if this was twitter, i'd write right now:

"in dire need of a caffeine shot on my veins. drinking coffee won't do. shame i can't write a text by merely rolling my face over the keyboard while sleeping."

myths about myself (II)

i have a bad memory. i do, but for mostly meaningless shit and events of little consequence. but try me for real. hurt me once, and see if i will ever forget it.

*snap*

one of these days a loud *snap* sound will be heard somewhere. care not about it, for it will be of little consequence; it will be just me breaking for good, at last.

on memories (II)

what about memories of what won't happen overlapping memories of what did happen? would that be possible? heh. the human mind is so funny.

myths about myself

i'm naturally calm. people tend to believe that i am quite calm, but they're wrong. i just pretend to be calm on the outside, when inside i'm shattering with rage. take today, for example. i might look calm, but somehow i have a feeling it will all come out until the end of the day. just hope it doesn't get accidentally targeted for someone innocent, really.

on memories

she pointed over to that spot on the cliff - a small platform on the rocky surface, accessible by climbing some narrow steps and walking a tricky path, where someone ages ago had built a sort of fountain countless years ago. she asked me if i had ever been there. no, i said, but i'll take you there one day.

i never did.

but the memory remains - a memory of something i never did. of something that never happened. it's interesting to see how we can create memories of events that never took place, or even of places where we've never been. sounds weird, i know, but it happens. especially when it involves someone else, someone who was somehow special back then. i've never been on that small spot on the cliff, but if eventually i go there, i'll remember her, and how i should have gone there with her - not in the present, but in the past. in a long lost past that is not missed anymore nonetheless.

what about future memories? memories of something that hasn't yet happened? those are tricker, but they happen to - often when we want something to happen so much that we picture it all on our head with coloured crayons. and then we long for what we haven't lived yet. we might not even live it, ever - but in our minds we did, and the picture drawned and painted in that glorious morning will remain. and it will come back to us if we ever get there, and not without a faint feeling of sadness. for what should have happened.

downfall

can we die and not know it? i thought not, but you've shown me how wrong i was. ironically enough i was given the front seat to watch your downfall. not that watching it gives me any pleasure. it doesn't. it's always sad to see something like that becoming dust. but it's not surprising either. years and years of carelessness, of believing - if you can believe anything anyway - that everything would be all right if you didn't touch it have fallen into this - you've lost it all. ever heard of a flower that blooms without being nourished? i guess not. but you understood that something was going awry. and you did something - something reckless and stupid, something that no one should ever do. you think you got away with it but you didn't.

it's funny. so many years later and your old sin catches up with you and hits you right in the face. you haven't felt it yet. but you will. and then you'll remember everything that you have sacrificed needlessly. and then you'll remember me. had you asked earlier and i would have warned you - not that you would have listened, but i would have warned you nonetheless. now i won't. i'm taking no sides, but as i decided not to pass judgement over one, i won't help the other either. i will just see it all fall. won't even turn my back on you, just as you probably deserved. i will just stay there. watching the ruins. going nowhere, doing nothing. just watching.

note to self

and a warning for my dear readers: if you're smokers, and if you don't have an ashtray on your desk, do never use a coca-cola can for that. sooner or later you'll get distracted enough to try to drink it.

i flunked at probabilities. so what?

thinking about the past, i notice that it thorougly followed the first murphy law: if it can go right, it will go wrong. and i remember all my affairs. all. funny - each one of them (save perhaps the first) had everything - or almost everything - needed for it to go right. even love, for god's sake. the results... well, the results were almost tragic, were like going out in a sunny morning, happy with your life and all, and the first thing you do when you walk through the door is to step on dog poo. just like that. sooner or later, dog poo. so why waiting for some sort of perfection? fuck that. i was never good at probabilities anyway. might as well challenge them now, when it has everything to go wrong. who knows?

