Girls and women

I shared Laurie Penny's article last week on Facebook, highlighting a paragraph that appealed to me in particular, especially at that point in my life: "It’s definitely easier to be a girl than it is to do the work of being a grown woman, especially when you know that grown women are far more fearful to the men whose approval seems so vital to your happiness. And yet something in me was rebelling against the idea of being a character in somebody else’s story. I wanted to write my own."
Lately, I've been thinking a lot about the distinction between the two, but also about how much the TV show Girls reflects experiences that many of us, even on the other side of the ocean, live through in our mid twenties. I like to call these years the quarter life crisis, because that's the general feeling I've been living with: a constant interogation about where I'm going and why my trajectory is so different from that of my parents, and the one they taught me I should have, for that matter.
But going back to Girls (I've been obsessed with watching the two seasons for a second time, since I have so much school work to do), I saw this caption a few days ago and I almost cried. It was about when Hannah asked Adam "If you don't like ice cream, what do you like?" and he answered "I like you". I mean, who says that?

I really wish I could say my Adam turned into that guy who "was always here". I wish at least one of my Adams did. But in my experience, it doesn't work like that. A guy who doesn't respect you and only sees you as a random hook up will not wake up one day and say "You chase me like I’m in the fucking Beatles for six months and then when I finally get comfortable with things, you wanna shrug?" He will not go and tell people "I had this girlfriend who at first I didn’t like very much, or, I didn’t take her very seriously, I guess. She just seemed like, you know, a piece of ass. But she was persistent, man. And she just hung around, and hung around, and showed up at my place—and gradually, it started to feel better when she was there. It wasn’t “love” the way I imagined it. I just felt weird if I didn’t know what she was up to or whatever. And I liked knowing that she was just gonna be there, and warm, and staying the night." That. never. happens. to. me.
But generally, if we look closer, Girls is a simulacrum for what becoming a woman means to some of the people of our generation. We learn from Marnie's self-searching adventure, we learn from Hannah's self-abandonment chaos, from Shoshanna's rants and mostly from Jessa, who is her own brand of charming. I think that no matter how much we grow up, we'll always be vulnerable to our desires, especially to those we cannot explain. And at the end of the day, we should just own it.

Globetrotting tastbuds II: Japanese

Yesterday I went to the newest Japanese restaurant in town, Nobori, (it's not that new, but it is the latest opened) with a colleague. We wanted to try as much as possible, so we picked a day with an all you can eat bufet. Needless to say, we left the place barely walking. And I only had a serving of each thing and no soup. They had three types of soup available, but none of them made me curious. I wanted to try miso, but I guess I'll have to make that myself.

So back to the menu. They had all kinds of nigiri sushi, as well as some salmon sashimi. I also had some surimi maki and a kani-tamna roll. Of all the sushi, I liked the Wasabi most :)). Really, I was taught how to make sushi by a Japanese friend and as spectacular as it looks, I find it to be a quite boring thing to eat. But the Wasabi paste made it all better.
The tofu was quite allright, not the spongy thing you find in supermarkets, I tried also the pickled mix of veggies, which was surprisingly refreshing. I highly recommend the fried pork and chicken, there was something about the tempura flour that gave them a great taste, and definitely add some spicy sauce. The Teryiaki chicken I was so keen on trying is definitely something I don't plan to cook. The sauce is too sweet and the meat too tender for my taste. I wasn't in the mood for trying the pork hot dish, so I know nothing about that, but the garlic rice was just perfect. I'm sorry they didn't have any noodle food, I'm a huge fan of ramen. I'm also a huge fan of the fried vegetables (Kakiage) and I intend to master them :) At Nobori they were better than the catering versions I'd tried before. The fried zucchini and eggplant were not bad either. They also had cheesecake and banana Tempura, but I was too full for sweets and the Teryiaki reached my sugar maximum for the day anyway.
Overall, I am very satisfied with the meal. It was a constant discovery and I can't say I hated any of the dishes. The place is very nice and clean and the service is good. The music seemed a bit annoying, it made me sleepy and felt a bit stereotypical for an Asian restaurant. I'm sure there's more to Japanese classical music than a couple of string instruments going on in a monotone rhythm.

P.S.: Speaking about Japan, I remembered I never mentioned attending Ben Haggarty's story telling performance at the Stories Festival of Transilvania. He was wonderful, and waking up the jungle with our eyes closed was enchanting. In the introduction, he told us about a man in Japan who would go around the villages on his bike selling sweets. And the kids who bought sweets would sit in front while he told stories, while the others sat in the back. So he told us two stories, one for each group of kids. They were both in many ways similar to stories we have here in Romania. The one of Jack resembled Danila Prepeleac and the one about the rocks was constructed like one my grandmother used to tell me, about the girl whose earrings were stolen by a bush. But you can see the whole thing here. I, for one, have always loved stories. People say that's why I wear glasses, but what do they know. I see way more than they do with their perfectly healthy eyes. :)

