kernel of no consequence (like a foetus...sorry, bad analogy!), but slowly, gradually, it fed on the dregs of ones thoughts, and it grew, until finally, it transformed itself into a full fledged storm of the open sea, hurling and burlin' inside the mind. This was not a mere irritable itch like one gets when, for example, one is on a long bus journey and the passenger sitting behind has his knee pressed up against the back seat. Oh no, I had lost something and I was angry. The thought of this loss filled my heart with anguish and my soul with pins and needles. Hot pins and needles. What was this thing I had lost?

Two and a half hours of my life!

Two and a half hours, that I could have, and certainly would have, if only faith did have, devote to other things. But such is the luxury of hindsight. I can recall the exact moment when the realisation of this 'lost time' lifted and touched the surface of my consciousness. It was at the point in the movie, during that scene, when the President of the United States (played by Danny Glover) decides that; contrary to the advice of his advisers, he will not board the Ark (yes Ark!), but that he will go to Church instead and pray. Yes pray! Pray for the salvation and the souls of the denizens of our doomed planet. Now I have nothing against prayer as such. I believe that in some cases it can have efficacy, but only in the same way that a placebo can also sometimes have efficacy. Purely in the mind kind of thing. This was a turning point in the movie because, believe it or not, it had started off rather well. It had started off with a little science!

It started off in India, deep in the bowels of the earth, 10,000 feet below the surface, in a disused diamond mine. When a movie starts off with a little science it automatically warms my cockles. I think this will be an intelligent movie, and as well as being entertained, I will also learn something - well that's the thought anyway. In the movie's beginning, we are introduced to an Indian astrophysicist, who during experiments on massless Neutrino particles, realises that strange things are afoot: the earth's core is melting and it is the neutrino's that are to blame. The earth will die, the mantle (surface layer) will melt like Swiss-cheese under a grill, and eventually after moaning and groaning, it will cave in - taking all of us with it. There will be mega earthquakes and giant tsunamis and super duper volcanoes. Chaos and destruction and black plumes of sulphur will reign maelstrom from the skies and pour forth their fury, and the final curtain will fall on the lease of Man. For it was always a short term lease. Man, in his arrogance, believed otherwise. Believed in the exaltation's of his creation. Such a fine creature he is! So you see I wasn't too displeased to witness his imminent extinction - albeit on celluloid. I rubbed my hands in glee, and my eyes sparkled like diamond cutters, and I stuffed my face full of sweet popcorn. The popcorn's were sticky and they stuck to my palate, and my clothes and my fingers. I took a sip of coke to wash away the stickiness, but the sugariness only made it worse.

It was a nice feeling to be alone in the theatre, just me, the rain and wind lashing madly outside under a dismal sky, but here inside, I was warm and protected from the elements, from the cold; but (and this is the ironic part) a different kind of storm was raging and assailing me inside. A storm of mighty visual spectacle and glorious Dolby digital surround sound. Inside the theatre the world was about to end and I was jumping in joy! This is what dreams are made of! To bear witness to the end. I admit, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, that I can sometimes be sick of heart, for I do enjoy watching the race of man utterly wiped out.

Those of you psychologically primed will no doubt conclude that I am not a happy bunny - hence my desire to see human life extinguished. That is not true! Let me explain (and I know I am digressing here, but this is my blog, and I can jolly well write what I want). You see, members of the jury, I genuinely believe that man is a scourge and a blight and a nasty infection upon the earth. Man is the worst thing that ever happened to this planet. I really don't know why we keep elevating ourselves to some lofty dais. We were and are a big mistake. We should never have evolved. We should never have come down from those trees. We should never have heaved our fish like bodies out of the primordial ocean onto dry land huffing and puffing. Hell! We should never have coagulated out of stardust! But it was out of our control. Just like the end will one day also be out of our control. He giveth and He taketh away - without even bloody asking! We never got a say in it did we? Did anybody ever ask us? Did anybody ever ask you whether you wanted it? Did anybody ever ask you whether you wanted to exist? So, why cry when it's all over? And yet! And yet, we are expected to be thankful for existence cos it is such a good thing isn't it? Tell me, what is so special about existence that we are expected to spend our entire existences being so thankful for existence?! Should a lump of rock be thankful for existing? Should the sun? Should this coffee sitting in front of me? Who should the lump of rock be thankful to anyway, and for what? For being a stupid thick rock! It's so silly, and I am in danger of going mad and in danger of loosing you, my dear readers, in the thicket of my philosophical peregrinations. The great thing is that we can think and ponder about all this, and nothing, and I mean nothing, is out of bounds as far as the enquiring mind is concerned. Nothing is sacred. I am Stardust and so are you and isn't it wonderful! - to wake up in the morning and think (or scream if you wish): I am stardust! I am a lump of stardust and I can drink coffee. I am a lump of stardust and my name is Wasim and I'm so fucking brilliant and so gorgeous and I have an ipod I'm so proud of.