dreams

this blog is three and a half years old and has roughly eighteen hundred posts. no, i'm not going into maths and statistics right now - math before lunch is heresy on my book, and i've forgotten the whip at home anyway. but watching this blog's evolution over the years is funny to me, because there is an underlying message that no text, picture, hyperlink or video could express: it us more frequently updated when my life is getting depressive. sadness somehow triggers the will to write - even if we write nice and warm things when we're feeling sad. unlike happiness. happiness is a dream - and while we dream, we just live there, in the dream, not willing to do anything else but to enjoy it. dangerous things, the dreams. and so necessary for our (in)sanity. i look at this blog, at the ups and downs on its "update rate" and i realise that the last seventy eight months have been mostly downtime - except for some brief periods when the rain stopped and the sun shone through the clouds... and some moments when i was stuck at my homeland, without internet.

this is almost an excuse for the fact that i've been writing less and less lately, and that trend is most likely to go on. almost, i said. i'll see what i can do meanwhile.

start to move

start to move

and today i woke up to feel my whole body hurting. well, not only the body, but i suppose the body was what i feel burning under the shower's warm water. scratches and bruises all over, arms, legs, chest, back, neck. can hardly move without feeling some sort of pain. the funny thing is, i'm happy for it. it felt good, it felt for a lifetime just to be there in the middle of that chaos just dancing and jumping and pushing and kicking around. that moshpit felt for a lifetime. damn it.

and i can say that blasted mechanism are better than ever. would like to post here a video, but i was too busy trying not to hit the floor yesterday during the gig - something i could not avoid in the end. heh. it was all so funny.

sleeping awake

dreams can only become true when (if?) we are bold enough and strong enough to retain them in our memory once we wake up.

echo

somehow i feel that the echo of the sound is worst than the sound itself.

cloud cuckoo land

i'm starting to believe we're living outside reality, in a world of our own, of our own making.

yes, you should. you definitely should.

god damn it.

so many tech innovation on mobile communication and the sending of text messages across european mobile networks still fails like this?

i became an adult yesterday. 

i don't know where i read it. nor do i know who said it. but it was something like this: one starts being an adult when talking about our problems does not help us any more. so it all now makes sense somehow.

there's something else, and that something else is me.

always.

patterns.

the most amusing things of that story was to see how all the theories on human's behaviour relativity crumble down so easily. it doesn't matter who we are, where we live, where we were born, how old we are and what do we dream about. our background is also irrelevant - whether we are rich or poor, whether we are more educated or simply ignorant. it doesn't matter how different we are, it doesn't matter what makes us an individual, unique - we still follow the same patterns, like and sea current flowing too deep to be seen often. 

small and frail.

i saw the portuguese movie director manoel de oliveira the other day. i never payed too much attention to his movies, but it is impossible not to be impressed by the man, at the top of his century of life, still making movies. one hundred years. one hundred years that are impressive on his body. mind you, his walking cane is just for the style: he moves with a grace and a determination that i don't have, that i never had, that my twenty-three year-old body will never have, no matter whan i do. one hundred years and he's far younger than me, both in body and in spirit. mind you, i'm not envious. well, maybe a little, but that's hardly the point. i'm just impressed. i've just felt small and frail by comparison. 

markings

(...) see those markings i did with green ink? they mean a dream that won't be true. one that has placed my mind on the clouds only for the guilty pleasure of seeing it plummeting and crashing on the ground. no matter. i shall go on nonetheless. and i'll wait until the last of the markings fade away. a whole year has passed then. it's one less year too. 

perhaps...

... i should start believing in coincidences after all.