Rant

This post is long overdue. But last evening, on my way back home I was thinking about Palahniuk's characters and how uncomfortable they can be, yet in the end they soothe my feelings of inadequcy and actually reamp my will to fight. Because Madison in Damned and Daisy St. Patience in Invisible Monsters and Rant Casey in Rant and Tender Branson in Survivor and Victor Mancini in Choke are basically walking disasters, each of them has something really fucked up about them. But they are somehow involutarily screwed. Most of them had been groomed or ignored into who they became by their parents, and Freud seldom sleeps in Chuck's novels. Actually, most of his main characters are unwilling participants into something greater than themselves, and this is the case also with Lullaby, Diary, Haunted and, of course, Fight Club. They get sucked into this great scheme of things, where they are underdogs and victims and sometimes heroes for a while, either it's hell after comminting suicide, or an initiatic journey, or Party Crashing, or becoming a religious celebrity, or being a sex addict, or a huge art insurance scheme, or murderous black magic, or a writer's retreat turned slaughterhouse or, well, Fight Club. And then, when your world and theirs are all upside down, they rise above. In one way or another, there's something about most of Chuck's protagonists that makes them famous or delivers them from their wretched lives or turns them into modern-day Jesuses. And it's something entirely of their own. It's their courage or their innocence, their pure desire to fix things, to survive and beat evil, their need to save and be saved, to transform a life of pain and boredom and retarded social labels into something meaningful. They may be ugly, disabled, addicts, slaves, outcasts and whimps, but they each have one specific something (even stemming from their flaws) that takes them to greatness, in some form of it or another. It doesn't always mean salvation, but it does most of the times mean catharsis. I think if Chuck wasn't so effervescent, if he didn't use so many facts, if he didn't make me think "I see what you did there" every few pages, if he didn't awe and amuse and turn stomachs quite so much, I'd still love him most of all my Chucks just because his books would leave me with a wicked aftertaste, somewhere between fucked up and good.

All new

Yay! Yesterday I was really nervous about the outcome of trying a new thing and I'm happy to say it turned out allright. It's my hair. I didn't want to bleach it and I couldn't possibly imagine how to get the layers of red and black out of it without having to cut it to a bob. Then my friend told me about Color B4 and, after weeks of pondering, I eventually ordered it on eBay. I then waited another week to get my spirits up and really do it. The truth is I didn't have my hopes up. And it's not a spectacular result. But I'm back to my natural color, more or less, with a tint of ginger. I had some red highlights, bleached underneath, which I'm happy were not completely discolored, but have also a lighter shade of ginger. I'm obviously coloring it in a week or two, because I want a full, eterogeneous color. Something very close to my natural one, as I don't want to be bothered with coloring this summer and I want it to naturally adapt to the sun and water and so on. Until then, I have to do some conditioning treatments, as the color removal has left my hair slightly porous. Oh well, at least it came out as I wanted and all that money didn't go down the drain.
While I was waiting for the smelly stuff to do its thing and shrink the color molecules, I had a frozen pizza I bought from Lidl. I was surprised it was really tasty and the ingredients had nothing weird and chemical about them. I was a bit disappointed when I got home and realized it had some green stuff on it, but it wasn't broccoli! I hate broccoli. It was spinach, instead, and spinach I love, courtesy of Popeye, my chilhood sweetheart :) I also got from the supermarket a bouquet of pink tulips. They are so beautiful and lighten my day. Having flowers in my kitchen (having a cat doesn't give me much option as to where to put the flowers) also motivated me to do the mountain of dishes and clean up. I was going to do that when I cook the tikka (I know, it's been a week, but my parents keep bringing me food).
I got to ski one last time, the slope was perfect this weekend. However, while I was super excited on Sunday, the teleski broke down and we had to climb our way back to the car carrying the equipment. Talk about working out! Still, I've been feeling sort of sick and sort of tired these past few days and I've passed on some opportunities to go out with friends and listen to classical music. I'm trying to get myself back together, because life never seems to stop and wait for me and there is so much to do. I just hope we get a really long holiday for Easter, like a week or so, and then I'll just sit around and enjoy the sun.

