Popular culture in the age of the Internet

The Ultimate Showdown. Brilliant, fucking brilliant. Made four years ago - where the hell have I been?

We are accidents waiting, waiting to happen

Indeed, we are.

What scares me is, what if she's right?

Writing

This writing thing, it is for lonely people. Indeed it is. When the days are made of good tidings, we need not making a fiction out of the night. It's so true. And yet for some people night is all they have left, for the good tidings come no more, and loneliness is their hideout. Sometimes I too wish I didn't know how to write, but sometimes I watch myself in the mirror, I stare right into my tearless eyes as they are reflected in the cold surface, and I feel thankful for being able to, at least, make some order out of chaos by shaping characters into words, words into sentences. Until one day I'll forget all about it.

Words left for the dead

My home never had a fireplace, or anything remotely similar to a fireplace, so my memories of fire come from someone else's hearth. My best friend's grandmother lived in a dark, narrow street in the village, in a very old house - one of those old houses with the toilet outside, in the backyard. I haven't been there for years, and I don't expect to ever get back there; but whenever I look at a small and cosy fire burning in a fireplace, I'll remember her hearth, small, painted in a thick yellow outside. I remember the wooden chairs around it, the worn coloured pillows on them, the warmth of the fire in that cold house, the white cat always sitting in the chair closest to the fire, purring all night long. It was the only white cat of the whole village - I dare say, of the whole county. I cannot remember who gave the cat to my friend, for both me and him were rather young when it happened. Nor do I know how did that mysterious person came across a white cat in the first place, in an area when all cats were gray, yellow, black or all these colours together. It doesn't matter though: the cat was white, snowy-white, unique in every possible way. My friend could not keep the cat at his own place, so he left it at his grandmother, recently widowed. And when he left the village few years later, the cat remained with the old lady, purring by the hearth in the cold winter nights. I remember it clearly, for I was there quite often, the cat being mine in a way - I was one of the very few people he liked - and my friend's grandmother being like a grandmother to me, the one I never had close to me during my childhood. There were several old ladies from my village that could win the title of grandmother, actually, and I liked them all the same. One of them, who used to take me to the football matches, died long ago in a sad accident at home. Another one died years ago, defeated by an old age, and a failing body - and yet, she was strong enough to refuse treatment. She wanted to die at her home, and not in some hospital, far away, locked inside unfamiliar walls. And so she did; and since her passing, I never tasted pomegranates as good as the one she used to gave me every autumn, for she had a pomegranate tree in her small farm. One of them still lives, still struggles against her health, her old age, her grief towards a never easy life. Her eyes shine whenever she sees me - and whenever she sees me, she tells me the same: that she likes me so much, that I'm like a grandson to her, that in fact she likes me better than most of her sons and daughters. I know it is true, and she is actually like my grandmother. All of them were. I never told it to any of them, and now that there's only one of them still alive, I suspect that I won't tell it to her. There's so many words left for the dead within me. I suppose it is more appropriated for me to die as well with them.

There is someone missing in the picture, of course. My friend's grandmother died not too long ago, after a long, quiet grief and a disease that ate away her memories and her conscient mind. After I left the village I saw her only a couple of times, if that much; the last time I saw her I was stepping out of the train, and she was going in, helped by her older daughter. I only recognized her because of her daughter, and it shocked me to see that old lady from my childhood so wrinkled, so sick, so defeated. She died shortly after. The white cat had died long ago - lucky him, he didn't saw the fire on that house being put out forever. I remember the cat as he grown up, and become a huge, powerful cat, able to beat in fighting any other cat in the village, and most of the dogs too. His territory was a wide part of the village. But his hideoud was that old house, with his seat by the warm hearth. Nowadays there are still some white cats in the village, the descendents of the old and seasoned warrior. But none is like it. Cats, too, are never the same. Like people.

Incendiary rounds

Cease fire!