(three hours ago this made more sense than it does now.)

full house

i'm wondering: what will i do if that really comes to happen? unlikely? yes, perhaps, but i guess almost all the odds were challenged already. so let's make it all simple and assume it does happen just like that: what would i do? for years i thought about it, told that idea out loud, tested reactions, checked opinions. while at the same time i called upon every little thing that could get in the way to stop me going further. fear? perhaps. in the end, there are no excuses to hide that, no good ones (thankfully no one has ever asked the right questions). and as such i went on, waiting for the perfect timing that will never happen. i know that. i know that all too well. 

i had never considered the other situation though, and right now it hits me right in the face: what if..? and then i have to add that other variable to the equation, and find a way to solve it somehow. and what if it comes to happen? will i have what it takes within me to gamble everything? or will i find yet another excuse to go on hiding as i've done so far? time will tell, i guess...

recoil

i let you make fun of me because i've lost all respect for you. it happened in the day i left, when i finally understood exactly what you are, when i could finally see the whole picture. and it wasn't a nice one. not at all. see, that's why i don't care about what you think. about what you say. about your smart-assed jokes. you think you're making fun out of me, but in the end, you're only making a fool out of yourself.

the funny thing is, i actually believe that deep down, you know this just as i do.

i'd really like to know

why the hell is my msn messenger interface pink since i've updated it to the newest version. i mean, for god's sake, of all the colours... pink?

the impossible

so what can we do when what is possible in our lives doesn't satisfy us any more? what can we do when what we get every day is hardly enough to makes us wish to wake up every morning? simple. we just have to learn to accept the impossible. that's all that it takes. eventually the impossible will be knocking on our door. 

don't... tempt... me..!

xkcd 308

and in case no one has noticed it,

and i know no one did, the post below, although true (skype really did that), is absolutely irrelevant. it means nothing, it's something so uninteresting that i would never post it here in a normal situation. this isn't a normal situation though; and even though there's so much that could be said, nothing comes out and i'm just standing here with this smile on my face. it's funny. i've forgotten the last time i smiled like that. anyway, back to the topic: the post above is there because i needed to say something when i had something to say and couldn't. confusing? yes, i know. let me explain it again. or rather, let quentin tarantino do it:

(...)

mia
don't you hate that?

vincent
what?

mia
uncomfortable silences. why do we feel it's necessary to yak about bullshit in order to be comfortable?

vicent
i don't know.

mia
that's when you know you found somebody special. when you can just shit the fuck up for a minute, and comfortably share silence.

vicent
i don't think we're there yet. but don't feel bad, we just met each other.

(...) [pulp fiction]

touché.

skype

i've reinstalled skype on my laptop, needing a stable and cheap (well, free) way to make long-distant calls. had never installed the current version, and when i did, the software didn't ask me for any previous account, any e-mail address, any name or password, nothing. it just logged in...

... and displayed my name and a real-life friend in my contact list. this is creepy: how the hell did skype know that?

readers' blog: traces of sand

The path of life and the marks we leave on it. Like footprints in the sand, washed away by the morning tide. Every print is different, maybe even with a slight change of direction, or the ground we walk on change in texture and make every step different from the previous one. Some prints stay longer you know? Either it’s because we took a different way and the waves, like grasping hands, can’t reach them. The other reason for this is that some prints are deep, too deep, like their cut in stone, and no tide can wash these away.

We stop for a second and look back and see these patterns. Our own history, experiences, and we study them, one by one. Some people will go back, and even make new prints. They’ll try cover some up with sand, and it works. For a while. They are still there you know? The prints. Hidden maybe, but we know they are there.

The waves are strong this evening. Dark and powerful, as I fall to my knees looking over my shoulder. Two pair of prints, side by side, and the salty taste from the sea and the cold on my chin makes me wonder. There are moments in life we walk alone, because we have to or we have no choice. I see these pair of prints and as I look towards the horizon, the sand beside me shiver by the weight of someone approaching and I think to myself; right now I don’t have to walk alone and I’ll embrace this moment for as long as I have it.

special guest star: jill

and thanks for your text, dear... i really wanted to say something else about it, but to be completely honest with you, you kinda left me without words. all i will tell you is, this one is better than anything i've ever written here.

small is beautiful? not necessarily.

the world is too small. how often do we say it? i'll tell you: as often as we randomly meet people in the most unexpected of the places. especially if it is people we could do well without meeting, in the worst place possible. but let me tell you another thing: for what really matters, the world is just what it is - a planet. a small one in the solar system, but sometimes way too large for us.