Kitchen genius

Well, I have so many things to write about, but I'll start with the title of this post. Maybe add the pics later. My cooking genius mostly manifests itself when I have to improvise.Yesterday I wanted to make chicken soup with plenty of vegetables, but I couldn't find everything I needed. therefore, I decided on the good old chicken noodle soup, because I was sure I had some homemade noodles somewhere around the house. Well, turns out I didn't. So when the chicken broth was done, I decided to improvise. The meat I set aside anyway (the skin and bones went to the neighbourhood kitties) for the tikka, as well as a cup of broth. The rest of it became a super hot and spicy Chinese noodle soup. As I thought I might as well use those instead of my grandma's missing noodles, I also found some freeze-dried Asian seasoning and some other dried veggies  I boiled for a few minutes. I then added the noodles and went crazy with the Sichuan pepper :P Also, I used two spoons of tomato juice and one of soy sauce and ta-daaam! Super soup to the rescue!
Now, getting back to the news, I'm almost certainly going to Serbia in the beginning of April, to the International Romanian Journalists' Forum annual meeting. However, I won't be attending the EspaNet social policy workshop in June. It's pretty late to look for summer schools now, but I'll keep an eye open for the conferences in the autumn. So at least I'm traveling this year :D
On Tuesday I went to see Ionesco's The Bald Soprano at the National Theatre. As it happens sometimes with books, I only liked it after I left. I did enjoy it, but while I was in the theatre, I couldn't help feeling a bit uncomfortable, for some reason. I actually have lines from the play ringing in my head all day ever since, so I guess it did the trick. I'm sorry I'm not a good reviewer, I am too sensorial about my experiences sometimes. Then, yesterday, I went to the Vaya con Dios concert. I feel like I'm repeating these words, but my general impression was the venue was highly inappropriate. That specific concert should have happened with a maybe 200 people audience, in a fancier setting, because the band was definitely more of a jazz ensemble to me and the atmosphere should have been one of intimacy, considering their songs. Dani Klein's voice was made, indeed, for dimly lit concert halls, where you're close to the stage and can enjoy it to its full extent, but I was still impressed by her standing after all this time.
I can't wait to make my appointment for a new tattoo, but I think I'll do that next week. I'm happy to have found an artist whose work matches my idea of old style and I hope it'll come out better than I can imagine, it happened the same way with my first two. I'll be writing about it once it's done, so don't stray too far ;)

Weekend update

I'm a lazy bastard, I know. However, I'm a busy lazy bastard. Last weekend I went to see A Midsummer Night's Dream at the local theater. Needless to say, I was charmed by the script and concept, but a little aghast (if that is possible in the English language) by part of the staging. At times, and those times were quite often, I felt like the director tried too hard. And tried too hard all over the place, both at the more intense scenes and while begging for a laugh. I did have a good laugh, I have to admit, and I must applaud the cast. So all in all, things even out.
Later on, the babe took me out for a drink and then we went dancing with more of our friends at The Rock is Rolling Party. Me, I had the best of times. I got bored once or twice and, goddess, most of the people annoyed me, but I danced my ass off and stayed till the end. It was good to see old faces and lose the grip for a while. However, I'm committing again to my goal of not wasting a night's sleep, because on Sunday I was high on lack of it and had no appetite. Also, I might be too old for this.
These past two weeks I've been going to the pool and swimming more and more laps. I can't wait for my next visit, because I really need some time in the sauna. My muscles hurt like hell after the sliding contest with my family this weekend. We went skiing and yesterday, after hitting the slopes and a late lunch we took our sliding gear and had some fun right next to the cabin. The snow was great and our mountain dog was thrilled to chase each and every one of us until the sun set and the ground really froze. The bruises and torn muscles are witness to that.
I went to a small birthday party this Friday. Our former dean is 70 and I was pleased to be invited. I felt a little weird, as only one other current PhD student came, but we were among the very few invited, so I guess they did want us there. I might have made some inappropriate jokes, such as "well, it's the last time girls will stand in line to kiss you", but I hope I got away with it. I was also presented with some nice opportunities, among which the invite to attend a lecture of a family demographer on Thursday and the chance to at least look at, if not join in, the work of a team of researchers who tangentially touch upon my subject of interest.
I also managed to survive what I like to call TGIP (thank goddess it's payday) on a Friday, post-Valentine's Day, which you may not think is much, but in my office is hard to complete successfully. I want to watch Les Miserables this week, but maybe in my next post I'll write a few words on Hotel Transylvania, I do feel like it. And, of course, as soon as I'm done with Rant, it definitely needs a couple of lines as well.

Light summer readings

For my birthday I got a copy of Sex and the City, Candance Bushnell's book. It's terribly bad written, but I enjoyed reading it. I laughed quite a lot and was constantly comparing the stories and characters to those in the HBO series. I guess Carrie's character is pretty much the same: a young writer and socialite always looking for fun and love. The other characters are kinda missing, except for Stanford Blatch, maybe. Samantha Jones is this producer who's sleeping around while dreaming of a monogamous relationship. Charlotte and Miranda may have appeared under other names, but they were just passing by. I appreciated there was more sex talk from men's perspectives and really hated all the drug references. In Bushnell's New York almost everyone was doing drugs. Mr. Big and Carrie make a yucky couple in the book, I'm not even sure why. They just have shitty drama going on. So I recommend it to the aficionados but I'm not sure about the profane. Maybe with a fresh eye it could actually be an interesting read.

I also had in my bag a book by Frederic Beigbeder. I can't really grasp the English translation, so I'll just leave it to that. Fun book as well. This one's about a French male socialite and his crazy adventures until he finds real love. The guy has a gang of other wacky rich kids and they attend all sorts of high-end parties that eventually turn into chaotic cake-throwing bashes. At first he has this girlfriend, Victorie, who's rich and has been living with him for a while. But at some point he meets this fair lady Anne and does his best to get rid of the old model. Of course, Victorie eventually marries his best friend. The tale of his emotions while he's courting Anne is endearing. Eventually they reach that lovely routine only passionate couples can live in, when doing even the smallest things together feels like a celebration. So I vote for Beigbeder's book. As a European male, his Marc Marronnier shows much more trust in the capacities of love to bring about change than the oversexed characters of Sex and the City.