It's too late now to cease fire. Too late. We press on, guns aiming the night, spitting bullets by a gut of fire. We move on, through ruins of the city blasted by the war. We track the living and we hunt them down, and we shoot them, we open fire again and again, even when they are defenseless, even when we were told to stop. Why should we? Why stopping when the frenzy reached its heights? Wasn't this the purpose? To build up wrath and hatred, to hold ourselves back, to endure everything until nothing could be endured any more. Then you will be ready, we were told. Then we were ready. Then they unleashed us. Now it's too late to stop us. Now we are oblivious to the orders echoing in the dark alleys. Now we hunt. Mercillesly and restlessly, we hunt. We pull the trigger and life goes out like a candle vanishing in the dark, alone. We rip flesh and break bones with bullets. We send them screaming with incendiary rounds. We scatter them with our own shadows, threatening, looming over the walls.

There is no cease fire. Not anymore.

Do or die, they said once. So did we.

Still on, forgotten

So many time, and yet so many electricity still left between here and there.

Before time

To be right before time is exactly the same than to be wrong. It's useless, for no one will pay any heed to you; and once time proves you right, you might turn to everyone around you and say, not without arrogance, "I told you". They might as well reply "good for you, now fuck off". They will be right. What use is that now?

I rather be wrong when I'm supposed to be wrong. When for some reason it would be unlikely that I'd see differentely. Especially because it's not because one is right before time that one doesn't make mistakes. Sometimes, one ends up screwing up even more.

From a conversation*

As a matter of fact, no relationship should ever be broken by a love affair. Because love might well be just that: an affair, something that has a limited lifetime, something that doesn't last the test of time, of distance, of difference. But friendship is seldom just an affair, for it is not by any means bound by time, distance of differences. Time might pass and the friendship remains. Friends can be friends being half the world away from each other. And what frequentely kills a love affair - the individual self of the pair, and the differences between them - are of little, if any, consequence to a true friendship. And we must not forget that, in time, or so people say, the most intense love tends to give way to the purest form of friendship, when two people share a lifetime together until the end of their days.

This doesn't mean that friendship is better than love, or more useful. The truth is, we do need both. For different reasons. It merely means that one shall never overcome the other. If that happens, then something is amiss. In friendship or love.

*of couse, this was edited and expanded, but you've said yourself: I'm always expanding myself.

Winter blossom

Sometimes I cannot help wondering if I had it already, if I found it already. And sometimes I can't help thinking that indeed I did, I did found it many years ago. Too soon, all too soon. A flower blossomed before its time, it was beautiful but could not resist the cold winters, and it withered and died. Or did it? Sometimes I'm not so sure of that as well.

An eye for an eye

If one is not a violent person, it doesn't mean that one is a pacifist. And violence, sometimes, is a necessary evil, one that we cannot avoid, a way that we all must take when all the lights go out and all other roads were already and uselessly taken. Happens to everyone at some point, when the beating goes for a long time. One can allow to be broken under merciless and often unfair barrage, until the blows cannot be felt any more. One can surrender and beg for mercy, even when sure that such grace will not be freely given. Or one can take arms and fight back.

I'm tired of a peace sustained by thin, fragile threads, like forgotten cobwebs over the edge of the abyss. I'm tired of the restless agression, of the constant struggle against a heedless enemy. I'm tired of hopelessness, of undeserved guilt, of futile concessions that shall never appease the wrath that moves against me. Maybe I should take arms again. Maybe I should forget reason, for it has been useless until now, and fight back with the same malevolence and wickedness that fights me restlessly. An eye for an eye and the world goes blind, they say. But maybe in blindness there is something to be seen.

The tempest (I)

If there is silence before and after the storm, how do we know if the storm is already over, of if all the lightning and thunder and pouring rain was but a prelude of things to come?

10 days

Almost, almost there. Again.

The big mistake (again)

Have you ever had the feeling that doing something is a big, big mistake, you know it before you do it, and yet you do it only to prove a point? I feel just like that. And yet I go on. Stupid me.