knowing people.

if you really want to know someone, don't talk to him or her. conversations are often pointless. they'll tell you what you want to hear. they'll make you see a picture of themselves perfectly shaped by the words of their choice. the selfish will look altruist. the altruist will act as if they don't care. there will be no pride, no misery, and all the little mean things about them will look funny, mostly harmless. an act. always an act, conversations. and guess what? you'll swallow them. you'll swallow them all, and you'll give them a standing ovation in the end. if you truly want to know someone, when be their company when they're doing their everyday business. you know, go shopping with them, watch them talking on the cell phone, see how they adress the waitress on the pub you've picked up, watch them walking on the street. watch their moves. they will tell you everything you need to know, all the things that words thought and spoken would never tell you.

mind you, there is an exception to this rule: sometimes you meet someone and there is something so intense between both of you that all the words simply come out, naturally and true to themselves. like an electric current, or a tidal force seemingly unstoppable. sometimes you meet someone and you feel no need to wear any of your masks when talking to them - you can simply be yourself. but how many people like this you meet during your lifetime? one? two? three if you're lucky? always too few. but is it always worth meeting them.

great expectations:

august: 21st, austria (frequency festival) // 23rd, czech republic // 25th, poland // 29th, united kingdom (leeds festival) // 30th, united kingdom (reading festival). come on, guys, give me some good news. i'm waiting.

(list under update)

ooooh, shiny!

and i've finally understood the current internet joke about vampires that shine: it is related with the movie twilight, based in the book by stephenie meyer. i've also learned that here in portugal it is published and distributed by the same company who published eragon. god help the twilight if those guys came up with another shitty translation.

timing?

i know nothing of it. i merely know when something does feel right or wrong. well, most of times it just feels wrong. perhaps the timing was okay now, and i've wasted it. perhaps it would have been the right move. hell, who knows it? we seldom get these answers immediately anyway.

immunity

one day i'll be immune to it, of course, just as i'm now immune to things that used to sting like hell a long time ago. it just takes time.

the following film is made of awesome

now i should write some comment about the movie and all that, but doesn't the "clint eastwood" bit say it all? 

easter in the village (III)

the walk takes us to the local schools - the schools i attended to in the early years of my life. i remember the old builings, the closed yard where we played football whenever we could. i remember the huge pine trees, those that were full of those nasty allergy-carrier catterpillars every winter - i remember one day when we took down a lot of nests, made a pile with them, smeared gasoline all over and watched them burn. i remember the huge sandbox of the playground, the rusty iron structures where we play. i even remember the airplace - yes, we did have an airplane in our playground. a real one, a weathered war machine, a broken mesh of twisted metal, sharp edges and broken glass. i remember the walls surrounding the schools - not really high, so even a seven-year old kid could climb them with ease. that is all gone now. the plane was dismantled a long time ago, and taken somewhere else to rust in peace. the pine trees were chopped down. the closed yard was split in two and rebuild, following all modern security rules. the sandbox has been removed and replaced by some kind of clean rubber cover. it is impossible to find mud or loose stones in that playground, and i wonder if the grass is real or artificial. a huge metallic fence was build over the walls, so no one can get in or out. a modern school, they say, where children can be safe from everything, even from themselves. a prison, i say, one that would make any child of my generation sad as hell. we are raising kids in an artificial world, where they can not run freely or understand the notion of danger. we are creating a society of lunatics. the insanity has reached my village. and it makes me sad. 

guess what? my knees bear scars. a lot of scars. i've lost count on how many times i've hurt them and watch them bleed. and i survived it. those kids wouldn't. i'm truly sorry for them.