Er OK, back to the movie.

There were some good moments in the movie, and I use the word 'moments' sparingly. There was the moment when the President is squished by a giant tsunami. That was a good moment. There is the moment when the Vatican is utterly destroyed by an earthquake. That was a good moment too. There was the moment when a McDonald's is swallowed up by a fissure in the earth. There were some cheers in my heart for that moment. No more McDonald's! Not a bad thing. No more work! Not bad. OK, no more school! Slight tremor there. No more Pepsi or Coke. Big whack there. No more books! Woh, I think I'm going to faint. No more England! Wow, that's like huge. No more America. Yes awesome! Look, it's only a movie and hardly brain food, but do watch it for the special effects porn that it is. But don't expect it to change your life. But why would it? Why would or should any movie change your life? Well some movies can admittedly have that life changing affect, and some (well most of them) are just a waste of two and a half hours of your life. But life is free and you never paid for it so you might as well consider those two and a half hours as free time. Life is free - do what you want with it. Even watch 2012 if you want to!


_______

Sunday, November 15, 2009

Decaf thoughts

I'm having decaf thoughts - ideas - weird one's. I'm seated in a cosy cafe enjoying a Sunday coffee washed down with a book. Or is it the other way round? : A book washed down with a coffee? Anyway, never mind. I'm sitting in my usual seat next to the large window that overlooks the windy outdoor pavement scene. Last night it must have rained heavily for the pavement is glossy with a greasy film of water. The sky is a wan blue with the skid marks of aeroplanes criss-crossing it. The trees have shed most of their leaves. Their yellow corpses lie littered on the pavement. I've just realised what I am. I know, brilliant eh?! Do you, my Gentile readers, ever have those abrupt attacks of reality? A sudden gust or gush of fresh air that causes you to inhale a little more deeply than usual; a sudden realisation about something or other that stops you dead in your tracks? Well it happened to me this morning. Well it happened just now actually. Please don't laugh or pity me. I have my moments and I just wish to express them.

You see I was stuffing my mouth full of food and I suddenly realised, when I looked down at my plate, that I was eating dead things! Or to be more precise, things that were once living things. It came as a bit of a shock actually. Let's take my eggs Benedict for example. These once belonged to a chicken and were once on the road to chickenhood, until one day, some farmer who had delusions of grandeur and thought he could play God, decided otherwise, and these eggs were plucked from that noble path to chickenhood, and placed on the less noble path to my plate. The path of platehood! I know what you're thinking gentile readers - Theft!

My toast were once chubby wheat stalks basking in the life affirming rays of the sun in some dusky wheat field until, one day, they were decapitated. And my delicious roast coffee once grew in the slightly acidic soil of the highlands of Ethiopia. And all around me, everywhere I look, I see (no, not dead people) but alive people with round orifices, holes in their heads called 'mouths', through which they shove an endless stream of once living things. And I see two fat women seated to my left, and their mouths now take on a whole new disgusting meaning. The dead food they eat ends up around their bellies. It accumulates in wave like undulations around their waists and backs and under their chins. And they look alien to me now. People look alien to me now. And now, I stare at my eggs Benedict, and I no longer want to eat. And I look at myself, my mouth, my stomach, innards, intestines, and I find myself too disgusting to contemplate. I hate myself. I hate being human. I hate having a body. If only, I was just a brain, and nothing else!


What are we?

What exactly, am I?


Have you never thought about what you are? It's through eating and other such acts like sex, that you realise. Have you not thought about what eating is? Isn't it fantastically alien this eating business? Am I the only one who thinks this?

The unicellular amoeba, when it wants to eat, nestles beside a giant food particle and then changes its shape and invaginates to imbibe it. Swallows it whole. There are some mother birds that store a supply of food in their stomachs and when they go back to the nest, regurgitate it into the mouths of their little en's. There are certain species of ant, whose sole job in life, is to hang from the ceiling of the ant colony, as a source of food for the workers. There is another species of ant that 'farm' aphids. The aphids have teeth and the enzymes that are needed to digest certain leaves. The aphids do the digesting and any excess food is secreted from their backsides in the form of droplets of sugary 'honey-dew'. The ants stroke the hind legs of the aphids and the aphids release the honey dew into the ants mouths. Why? What do the aphids get out of it? Protection. The ants look after the aphids by protecting them from predators and even carry them to the leaf sight. Such relationships in nature are called symbiotic.