Motto

Never to demand of others more than I'm willing to give them. It's an empty motto. Even if I stick to it, it will be just me.

Meant to be?

It's is a matter of convenience, only: sometimes we chose to believe in our free will (I am the master of my choices, and thus the master of my fate) to justify what happens to us. And sometimes we say "it was meant to be that way" for the very same reason. Free will is overrated, and nothing but death is ever meant to be. The bitter truth is, things happen randomly. Not because of us, but in spite of us. In the end, it's all about reality, that concrete wall right in front of us.

If you do, you start missing everyone.

Where have you been?

It's a funny question, one I can and cannot answer. I've been working, I've been at home, I've been in the bus between work and home. I've been at my homeland. At the same time I've been nowhere to be seen, and I'm guessing that was where the question aimed in the first place.

Friendship for me never relied on close contact, as strange as it might sound. Meaning, once I befriend someone, I can spend years without seeing my friend. Without even hearing from him or her. I know that, if the friendship was true, after all the years everything will feel just as it did before, and nothing would be amiss. If it wasn't true, then the loss was not that significant, if you allow me to make it this simple. So I can stay. I can simply afford to stay, unmoved and unchanged. Somethings do not change for me. It's often bad when they do. For me, that is.

Do you miss me?

The rough and true answer: no, I don't. I don't miss anyone. Don't ever tell anyone anything. I know, I know. But I don't miss anyone. Most of times, I don't even miss my parents. And I miss everyone all the same, in specific moments when they come to my mind. I often miss a specific person in a specific moment. Driven by need? Also. Sometimes the friend I would really like to talk to about this or that is out of my reach, and I don't like to find substitutes. It never works. Truth be told, I've told many things to many people, and Holden was right in his corolary: I do miss everyone. Perhaps not in the way than everyone else seems to do, though.

One year

One year has passed.

One year since I saw you for the last time, since you saw me for the last time. It marked the end of a routine, and one year later I haven't got used to it yet, to go there and not to climb the hill and go and see you. One year after the sadness, the never released tears, the anger and the hatred. One year is a lot of time. In one year I moved three times to a new house. In one year I broke my heart in pieces and made it anew once more. In one year I got another job. In one year I made new friends. In one year I got a new life, and yet in one year I could not forget you, nor the feeling of longing that comes to me whenever I think about you.

The hedgehog

There are things that cannot change, for they are not meant to. Sometimes, when I am visiting my homeland, I get an odd feeling back, one that is surprisingly alike to what I felt when I was a child. Or maybe not so surprising, since I'm talking about my homeland, the forsaken piece of land where I was born and grew up. Forsaken it might be, but it is still mine. The hedgehog made me remember a time lost in memory, one that only a few of my current friends still remember: a time when my playground had no boundaries, it would stretch as long as the country-roads would go and my energy to walk or ride a bike would last. A time when I spent countless hours out in the countryside, among brooks and trees, from flood-valleys to the top of the hills, what we have for mountains there. A time when my natural playtime companions were animals, but not pets: aside from my turtle, I never had a pet. My companions were wild animals (my turtle is a domesticated wild turtle, mind you): toads and frogs, water snakes and lizards, bats and hedgehogs. These two were uncommon though, for they were hard to get, while the others weren't. But they were there as well. Not to mention birds, all kinds of birds. Owls were the most interesting though, but seeing them required going out at night: or find a hideout. I found one once, in an ambandoned warehouse near my village. I broke through the door to cover myself from the raid and startled a huge female owl, gray and regal. Concerning the others, snakes, toads and frogs were easy to get in the brooks. I remember catching one of those green small green poisonous frogs and sticking it to my forehead. Lizards were easy to get anywhere, sometimes even at home. Bats were taken from the church's bell tower. I remember me and my friend catching one using my woolen jacket as a net - it was so cute, a naked mouse with wings. I remember hedgehogs now and then, but these were rare. I have a vague memory of my friend's grandfather finding two hedgehogs near his donkey, and bringing them in a bucket so we could see and touch them. And all this came back to me when I saw that hedgehog on the sidewalk in the middle of the night, gathering courage to cross the road. I halted and watch it: it was huge, like no one I had ever seen, an enormous mass of sharp spines. I felt the same urge I always felt as a child whenever I saw a wild animal: go and touch it. And I also felt I had to do something, for it risked being killed by some car if it tried to cross the road. So I startet to gently pat the hedgehog, feeling its spines, slowy patting towards his belly where there was no spines. At last I felt it with the tip of my fingers, the spines giving way to a very soft fur, and I lifted the hedgehog. It didn't resist, or curled to turn into a ball of spikes, their favourite defense: it let me grab it, lift it and carry it to the other side of the road, where I gently placed it on the grass. Then he curled, at last, but it was safe.