easter in the village (II)

mind you, i was invited to join the church's party. the local priest personally invited me, even though he knows me from nowhere. i politely declined. i understand and praise his christian's spirit - i'm not a believer, i don't go to the church, i haven't done anything at all in the party's organization, but i'm still welcome to join. but he doesn't know that the christian's spirit of the local townsfolk is just a mask, one of the many they wear every day. they would never forgive me for being there - me, of all the people, a wayward sheep of the flock, one that has once follow the ways of god but has long since departed on his own. they have never forgave me for being more ambitious anyway. and even though i care little for what they can say about me, i can do well without another crucification.

easter in the village (I)

i never thought i'd live to see the day when my village's church would be crowded at midnight (or at any other hour, for that matter). as i never thought i'd see the local priest making parties more successful than the local sports club parties. the world is definitely upside down, and soon catholics and heathens will start an all-out war for the dominance of the village's parties. heh. two sides competing for the best steak, the cheapest beer, and the lousiest music - now that would be something worth seeing. 

quoth the raven (XLV):

He had never felt this before - not when Henry Cameron colapsed in the office at this feet, not when he saw Steven Mallory sobbing on a bed before him. Those moments have been clean. But this was pity - this complete awareness of a man without worth or hope, this sense of finality, of not to be redeemed. There was shame in this feeling - his own shame that he should have to pronounce such judgement upon a man, that he should know an emotion which contained no shred of respect.
This is pity, he thought, and then he lifted his head in wonder. He thought that there must be something terribly wrong with a world in which this monstrous feeling is called a virtue.

ayn rand, the fountainhead

have a nice easter. i'll be back in a few days.

playing switzerland

if i could sing, i would sing right now the song where i end and you begin, by radiohead. especially that part: i can watch and not take part. god bless neutrality.

influence

in a way, it reminds me of a time of my childhood. my group of friends had a leader, you see - all groups have one. and if he decided that he didn't want to talk again with someone, everyone would do the same. it was the logical thing to do. if someone refused, he'd shove that person aside - and everyone would do the same, of course. i remember i was the first one rebelling against this - when he decided to make a pariah out of a classmate and i told him "he hasn't done anything to me, so why should i quit talking with him?" it cost me a lousy week, when none of my class would talk to me - except one girl, who had always been my friend and remain so, even if not showing that not to suffer any consequences. but i broke him - and even though he tried to get his revenge by blaming me for shit i hadn't done, his leadership was definitely broken then. yes, i was proud of it. and i like to know that, of the old gang, everyone is my friend, and no one is his friend. things just evolved like that - and people like him either find a group of followers (who are never friends, but mere acolytes), or become outcasts. good riddance to him, i hope he fries.

but why am i remembering all this? oh, that's right: because of the power we have to influence someone's attitudes towards someone else. the power we have to make personal "smear campaigns". i'm thinking about someone in particular, of course, and in the possibility that such a smear campaign might be running. against me, that is. that person would be stupid and low enough for that. but such an attempt is meant to fail, eventually, because there's someone with more power of influence on my side... and that's rather ironic. but i would never expect that a former friend would declare war on such terms against me. the next months will be funny indeed.

rachael

tonight i'll talk about a girl. mind you, i don't know her, and i don't think i'll ever do - as a matter of fact, i don't think i'll ever see her again. but i noticed her, of course i noticed her, the whole world faded out of existence during the movie break when me and her were smoking outside. she was staring at the street, apparently unaware of everything. she had a thin face with expressive dark eyes - she was not exactly the prettiest or the hottest girl on earth. her hair was dark as well, reaching her shoulders and framing her face and neck perfectly. she was wearing a black overcoat, a knee-lenght pleated skirt and simple boots. she seemed distant, cold even, while staring outside - and she had this remarkable way of holding her cigarrette and puffing out the smoke. she wasn't obviously pretty, or sexy - but her face and her figure had a beauty of her own, an uniqueness that truly fascinated me; the way she was dressed and the way she moved had an elegance as i had never seen before. 

she reminded me of someone. someone from a movie. rachael, from blade runner. somehow, she made me think of her. 

being 'alternative' is overrated.