Questionable Content

Following xkcd, I got to questionablecontent.net and it was love at first sight. It's a webcomic with indie kids, in short. Its Wikipedia page does a better job at explaining the basics:
"The plot centers on Marten Reed, an indie rock aficionado; his roommate, Faye Whitaker; and Faye's boss (later Marten's girlfriend), Dora Bianchi. Supporting characters include employees of the local coffee shop, neighbours and anthropomorphized personal computers. QC's storytelling style combines romantic melodrama, sitcom, humor about indie rock music, and sexual or scatological humor. The artistic style has notably changed over the lifetime of the comic, as Jacques has been constantly refining his drawing methods. Whereas earlier strips were focused at a niche audience of indie music fans, the comic has since become more story- and character-driven."
I was tempted to say more about the story, but maybe I'll just spoil it. The comic is currently at strip number 1662 and it took me a while to get through all of them, but now I can't wait for the next one. You get to regard the characters as friends, or maybe it's just because I don't have a very active social life. But they are fun to spend time with, Hannelore is a sweetheart and I guess I see bits of myself in both Dora and Faye and that's what kept me so hooked. I like the character development and also the evolution in artistic style, but the humor is what makes qc so cool. Jeph would make a great script writer, at least considering his witty dialogue skills. All in all, my favorite webcomic so far.

Capitalism and avengers

I've been away for quite a while and I could whine about my computer having no cable or the lack of hot water on my block or the silly cold I got. But I guess being happy is like sleep. Once you've gone enough without it, you don't feel the need anymore. At least for a while. And then it just happens to you. Unless you have happiness insomnia, which we generally call depression. But that's a different story.
So I wanted to write about movies. I haven't been seeing the greatest flicks of our time, but it's become my favorite pass-time activity, since Virginia Wolf only triggers my anxieties. Last week I took an afternoon to watch two Romanian productions. The first one was a much expected documentary called 'Kapitalism - our secret recipe'. It follows around some of Romania's billionaires and asks how they built their wealth. The documentary starts with Ceausescu's ghost coming back to his country just to see how his people has been brainwashed by consumerism. But at the end he leaves pretty satisfied, seeing how the elite has maintained alive the ways of the nomenklatura: acquiring wealth through their connections, in a rather questions-raising manner. The conclusion is we cannot experience real institutional change, nor benefit of the full advantages of a free market if other prerogatives of capitalism aren't in action. If the old elites transfer state property into their own hands with no proper bid, therefore ignoring the principle of competition, it is most likely that they will maintain their position and leave little room at the top for new-comers. Basically, I read the main argument in the light of Szelenyi and Townsley's concept of capitalism without capitalists. The social critique of the film-maker Alexandru Solomon is, I guess, that the Romanians tried to build capitalism with leftover tools from socialism.
The second film I saw that day was a great surprise. I had read some reviews and they were all mean to what I dare to call the most "skip a breath" Romanian movie I've seen this year. It didn't get the prizes to make it famous, nor the attention it deserved, but it was finally something unexpected. A different language, I would say. It's called 'The Green Moon' and was directed by Alexa Visarion. It follows around some young people who talk about their lives and worries and taste in things. What I do like is that it fails to be the pretentious 'artsy' movie the audience was expecting and it has no trace of the nostalgia and self-pitty Romanian movie scrips ooze of these last few years. However, it manages to be hilarious and dramatic and true to its discourse. I might read all movies wrong, but this one said to me 'we are all connected'. One other thing I liked was that, ignoring the landmarks that foresee the ending, there are a few scenes that are genuinely breath-taking and it doesn't even feel like the director was trying too hard. One other thing: Placebo's 'Pure Morning' plays obsessively in the backgroud and it literally tells the story.
Well now, in a more superficial tone, I've also watched some superhero flicks this weekend. 'Iron Man 2' might have been a really bad movie, but I wouldn't notice it in a million years due to my infatuation with Robert Downey Jr. But I must say, I do appreciate the more jolly type of savior, a guy who plays crazy but is tremendously smart. As opposed to the grim and broken justice seeker, like the character in 'The Punisher'. God, that skull T-shirt was awesome, but except for that, I think the original Marvel comics kicked the movie's ass big time. I know, most times the book beats the movie. Except for 300. Cause the comic was amazing, but you do not get to argue with those computer-rendered abs. You just don't.

