a penny for your thoughts
words float around and around till there is no more place in my headNote to self:
Nitro lacquer + hot stream of air from the hair dryer = poisoning that even 5 glasses of milk can’t take away
readlist 2009
Last year, in order to help my memory a bit, I started writing down books I read. So, for the lack of better things to do with it and because I wrote on the back of my old planner, here it is. Stuff I read in 2009.
- George Orwell “Animal Farm”, ”1984″
- Haruki Murakami “Kafka on the Shore”, “Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman”, “Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World”, “A Wild Sheep Chase”, “The Elephant Vanishes”, “Dance Dance Dance”
- Stephanie Meyer “Twilight”, “New Moon”, “Eclipse”, “Breaking Dawn”, “The Host”, “Midnight Sun Partial Draft”
- Margaret Atwood “Surfacing”
- Y. S. Naipaul “Half a Life”
- J. G. Ballard “Millenuim People”
- Sophie Kinsella “Confessions of a Shopaholic”, “Shopaholic Takes Manhattan”
- Arhur Conan Doyle “Lost World”
- Julia Hillpatrick “Rhett Butler”
- John Galsworthy “The Forsyte Saga” I
- J. K. Rowling “Harry Potter …” (1-7)
- Takashi Matsuoka “Cloud of Sparrows”
- Lian Hearn “Heaven’s Net is Wide”
- Terry Pratcherr “Maskerade”
- Lemony SNicket “The Austere Academy”, “The Ersatz Elevator”
- Daniel Glattauer “Good Against the North Wind”
- Jane Austen “Pride and Prejudice”
- L. M. Montgomery “Anne of Green Gables”
- Neil Gaiman “Stardust”
- Nancy Farmer “The House of the Scorpion”
- Sephen King “One Past Midnight: the Langoliers”
- Wes Anderson and Owen Wilson “The Royal Tenenbaums”
- Suzane Collins “The Hunger Games”, “Catching Fire”
Any suggestions for 2010?
prophety-prophety-pro
There should be warnings for that kind of thing, like, a horoscope for each day designed specially for you to ensure that nobody is taken by surprise. I like the name Daily Prophet. Yes, that would do just as well as it did for HP. So The Daily Prophet would tell us what to expect, not the unimportant „today you will be lucky in love” or „be sure to switch out the oven”, or “Lord Voldemort returns”, or fortune cookies stuff, but, like „in few weeks time, which cannot be predicted accurately, since your best friend hasn’t made up their mind, you will learn that your best friend is no longer your best friend but someone else’s best friend, with whom you are not friends with, therefore be ready to stop talking to your former best friend, but buy a dog instead”.
It’s just a thought. Completely unrelated to what is going on in my life.
value
You don’t recognize poetry unless it has been broken in lines. But we are the very essence of Poetry, its words, rhythm and rhymes. We are the High Art, thus we need no God other than the one who created us.
I write on the blank side of an Indian travel guidebook, because Chaos is beautiful. And non-existent.
If referring to my country’s past makes me politically incorrect… Well, then, I am. But when you accused me and said you were not afraid, I saw fear behind your eyes.
How can you face the world if you can’t face your thoughts?
And when the Azerbaijani kisses your hand bending so low you can see his balding head and gives you a bottle of whine with a label only he knows how to pronounce, you know Christmas is really near.
The time I like best is 6am,
When the snow is 6 inches deep,
Which I’m yet to discover
’cause I’m under my covers fast,
Fast asleep.
- Tanka Guragain -
the tales we tell
Men have been telling tales to each other since the dawn of time; Mark Currie has even described human race as “homo fabulans – the tellers and interpreters of narrative”[1]. Narrative is seen as “a universal form of human expression”[2], it opens up a view of lived and imagined lives, as well as human nature.
But the fashion of the narrative depends on, well, current events.
Last few years have been nothing but hard and I don’t speak only about economic situation. The majority have started to turn over their minds on various subjects. I even found a study [3], where it is claimed that women, in general, consider themselves to be more depressed than they have been in decades. Some have even stated that emancipation was a mistake.
What I am interested in are the books people read.
Grownups turn to religious matters, young adults lately tend to read everything with happy ending. And when I say happy ending, I really mean happily ever after. Ever. Like in the sense of immortality.
And who could blame them, er, us?
Well, there is a part of society with more sense, if I may say so. And that little part is literally little (in the sense of age, that is). Elizabeth Bullen wrote a fantastic paper [4] on the subject of the power of darkness and why kids nowadays throw away books with queasy-sweet plots. I admit that I wouldn’t have read it if not for my term paper on “A Series of Unfortunate Events” by Lemony Snicket. To sum it all up, kids growing up in the “risk society” (parents having no job or on the verge of losing it, lack of money and depression) refuse to believe in fairy tales. One may say that they grow up faster, lose their childhood and what not. Well, it is not for me to judge is it good or bad. Sometimes things just happen, and it is not like we didn’t see that coming.
Time is running faster and faster, and it is not just me noticing it. My mother always said that there is very little time left, I only really understand it now.
[1], [2], [3], [4]
frame
I remember how my mother bought us head bands and we were jumping for joy not because we liked them so much, but because we knew it would make her happy. I remember how she bought herself a wooden comb, but her boss told her that they were not good. She was dissapointed; I was standing right next to her in an old lift, which always made noise. I dreamt that dad was standing in the middle of the road, and all the other other drivers where laughing at his old car. I remember how my dad’s face lit up when he bought a new one, how proud he was to take us for a ride. I remember how my sister went with me to my first cello exam, and how she lent me her skirt because I wasn’t dressed up for the occasion. I remember how she cried when she was little, I remember holding her in my hands.
And I am afraid of all the things I don’t remember, because I might forget the memories I cherish. I am afraid I don’t say „I love you” enough, I am afraid I forget to say „I am sorry” time after time. But most of all, I am afraid of what the future holds; I know not how I will go on without them.