alternative? no. i just want to be myself, and live my life freely as i've lived it so far. and to live freely in my book is to do whatever pleases me in the way that pleases me. even my little routines, like the rice and beans for lunch on saturday or the monthly trip to my little village to have a haircut. it's not a matter of being "alternative", which is yet another stereotype that encompasses so many things. it's not even a matter of being "different" - not in the way you understand the concept of "being different". it's just a matter of being myself, as an individual, not following any crowd or trend just for the sake of it.

your little speech (intended as a joke but meant seriously; i've already caught the way you have to say that kind of things) brought back to my memory a different conversation, one about clothes - and indirectly, about the clothes i wear and the way i dress. i agree that our clothes show pretty much about ourselves, and i'm no exception to that: i don't care much about my outer self, by the way i look, and so i'm quite careless when dressing. irresponsible, even. chaotic, if you prefer. someone hinted in that conversation - never directly, of course - that i don't know how to dress myself. quite right - i don't.

the fact is, apparel is way to overrated. i know that we never get a second chance to cause a first good impression on others, but the fact that most of times that first good impression is purely based in what we're wearing - in prices, brands, style - is rather unfair. i don't care about what i wear - give me some jeans, a plain t-shirt and sneakers and i'm good to go. will someone else be better than me - more intelligent, more interesting, more funny, more stupid, whatever - just because he's wearing trendy clothes? i don't think so. i really don't think so. "but then you can't go to certain places", you tell me. true. i can't. but that's not because of what i (don't) wear - i could adapt myself, and if i don't know how to dress myself smartly, then i could ask a girl friend to help me out on that (lol). i simply don't care to go to a place when they sort people out for what they're wearing, that's all. it's seldom my kind of place. i'm sorry, i'm sorry - i'm the kind of guy who prefers a good pub (where it is allowed to smoke, if you don't mind), with not-too-loud music so people can talk and listen to each other without shouting, and having a beer without giving the right arm for it because they cost basically the same than a complete lunch on my usual restaurant. it's not that i will never break a little. but it won't be something that will thrill me.

so you see, i'm not alternative, not in any way. the so-called "alternative" people seek out to be different - visually speaking - so they can stand out. it's just another kind of self-affirmation by what they look like. i prefer to have people judge me after they get to know me. it gives me more trouble, right, but allows me to get rid of those i don't care to know - the ones who will stick to the first glance they take at me.

remember, john: googles always knows.

from xkcd, of course (i shall remember this next time).

hostility.

so i suppose it is clear now: you know that i know. my eyes have shown the hostility, haven't they? i couldn't help it; as i said before, i don't really have a poker face, especially when i'm taken by surprise. so now you understand that i haven't been playing the fool after all - i knew it all from the start, only i didn't care about it. it was irrelevant. you both are irrelevant.

i told you it was fucking brilliant:

taken from xkcd.

this is fucking brilliant (thanks, britta, for the link!).

[edit: and this one too! meh, check the whole site, the cartoons are simply amazing. just... don't do it at your workplace. you'll have a hard time explaining to your boss what the hell are you laughing at when (s)he's talking to you.]

hunting j.d.salinger

or trying to: that's what the spectator magazine's journalist tom leonard tried to do. and yet another one hitting salinger's fifty year-old wall of silence. read it - it's worth the time.

i don't get it: why me?

an almost real conversation*:

(...)

she: don't you have anything new to tell me?
me: what news could i possibly have to tell you?
she: i don't know, isn't there nothing new in your life concerning love?
me (chuckling): concerning love. no, there's nothing new. perhaps next year.
she: next year? now why on earth do you say that?
me: i don't know. suppose it's a date like any other else, right? could say "ask me next week". can't afford the optimism, though. so i say next year.
she: so you still have a long way ahead...
me: so i suppose.
she: well, you guys always have a good hand to rely upon.
me: true.
she: it will be until it hurts.
me: nah.
she: but don't you miss it?
me: what? wanking?
she: no, silly. having someone.
me: i might. but you know, after a while, it's all the same. you won't even miss it anymore. you just get used to it.
she: not much of a choice there, after all.
me: indeed.