Astenia e o forma de lene

Nu se face miercuri bine, ca ma loveste o oboseala si o lipsa de chef de nu-i adevarat. Ma simt vinovata uneori ca dorm cam mult, dar cand urmaresc mai atent pe ce pierd timpul, imi dau seama ca totul e oarecum bine motivat, doar ca eu uit sa includ detalii esentiale in planurile mele. De exemplu, munca prin casa imi ia mereu mai mult decat ma asteptam. Aseara m-am uitat trei ore la masina de spalat, nedumerita nevoie mare. Ma intreb mereu ce fac toata ziua cei care nu fac toate chestiile astea pe care eu abia le inghesui intr-o zi. Pentru ca eu una nu am timp sa ma plictisesc. Daca as avea timp liber cu carul, as reusi sa citesc in sfarsit teancul de carti si reviste care ma asteapta. Cu filmele hai ca stau mai bine, de vreme ce folosesc televizorul pe post de radio ca sa aflu stirile dimineata, atunci cand sunt foarte obosita dar nu mor de somn, apuc sa strecor un film sau un serial.
Am dat de Numb3rs si sunt prinsa. E produs de fratii Scott, iar povestea de baza e tot despre doi frati. Unul e agent FBI si celalalt un matematician extraordinar care il ajuta sa rezolve tot felul de cazuri prin procedee ce tin de logica si matematica. Incearca de obicei sa determine algoritmi sau sa incadreze evenimentele in ecuatii. Uneori nu ii iese, dar solutiile sunt intotdeauna witty si povestea te prinde. Povestea care leaga episoadele e destul de subtirica, despre viata personala a celor doi aflam doar faramite pe parcurs, dar inca sunt la primul sezon, deci mai este inca de invatat. In principiu, porneste de la aceeasi idee ca si Bones, ca stiinta, si mai ales oamenii de stiinta exceptionali, poate ajuta la rezolvarea dilemelor politienesti, transpunandu-le in probleme sau folosind teoriile deja consacrate. Este intr-un fel o modalitate de a apropia publicul larg de stiinta, facand-o accesibila si interesanta, trend usor de observat in televiziunea recenta, in special daca ne gandim la productiile Discovery care migreaza de la a descrie universul la a arata aplicatii mai prozaice, cotidiene ale stiintei.

La toma

I don't wanna read all that stuff. I would if I had plenty of time and energy and no stress about a hundred other things. But I can't right now, so I can just hope my free rider abilities are sharp.
So this morning we watched 'The Take'. I felt like crying most of the time. I'm probably never going to be a cold-blooded scientist. I'll always have a weakness for people's individual stories and a slightly activist rage. It's about a factory in Argentina being taken over by the workers in order to be transformed into a cooperative, where they would all have equal pay and run the business through participatory democracy. It wasn't the first time this kind of grass-roots movement re-opened factories. Several Argentinian businesses were revived by the workers and now the owners who closed and sell them wanted back in. There were many conditions related to the political environment, the economic pressures and globalization that led to such situations. I think now that Naomi Klein did have a point there, as much as I laugh at activists.
The problem I actually have with activists is that many of them have nice jobs and can afford fair-trade coffee and they are these lucky individuals who have the choice. But I wonder how many of them have actually been on the field, how many know personally people in need for whom they fight. Environmentalists can be just the same. Urban hippies don't impress me much. It's the people who go out into the world, the real one, that I'd wanna learn from.

Retrospectiva TIFF 2009

N-am mai reusit sa intru la Anticristul, desi era filmul pe care tineam mortis sa-l vad anul acesta la TIFF. Locatia nu a fost prea inspirat aleasa pentru o premiera, mai ales avand in vedere faptul ca a fost o singura proiectie. Bine, e si vina mea ca nu am luat biletul in avans de frica sa nu ploua. Anul acesta am vazut doar patru filme la festival, ceea ce e foarte putin avand in vedere ca planuiam sa-mi fac un card TIFF si sa ma mut in cinematograf.
Primul a fost 'Barthalo!'. Republica era plin si s-a ras in sala, iar echipa a fost primita cu aplauze prelungite. Atmosfera a fost asa cum imi aminteam eu festivalul in zilele lui bune. Sincera sa fiu, mi-a placut la nebunie, dar nu pot sa argumentez prea obiectiv de ce. Te atasezi repede de personaje, iar tenta de documentar a fost intr-adevar in linia mea de interes. In plus, sunt momente in care esti cu sufletul la gura si momente in care iti vine sa dansezi. Din cele patru, in mod sigur acesta a fost preferatul meu.
Am fost joi la ziua HBO la doua filme, dar inainte am vrut sa vad 'Esti Marlon si esti Brando'. Intr-adevar, e genul de film de la care atunci cand esti, te simti usor dezamagit. Si totusi, cand incepi sa-l povestesti celorlalti, iti dai seama ca povestea de dragoste te-a atins, ca anumite cadre ti-au ramas fixate in minte, ca aceasta alta perspectiva iti schimba oarecum felul de a privi razboiul din Irak, apropiindu-te de nivelul micro, la care oamenii interactioneaza, ii cauta pe cei dragi si asteapta vesti de la ei.
La Victoria am fost la 'Apocalipsa dupa soferi' al lui Alexandru Solomon. Ca o viitoare soferita scarbita, trebuie sa spun ca nu ma pot raporta in nici un fel la tema filmului, desi substratul lui, povestile individuale, mi s-a parut interesant. Am apreciat felul in care Solomon si-a ales personajele, felul in care a legat povestile. Mi se pare chiar munca antropologica ce facea el acolo.
'Australia' a fost primit foarte bine de public, a fost in mod clar mai multa lume in sala si s-a aplaudat si in timpul proiectiei. Australia e tot un fel de documentar, urmarind echipa nationala de fotbal a persoanelor fara adapost la primul campionat mondial la care am fost reprezentati, in Melbourne. Cred ca lumea care era la film era deja in mare parte genul de audienta cu mai putine prejudecati, dar ca totusi felul lor de a privi membrii echipei e acum complet diferit decat daca i-ar fi intalnit doar pe strada. Si trebuia sa ii felicitam ca au batut si echipa regizorilor si actorilor.
Nu am vazut, desi as fi vrut, 'Contesa', 'Cetateanul Havel' si, bineinteles, 'Repo! Opera genetica'. Despre ultimul se scrie ca a fost filmul cult al festivalului de anul acesta. Dar poate saptamana viitoare vor fi cateva proiectii post-festival. Poate la toamna am noroc si merg la Astra un weekend si unul la Verzio. As fi vrut sa ajung anul acesta la Anonimul, dar cred ca sunt limitata de buget si cercul meu social minuscul.