And we do the same. We are the same. Certain types of human farm the food, whilst another type, ask the big questions. Inside, we are a colony of cells, and each one of our cells is a colony of bacteria. Our Mitochondria, the power station of the cell, were once free living bacteria, that now live inside our cells. They need the cell as much as the cell needs them - symbiosis. We're all weird aliens you know. We're just too busy to notice. Next time you are eating something think about what you are doing. What are you doing? You are taking into your body, flesh and all, that once belonged to another living being. Do you absorb the spirit, the soul or the life force of an egg when you eat it? Does something of chickenhood end up inside of you when you nibble on a drumstick? No, not exactly. But you do get a lot of calories and protein! And calories are good for they keep you going. You need calories to write stuff like this! You need to eat dead things, in order to power the neurons in your brain, so that they can realise, that you are eating dead things!

And what is the point of that?

Exactly!


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Friday, November 13, 2009

Now for something a little different - '2012'

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There are movies and then there are Roland Emmerich movies. The former give you time and space to think and make up your own mind. Roland Emmerich movies don't - they pound you into submission. Watching them is like going into a boxing ring and receiving blow after blow of punches. You leave the cinema utterly exhausted and in need of a rest. Tomorrow, Like Dr Faust, I'm going to sell my soul and watch the above Hollywood Blockbuster. The poster, as you can see, features an enormous Tsunami, and a plaintive looking monk (his crimson robe caught in the breeze - how romantic?), looking regretfully on, as the world is consumed by a huge bucket of water. Above the whole the caption reads: 'we were warned'. Yes indeed. Now, everything you need to know about this movie is written in that caption: 'we were warned'. How imaginative. You can just imagine the brainstorming session:


'OK guys, new movie. Worlds about to end. Big Blockbuster. We must come up with something deep for a caption'
'You know, something a little vague and sphinx like but not too vague as to be unfathomable, but simple enough for Mr and Mrs American Public to understand'
'Just a few words, little words, not big words, a small sentence. Any ideas?'
'We were told?'
'No. Good start though. But not sinister enough'
'We were threatened'
'Better but too sinister. Can't go round threatening people these days. You'll get sued'
'We were warned?'
'Mmm, Nice. Terence, your a genius!'


This movie will be an absolute stinker! I can smell it already. Totally rubbish. But I'm watching it anyway - why? Because I enjoy self-induced brain torture? No. Because I have nothing better to do? Er not quite. Because my legs are wilfully disobedient and will take me to it. No. Because firstly it's directed by Roland Emmerich - he of numerous cheese encrusted disaster movies fame (Independence Day, The Day After Tomorrow). Each one of his movies has been a steadily ascending exercise in outdoing the previous offering in sheer visual spectacle and bravado. Secondly, this movie incorporates the age old gambit that past civilizations have much to teach us and that we ignore them at our peril - Wow, how original man. That's like, so far out there man. In the like, twilight zone man. Mm, where have I seen that one before? Raiders Of The Lost Ark?

Anyway, in the case of '2012' it's the turn of the ancient Mayan civilization of Guatemala to 'warn us' - and they did warn us but would humanity heed? Oh no! Too busy Christmas shopping and stocking up on mince pies and updating their Ipods to care. For maximum effect I'm watching this tomorrow morning at the rather anti-social and nihilistic hour of 09:30am. A time when the streets will be deserted and populated only with the dregs of Friday nights detritus. A good time if you ask me to watch the world die in a glorious death rattle, whilst everybody else in LondonTown is snugly snoozed up in bed.

OK, I admit. I'm only watching this for the special effects! Special Effects Porn that's what this movie is: 'We were warned'

More like: I was warned.

My only hope is that it is not half as bad as I think and believe it will be. Will let you know...if I live to tell, my sordid and gregarious tale. Must go prepared. Will take my Sennheiser noise cancellation headphones along too just in case!

V.

Sunday, November 08, 2009

Do Extraterrestrials feel romantic love? / Coup de foudre

How do you get two intelligent organisms to copulate and have children? Remember we are talking about intelligent organisms; intelligent in the sense of being self-aware. There is only one animal on earth that is (as far as I know) self-aware, and that is Man. My female readers I hope will not be indignant at my chauvinistic use of the male descriptive. When I say 'Man' I include them also. In fact, since we are on the topic, when thinking of self-aware Man, I think of my female readers more than my male compadres - but I am digressing. As always.