(...)

me: i don't know, i suppose everyone falls apart eventually. i mean, five years is one hell of a long time.
she: long and heavy, when everything is crumbling down.
me: you bet. i tell you what, i won't give them much more time. they'll be over until the end of the year.
she: the end of the year? but you don't mean that you and...
me: for god's sake, no, i don't mean that. me and... christ, that would be impossible.
she: like you and me getting laid, i suppose.
me: yeah, something like that. thanks for ruining my wet dreams.
she (giggling): oh, come on.

(...)

*i've not quoted everything, and somethings were changed. obviously.

not everything, but enough.

i suppose you haven't noticed how sharp were your words, those you spoke so easily, so spontaneously. or perhaps you noticed it, all right, but thought that i would dodge the blow with ease, or at least parry it. i did nothing though, and let it cut right through me. sometimes we must not avoid the pain, and as far as you are concerned, i believe the best i can do is to embrace it. it won't kill me, that's for sure.

anyway.

have you also noticed how i've told you enough to keep you happy without telling you what really mattered? probably you have noticed it - or you should have, at least - because i don't really have a poker face and i let out too many things.

i know

you enjoyed it because you understood that i understood - and because you were surprised my audacity when stating that knowledge that way. not by boasting about it, but to merely state it: i know. there is no need to lies or excuses from now on, i hope you understand that much.

i haven't finished it yet,

but i can tell you already that 

is definitely the best book i've ever read. i've got this edition exactly - eight euros worth leaving my payment card. 

the flame.

you were not really expecting me to ask that, were you? 'cause i've learned something lately: to keep my hands away from the flame. it burns, i've tried several times. i know that pain already. so i don't ask. i don't ask not to get burned again. and i watch you burning, going around and itching to tell me all that. it would be funny if it wasn't so sad. 

some wrongs are just right.

fortunately i was wrong. and you're still wrong. the difference between me and you then is the fact that i know that i was wrong, and that actually gives me hope; while you will never know how wrong you are.

not knowing.

i'd rather not know it. i won't lie and pretend that knowing it is irrelevant and of no consequence to me, because it isn't; but that's exactly the reason why i'd rather not know it. i'm wondering how can i make it all more obvious.

on safety

safety is a feeling with a sort of a gravitational pull - and a strong one. how hard it is to chose one of two different ways when we know that one of them is safe, clean, without many thorns on its sides and traps laid in front of our feet.

timings, timings.

i've lost count of the nights i've spent alone not because i had a burning desire to be alone - happens sometimes - but because i simply can't get anything to do, or anyone willing to do something. truth be told, i don't always put much effort into making something, but that doesn't matter right now. there are other nights though, other occasions, when everyone remembers that i'm still alive somewhere in town and call me, inviting me for something. meh, what a pain. i can't be everywhere at the same time. as i can't simply be nowhere at any time. unfortunately.

raining cats and dogs

it's a funny expression, isn't it? it's raining cats and dogs. i've always liked it. but concerning cats and dogs - not raining, mind you - which one is the best pet? most people i know would say that it would be a dog, and yes, i can see sense in that: dogs (generally speaking) are loyal, funny, and make good company. but cats have a charm of their own: when they sleep, when they hunt, when they go berserk for no apparent reason. it's funny to toss a ball and watch the dog retrieving it, dutifully. the cat would run after it, yes - but only to fight with it. if you want to have fun, just give the cat a ball of cord. and watch it for a while.

but there are more differences. cats are independent - most of them, that is. they have more personality. dogs require more attention. my old phylosophy teacher told me once the fundamental difference between cats and dogs. it is a joke, of course, but one that hides the truth underneath:

"a dog stares at his owner and thinks: this fellow over here, he feeds me good food, he provides me shelter, he plays with me, he takes me out for a walk. he must truly be god. while a cat staring at his owner would think: this guy over there, he feeds me, he provides me shelter and a clean sandbox, he plays with me, he lets me do whatever i want. i truly must be god!"