The paradise just around the corner

Screw the Oscars. I have watched some of the movies competing tonight and I still have a larger place in my heart for Milk. I know it is not a masterpiece of cinematography, not as intriguing as others, or not as cheering. But I have a great deal of sympathy for social movements and I believe in down-to-earth struggle and will rather than faith. Of course, it's centered around a specific character. But then again, aren't all our stories that way? I always get the look when I state such preferences. It would be hard for my mum to even watch a movie with gay men, but even so to endorse it. It happens that my friends have nationalistic views. It happens that some are even misogynists. If I ask for freedom of conscience, I have to accept it for others too. But I can always piss off all the uptight sissies with limited views of the world. And I enjoy it.
I finally finished Llosa's book and I just wish I would have been the one who wrote it. I guess I am already too much socialized into South-American literary tradition to fully taste the vigor of his writing. It's the story of the last years of life of Paul Gauguin and his grandmother's Flora Tristan. She was a writer and social activist in France and he was a painter living in Tahiti. She wanted equality for the poor and the workers and for women and he believed that a true artist needs to be in intimate contact with his savage self. They were both reformers who fought for freedom of those oppressed by the bourgeoisie or the colonists or the church or any kind of uniform. It makes you wonder about how complex all our lives are in the backstage, where we undress from our dreams and mission. I was amused towards the end where a fictional meeting of Flora and Marx was described. She was a pistol and shooed the titan who was waiting for the printers away. We all have a different view of this paradise lingering just around the corner. But maybe few are so brave as to leave searching and working for it.

Addiction

I've been watching quite a lot of movies lately and part of them were stories of heroin addicts. I don't know much about drugs, but I know about breakdowns. I got in a weird mood after writing the last post and I think it was also Pink Floyd that threw me into the hole again. That black hole I've been talking about a while ago. The one I thought I was pulled out of. I think I was not. I just went up a few meters. I'm not out, but I still feel like I'm climbing. This week I wasn't in the mood for much. No going out, no serious work, no healthy living. Just movies and sleep. 'Sid and Nancy' was terrible. I loved Sean Penn in 'Milk' and I cried at 'Lilja 4-Ever'. Bunuel and Dali's 'Un chien andalou' really hooked me on, I watched it twice and I fear it's gonna haunt my dreams. 'Candy' is an Australian movie about junkies. But to me it's more about how certain things become everything to us and we'd rather go to the end of the world than give them up. Yesterday I was all feminist bitch in my head, planning on writing of white male oppression. But I think some anger bits have to be left with myself and would just make me sound silly anyway.
I went shopping for food today, but indulged in other spending as well, just to make myself happy. There are things that we do for the people we love. And we complain for never getting such things from them. Well, I can now do it all for myself. And I can admit to being self-centered. One way or another, I'll get out of the hole. I'll want to get out of bed in the morning. It was snowing again this afternoon. Snowflakes keep surprising me when I go out of the metro station. I always get in this stupid numbness mood before exams and deadlines. And I stop caring. Wrong moment each time. And now I pray I can get myself together at least tomorrow.

Winter is in town

And it's already the middle of February. Skating last evening for me was so so joyful. I'm not a sissy anymore. :) I got up on those skates and gave it a try. I could not get enough. I don't yet move elegantly, I'm more like a dismembered puppet, but it was so refreshing to learn something new. The ice and burning in my cheeks made me feel for the first time in Budapest that it's winter and not just cold. I'd like to do it again. And I feel confident to put on my skis once more. Yeeey!
I wasted most of today making plans for next week. I enjoy having lists and schedules, it makes me feel in control. Talking of control, I've just watched the movie. It's wonderful. The actors are in the right place, I think I can't imagine it with anybody else. I've never heard Joy Division before, but I found it to be poetical music in a way that has not been touched by bands since the seventies. The director was well inspired to go for a linear narration, I believe it also allows you to take a break and enjoy the way he uses decor to make cadres so breath-taking. It felt nice to watch black and white with a hot soup and be so much in love with the wonderful boy Ian Curtis was.
I dropped by Gloria Jean's Coffees. I am not a coffee drinker, but I have a thing for coffee places. My chocolate decaf was very tasty, but I still think it was kind of expensive. The place is cosy and tasteful, I miss having a favorite cafe. It was snowing outside. It's always snowing when I get to Heroes Square lately. But the flakes were tiny enough to escape the lens of my camera. Still, I think this is as far as winter goes in Hungary. I hope I'll manage to be at one of the carnivals next week. To kick out all that was wrong last year and embrace the coming of spring.