So, coming back. How do you get two intelligent and self-aware organisms to copulate and have children? Answer: create within their brains the ability to feel romantic love. There is no more powerful emotion than that of romantic love. I say 'romantic' love deliberately to differentiate it from 'other' types of love. Like the love one feels for one's parents, siblings, friends and so forth. The whirlwind of romantic love has shaped and carved our world throughout the ages. It has torn asunder empires, smelted dynasties, ripped families in two, levelled continents, reduced histories to ash and perhaps most important of all, harassed individual lives lived on the edge of obscurity. It has served as a muse and inspiration for our greatest works of art and our dizziest technological achievements. Second only to God, it was romantic love, that beat a path for the Enlightenment.

But that is not what I wish to discuss here. We have all, if we have lived fully, experienced first hand the tug and pull of romantic love. We know what it feels like. We know the powerful grip it can have on us when its potions take hold. And yet! And yet (and here I must whisper lest somebody hears my sodden incantations) we claim to be free, to possess a quality called freewill. When Man (or Woman) is under the iron grip of romantic love, he/she is like the Penguins of the Antarctic, huddled together in a black and white mass, conserving heat against the cold, trying to keep warm, to repeal faith, but ultimately in the end, giving in to the inevitable. When in-love you are like the hedgehog scurrying thereabouts in the undergrowth - seeing only that which lies a few inches from the tip of your nose. Or like the pigeon, pecking away, at little baubles. Are you a myopic hedgehog or an all seeing eagle? Answer: myopic hedgehog!

If life exists on other planets. If, many millions of miles distant, somewhere out there in the starry void, lies a planet, studded with intelligent life, does it I wonder, feel romantic love? And if yes, does its version of romantic love feel the same as our own? Perhaps these beings have bigger hearts on account of the thicker blood that must be pumped around the limbs because of the stronger gravitational field. Does this imbue them with stronger romantic feelings? Does their heart throb and hurt more? Perhaps they have two hearts - what then? The imagination can only wonder! Perhaps they have their own version of Romeo&Juliet that would make our own appear like a tepid midday soap opera. Perhaps they have no stomach, do they then suffer that ignominious knotted 'butterfly in the stomach feeling' that we must endure? Perhaps they are endowed with logic circuits that reduce all love decisions to probability and mathematical certainties, thus doing away with all that tedious mucking about with: dating, anticipation, the gushes, the sobs, the hysterics, the coyness, the meals spent gazing into each others glassy eyes. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps...

There is something else I briefly wish to touch upon here. Please observe the man or woman in love. Imagine them in your head. Observe their behaviour. Observe how, when in the presence of their desired one, they shut out all else, all others, the world. Observe, how they react and notice every nuance of the object of their affections. Seeing meaning and purpose where none doth exist. Observe and hear my friends the lilting tones and praise they heap upon their loved one. Praise towers so high they touch the ceiling...of the world. Observe them with their friends talking inanely and non-stop about their loves ones sense of humour, their superior tastes, their bookish charm, their record collection, their clothes, their career, their person, their brain, their body, their tattoos, their earlobes. Observe how their dreamy eyes travel back in time and recollect and congeal a particular moment out of a dense mass of moments. They see all yet they see nothing. That is what love does. How is it, that in a world of 6 billion people, we feel, when under the thrall of romantic love, that we have found the one? That we have by some amazing comingling of faith and chance, found that one singular individual who will complete us, make us happy and whole, and whom no one else on the planet can replace. For that is how love feels does it not? The exclusivity of romantic love. The irrationality of it. The way it subverts our more thoughtful and pragmatic tendencies. The way it barges into our ordered lives and smashes about (like a rabid bull in a china store). The way it lifts us to a vague make-believe place up in the clouds full of fairies and skyhooks. All these qualities and more, tell me; the armchair philosopher, that romantic love is on par, and deserves to be grouped with, and should be treated as, a mental diseases! Ha! Yes, a mental disease!

But to end on such a grim note will not do. I think a little lunacy and frenzy is good in life. Adds a dash of colour, tone and texture to what would otherwise be a rather morose, glum and moribund tapestry. Love inspires! Love kills! Love is the muse of muses! Too much sanity is not a good thing and frankly a little boring. Madness. Madness is good. All forms including romantic love. Revel in it. Allow it the pleasure of deranging your senses. Let its scent rub off on your person, and don't let anyone or anybody say or convince you otherwise of its high glories and lowly pains.

Iseepurplerabbits.com
Ithinkimightbeturningintoapenguin.com


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