a perfect farewell

the perfect goodbye is one never spoken. one that never becomes real. let's face it: there are few moments in our lives as awkward as a farewell. do not include death situations here, please - there is no possible goodbye for someone who is crossing the boundaries of our futile little world. but when someone is leaving, catching a train for the other side of the country, or the world - what are we supposed to say? or when we are the ones leaving, what do we say to those we leave behind as we venture into the unknown? the perfect farewell is a silent one, for in such a moment nothing is supposed to be said. or done, for that matter. a kiss, a handshake, a hug? no. a stare, only, a last stare into everyone's eyes is enough. a quiet acknowledgement that regardless of the distance, of the time, nothing will ever changed, and we who are leaving will always love those who stay behind. or we, who are staying behind, will always grant the adventurers a safe haven shall they fall along their way.

if i were to leave, to depart from here, i would want no one saying goodbye, waving at me from the terminal's glass gates. i would want no one there, for that matter. i've mused about that several times, whenever i took a plane to somewhere else - what if one day i get here again, and got into that plane again, only without a return ticket? all the times i've returned, i felt sad somehow, sad for never having anyone waiting for me, welcoming me back - and that has shown me that, in a way, there is little of me in this strange land i call home. but if i'm ever meant to leave without no planned return, i will want no one around me. no farewell. no goodbye. no empty words. i just want to leave the terminal and enjoy my lask cigarrette here, and take a long, deep breath before i board and leave. that would be my perfect farewell.

welcome back to this world of zeros and ones.

dead air space (II)

about the song idioteque (kid a, 2000):

(...) several of the "idioteque" lyrics (as well as those of certain other songs from the period) are audibly different in live performance. the "idioteque" lyrics, like others on kid a, were created from cutting up phrases and drawing them from a hat.

source.

cookies

halfway there? only? walk the rest of the way and join me down here. i might be hopeless, all right, but at least i have cookies. and the hopelessness has electricity and wireless internet. i paid the last bills, don't worry.

now that i think of it, i remember writing a text some time ago with the title we, the hopeless. it was never published, though; i wonder where that is. oh well. time to dig it out of my notebook.

dead air space*

about the song like spinning plates (amnesiac, 2001):

the song ["like spinning plates"] is built over the reversed backing track of an electronic version of the then unreleased "i will" (which would later be released in a much different form on hail to the thief). according to thom yorke, in an interview with the wire, "we'd turned the tape [of "i will"] around, and i was in another room, heard the vocal melody coming backwards, and thought, 'that's miles better than the right way round', then spent the rest of the night trying to learn the melody."

colin greenwood said of the vocals, "in copenhagen, i was listening to woman's hour. they were talking about this english composer, whose name i can't remember, who wrote a piece of music for a singer where all the phrasings were backward but she sung it forward. thom sung the backwards melody. it was recorded forward then listened to backwards and he did the phrasing so as to create backward sounding words but it's sung forwards. it's kind of my favourite track."

from wikipedia.

*the post was previously titled like spinning plates, after the radiohead's song i've mentioned. i've changed it because i intend to post more curious things about them - as if that would help making them coming back for a gig in portugal.

whack-a-mole

you know, even though i'm not a nice person, i'm not evil altogether. i'm absolutely neutral about most people: i have no desire of doing any good to them, due to their irrelevance to me, but i also do not need to grow thorns on their way. for most people i even hope for the best, and would help them if they asked me. there are two exceptions though. one is an old enemy, my former nemesis; someone i would shoot at point-blank range without a second thought, until the gun's magazine was empty. the other is someone that has never done any harm to me - well, she tried, but she failed miserably. she should be among the "irrelevant". she isn't, though; and somehow i despise her, and everything she stands for. i wouldn't shoot her, of course; but sometimes i feel a sudden urge to whack her, to destroy her foundations with a sledgehammer until there's nothing left. don't ask why. she's not even my enemy. she's just someone that happens to have almost everything that i can loathe in a person.