Exhausted and cranky and stars

It's one of those days when the metro doors close right in my face. When every girl in the room is pretty and I'm the only inappropriate one. When they steal my whole unopened carton of milk from the fridge. When I'm late for classes and when although it was snowing all day, it starts raining as I go outside. Even so, I loved it.
I didn't have a very nice sleep. I woke up at some point and was in a delirium for the next hours, somewhere between annoying repetitive senseless dreams and stressed out about the world awake. But somehow I've made it through and the sky was bright. Well, at least for the next half hour, before I got to see the sun, it was already well-hidden. I couldn't finish more than half of my lunch. I didn't finish my readings and didn't work out as much as I planned to. But at least I did bits of each and I ran around six to the museum.
I am so sorry I did not take a camera with me. As I was going out of the metro station, snowflakes were all around me, before I even got to take a look around. I had to wait for almost 40 minutes for the tour to start, because they were serving drinks. I did not touch a drop, as I am on a four week self-discipline exercise of being alcohol-free. But then my group got the pretty curator assistant who showed us around. Thomas Ruff is indeed a fascinating artist. He can play with war and color and porn. The thing I like most about contemporary art is that it is so much centered around a discourse and devoid from that, it loses meaning. There is of course one thing or another that catches your eye, but without the story, it is not worth that much to you. My strongest reaction was to a newspaper photo of an old Ceausescu. That particular room just reminded me of how we need to put images in stories. Well, some of us. But there is a constant trade-off between our stories and the images. I'll try to move through the exhibition step by step, but I feel I cannot do a very good guide job. The first large room had works that were somewhat psychedelic, but which actually just talked about the color essence of images. They were actually several manga drawings superposed and printed on Plexiglas. Then there were some tri-dimensional games of curves, processed by computer after mathematical functions and printed to canvas. They were a more playful thing, a game of photographers trying to reach a tri-dimensional representation of space. I also liked the jpegs that were taken from different smaller photos and enlarged to an extent where you only had in front of you a pixelated image... and the point was to see that the image was beyond the photograph, and that the photograph does not grasp reality. There were two series of portraits. One that made Ruff famous, was of random people with no specific expression. I guess that was a way of underlining the actual lack of identity the photography entails and also that we are not that different to a camera. The second was another playful experiment, of taking elements of faces and making portraits out of them, sort of like the guy that takes sketches for the police. My personal reaction was that I knew every single one of those people. They all looked like somebody I could not put my finger on. I mentioned the newspaper photos, which taken away from the text, are actually good photography. They are also full of meaning and I believe there was one to create a feeling in every person who saw the exhibition. I also liked the camera surveillance-like photos, where the viewer is intimidated by his power of night vision over others who cannot see back. They are void landscapes, kind of creepy, kind of homely. The porn works were more than daring. It was blurred photos of images taken from the internet, a discourse on how we are all addicted to images and how they have power over us. And, nonetheless, the stars... ah, the stars. These were taken using telescopes at different times and the closer you get, the more stars you see. It is for me a way to feel tiny and amazed by all that's out there.
When I saw the brochure, I did not imagine you can live such an exhibition and also not that it can teach things. I am not the artsy type, but I did get a taste for it and I want more.

"and if you don't start undressing me soon, this is going to turn into a panel discussion"

Watching 'Vicky Cristina Barcelona' makes you long for being in love so badly and then it just cures you back. It made me laugh inside at remembering what it's like to be loved the Spanish way, the shouting at each other in the streets and the constant sway from tenderness to hate. I feel like it's also a beautiful portrayal of how differently women love and how they can all be loved for what they are. Cristina's struggle to find what she wants and Vicky's ambiguous feelings, Maria Elena's crazy passion... I find them all within us and Woody Allen has done such a good job at telling a candid story that makes you all warm and fuzzy and confused and amused. I'm not good at writing reviews because I always go back to my emotional reactions. But the cast did such a wonderful job, I can't help being amazed.
Rainy day in Budapest, just like at home. I was planning to go jogging tomorrow, but I'll have to settle for a longer walk in the rain. I've been doing some reading today and I'm now hoping to cover most of everything tomorrow. I'm in a good place right now. I do complain a lot to everybody, but I even have a slight idea for a PhD research proposal. I'm still going to seek help. At least until I can have the blurriest idea of what I want. I like this rain. I could stare at it for hours.