It's been ages since I had seen such an animal. And I can tell you it's one of the cutest animals that can be found in my homeland.

There is no smell in the world like the smell of the wet earth after the rain. That's how I woke up saturday: opening the window and feeling the scent of the good earth.

No language, just sound, that's all we need know

They mention him here, and as I read that (excellent) text I realize there's little less for me to say about Ian Curtis, the imortal voice of Joy Division. One of my favourite bands, Joy Division. Curtis' voice has that uncanny quality that one can find ionly n a few voices, like Leonard Cohen's, Thom Yorke's, or Elizabeth Fraser's (Cockteau Twins, This Mortal Coil). Listening to Joy Division (or to any of the others I mentioned) is to feel a magnetic pull, to feel something within me revolving without understanding what caused that sensation, or the sensation itself. I noticed it the first time I listened to Love Will Tear Us Apart. Or She's Lost Control. Or Atmosphere. Or Transmission, my favourite of their songs. There's something about it - it might be the lyrics, that deep and hurt voice singing. I don't know what it is, there's simply something about it. Something hidden perhaps that make me listen to it on and on, restlessly.

Radio, live transmission.
Radio, live transmission.

Listen to the silence, let it ring on.
Eyes, dark grey lenses frightened of the sun.
We would have a fine time living in the night,
Left to blind destruction,
Waiting for our sight.

And we would go on as though nothing was wrong.
And hide from these days we remained all alone.
Staying in the same place, just staying out the time.
Touching from a distance,
Further all the time.

Dance, dance, dance, dance, dance, to the radio.
Dance, dance, dance, dance, dance, to the radio.
Dance, dance, dance, dance, dance, to the radio.
Dance, dance, dance, dance, dance, to the radio.

Well I could call out when the going gets tough.
The things that we've learnt are no longer enough.
No language, just sound, that's all we need know, to synchronise
love to the beat of the show.

And we could dance.

Dance, dance, dance, dance, dance, to the radio.
Dance, dance, dance, dance, dance, to the radio.
Dance, dance, dance, dance, dance, to the radio.
Dance, dance, dance, dance, dance, to the radio.

Joy Division, Transmission

Killer music (in the good way, it seems)

The radio is now constantly broadcasting The Killers, mostly live versions of their songs from the concert in Royal Albert Hall. I listen to them (and to that very interesting cover to Joy Division's Shadowplay), I remember their gig in July, and I find myself liking them more and more.

Sometimes I'm forced to remember why I hate MTV

Megan Fox starring in the Alien prequel? For fuck's sake, no. A thousand times no. If I was to decide, nothing else would be done with Alien material, being the fourth movie and the Alien vs Predator installments already too much. If Ridley Scott wants to get back to it and make a prequel to Alien - one of the best movies ever, not only within the sci-fi genre, then it might sound not that bad. But please cast real actors. Not that I know Megan Fox's work that well - as a matter of fact, I know her better from the rubbish she keeps talking whenever a journalist is around. And I might be wrong (and if I am, I'll admit it), but she seems to me the perfect stereotype of a sexy woman with a pretty face but nothing where a brain should be. Truth be told, I don't even find her pretty, but that's just me.