Detox

Yeah, it's morning and I'm detoxing. All the smoke and beer was really a bad boost for my low self-esteem. I wanna give up on it. I'm gonna start a one month trial. To get a better grip of myself and learn to deal with things when I'm sober.
It was extremely lovely yesterday. After the economic crisis seminar I took a walk in the park and smiled to myself because finally we had a sunny day in Budapest. The fine arts museum was pretty impressive, all that huge building and the way it was designed to welcome you in an overwhelming way. The El Greco exhibition was brought in from Prado, so I've seen the pieces before, but not in such a comprehensive way. I feel his paintings, especially the early ones, are so powerful. There is this dramatic background, especially the sky, that is grave and even grim. And the way he highlights eyes and hair has this mesmerizing thing. But I think one of his most impressive tools in creating this powerful art is the prolonged and sometimes slightly blurred faces and body shapes, which is fluid in a way, but I just feel it's kinda like being in a dream. Well, I also got to see the Egyptian exhibition, I love so much looking at all the tiny hieroglyphs and being absolutely oblivious. The permanent exhibition was pretty cool. I think Prado is not that much cooler than this. I'm starting to resent all the Middle Ages painting. But I still love the Spanish and the Brits. The French guys are getting boring, although I've seen some impressionist pieces. I've actually been in front of a Gauguin. I know it sounds silly, but for me it was an event. What I found most surprising is that the late German painters are amazingly playful in a very to the point way. I don't know if I can express it. And oh, I would have taken one specific painting home, I don't even recall the name or the painter. It was a huge, slightly impressionist piece of an alley in autumn. It was all color and warmth but also an expectation of a slight chill wind. I loved it so so much. I got tired after two hours of walking around circling rooms holding my head back and my eyes were just blurred after all that brush stroke they've been checking out. I gave up on the idea of coffee, I need excuses to go more often to the park. So I took a nap and it was so comforting to be in bed on a sunny afternoon.
Of course it's back cloudy again. I didn't like Instant that much. It's just some sort of Szimpla and the dancing place is horrifying. Beer is reasonable compared to other places and it's so so crowded. I don't think I'm gonna go around this kind of places anytime soon. I'm easily bored by the same environments when I know there's so much to see out there. And I'm definitely not the artsy underground kind of person. There is somewhere out there a place where I fit perfectly. Finding the perfect spot is a highly demanding quest. You have to go around a lot of shitty places till you find a second home. But when it's there, oh, the feeling you finally belong.

Sit back, relax

Yesterday evening I went to this fancy-looking bar downtown called Take Five. They had a random Wednesday, with young musicians jamming. I found it extremely chill. I felt that I can just be. The drummer was amazing, they were all doing a head-spinning change of rhythm and style till it got from jazzy to electro. That was a nice learning experience, being able to sit and let it all flow in front of my eyes.
And damn, I woke up so refreshed and now I'm a little like a jelly after a long day in the university. The girls took me to lunch in this place called Oregano, which to me looks like Roosevelt (or whatever it's called) and the food is relatively less tasty. But I'm in for the new. As long as I'm not broke.
I've been going through Alanis' 'Jagged Little Pill' again and I find it ageless. I think I'm growing soft over music, but I've been quite nostalgic over some stuff I have on my CDs. I now expect the feds to come in and arrest me after the Head's speech today about what means to steal stuff from people. I can get it that plagiarism is an issue in an academic setting, but when the Russians will stop providing us movies via different net pipes, can you imagine how sad conversations will be? I guess I'd just adapt and continue loving documentaries even more (not tech stuff though, they have to be fierce to impress me). But for now, long live streaming and somebody tell the Megavideo people it's really uncool to wait an hour just to watch half an episode. Word.

Orasul zeilor

Poate ca nu am eu multe in comun cu domnul Cristian Tudor Popescu, dar filmele pe care le recomanda la TV imi plac la nebunie. Saptamana trecuta am vazut Orasul zeilor, un film brazilian care m-a uns la suflet. Sau pe retina. Ritmul in care evolua povestea era o samba fascinanta. Povestea unui baiat crescut intr-o mahala (daca se poate folosi termenul romanesc pentru realitatea braziliana) la marginea orasului Rio de Janeiro, intre hoti si traficanti de droguri, care nici macar atunci cand se straduieste, nu se poate deveni talhar. Si aceasta chiar este una din scenele ilare ale filmului, dar la fel ca povestea lui Bene, traficantul de treaba, ne face sa ne amintim de binele din oameni. In Orasul zeilor, toti au o poveste si toate povestile se leaga. Desi realitatea este una amara, in care “marunteii” fura si pana la urma ucid, chiar daca lumea aceasta este condusa de cate un imparat al mustelor, nu te poate lasa decat cu zambetul pe buze.
Pentru ca, dincolo de interpretarile mele literare (in genul liricului de a saptea), este un film bun. Mi-a placut faptul ca exista un narator si firul gandirii lui nu transpare artificialitate, pentru ca exista atatea jocuri cu imaginea incat uneori te simti la granita cu fotografia artistica, pentru ca se joaca cu stereotipuri si te face sa te rusinezi cand iti dai seama de propriile prejudecati, pentru ca o poveste aparent fragmentata e fluida si palpitanta, si mai ales pentru ca ii iubesc pe brazilieni si m-am simtit adusa din nou in mijlocul lor.