So MTV guys, get the fuck out of here. Go back to your shitty tv channel and keep promoting your crappy music, for it's what you do best. Shoo, shoo.

Details

Truth lies in the details. In the little things that we tend to overlook. In the shadow of the great deeds, or in the small letters that make a seemingly unimportant side note. In a subtle shift in what we say, in our tone, maybe in a small word that we wouldn't normally use. Those changes are always small, and not everyone can see what lies behind them. But often the truth is obvious, and it is there for everyone who wants to pay attention and see it.

Memories, the love-fool's role

For example, if I was asked today, I couldn't say when it happen, what was the exact day when I met the person that is now with me, that I hope to be with me forever - forgive me the optimism and the romantic delusion, but sometimes even the most stone-hard individuals must play the love-fool's role. Seriously, I can't remember when it started. Somewhere in Spring, which itself is an exception, one more exception in my own little world: everyone knows I fall in love with the Autumn's leaves. But truth be told, we were never made of rules, but of exceptions to rules. I cannot remember the day when it began, something that I could easily discover if I wanted to. But it matters not to know the when, if I remember the how. I remember how such a short and innocent text message broke a dam and let loose a flood that flooded us even before we were aware of it. I can't swim, but you shown me how to. And after so long - time flies, doesn't it? - we are still here, and through shadow and flame we have walked, never able to let go even when it seemed the wisest thing to do. How did it happen I do not know, but somehow it did. Sometimes, when I allow myself to think that some things are simply meant to be, I believe that it couldn't be any other way. That we are unbreakable. All this without remembering the day when everything started. I have no gift of foretelling, so I cannot say what tomorrow will bring us. All I have left is hope. It's the best start.

Memories

Yes, there are days that should not be forgotten. I My memory is unstable though; and whatever happens to me tend to leave not a specific day behind. I excuse myself arguing that the date is irrelevant, as long as we remember - remember what we did, remember what it meant to us. A poor excuse, some might say, but still one excuse nonetheless. The memories are unspoiled, and I expect them to remain so for a long time. The meaning is still there, along with the memories. So now, a bit late as ever, when all is said and done and resentment has long since given way to peace, all I can hope for is that it hasn't been in vain. It hasn't for me. It has never been in vain.

Blank

Writers of old feared the blank sheet of paper. Writers of today fear the blank textbox.

Treebeard

Treebeard, as seen by Peter Jackson in his movie adaptation of The Lord of the Rings.

The last march of the Ents

It's one of my favourite parts in The Lord of the Rings, when the Ents of Fangorn are roused and march to war against the power of Isengard. For me, it is one of the most touching parts, to see those creatures older than the ages of the world waking from their slumber, rousing from their forest and walk down the mountains into a war that might as well be their end. "Of course, it is likely enough, my friends", he [Treebeard] said slowly, "likely enough that we are going to our own doom: the last march of the Ents. But if we stayed at home and did nothing, doom would find us anyway, sooner or later. That thought has long been growing in our hearts; and that is why we are marching now. It was not a hasty resolve. Now at least the last march of the Ents may be worth a song." Sometimes we are forced into action, whether we want it or not, for somethings cannot be avoided, and by ignoring them we might as well call them by their name and invite them into our home. Sometimes we all have to march, even if hope is dim. And sometimes, along that march, we find within ourselves the strenght to overcome it.

And I wished Tolkien had made the song. The last march of the Ents. What a great title.

Like a story

(...) 'For I am not going to tell you my name, not yet at any rate.' A queer half-knowing, half-humorous look came with a green flicker into his eyes. 'For one thing it would take a long while: my name is growing all the time, and I've lived a very long, long time; so my name is like a story. Real names tell you the story of the things they belong to in my language, in the Old Entish as you might say. It is a lovely language, but it takes a very long time to say anything in it, because we do not say anything in it, unless it is worth taking a long time to say, and a long time to listen to.

Treebeard, in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, by Tolkien