Songs

I wish they would embed properly. But they don't.

The Culture of Doom

You wake up in the morning, you crawl towards whatever drug helps you come alive completely, and then you turn on your computer to check: has the world ended while I was asleep? No? Tough luck. Maybe in 2012. Meanwhile, you satisfy your craving of doom with whatever you can find: a bomb here, a volcano there, a flooding, a mysterious new disease, Chinese or Muslims taking over. Anything will do, really.

There is a whole subculture on the internet (ah, the internet!) dedicated to the trading of doom news and predictions. Every time the sun burps a little these guys are already predicting the fall of civilization in maximum half a day (or how long it takes for solar wind to reach us). They watch 24/7 webcams to see when Katla (volcano, for those who are not up to date with their doom) will be gracious enough and explode already. They twist and turn and interpret bible quotes and Nostradamus quatrains and tribal prophecies until they find what they need: we’re surely going to die. The Hopi Indians said so. The Mayans did too. Who are you to contradict the Hopi Indians?? Nibiru is coming.

Ok, this is indeed a niche thing. Your regular 21st century person may not look up to see if Nibiru is really coming, nor will they lose sleep trying to find a numeric code in the Bible that tells the exact date at which the Antichrist will be arriving (and whether Obama is in fact the said Antichrist or not). But we as a culture are obsessed with doom nevertheless. The media know that and they feed it to us and we consume and love every second of it. It’s like we’re a culture of sociopaths, really.

Is it out of boredom? Have our lives become so void and purposeless that we’d actually enjoy seeing it all go to hell? Have we had so much Hollywood cheap thrills that we reached saturation and only the end of the world could still give us a rush? Are we so afraid of dying alone, without anyone giving a crap about it, that we’d actually prefer to go down in a blaze of glory, taking the whole humanity with us? Are we so ill adapted to our own environment that instead of going to work next Monday morning we’d rather be Mad Max-ing around in a post-apocalyptic society?

But the world is ending; look at the signs, volcanoes, earthquakes, diseases, financial crisis, pollution, terrorism, bla-bla. Even the Hopi Indians said so!

Might be, no one can tell that for sure. What I do know for sure is that other generations had it worse. This is not by far the most fucked up situation in which mankind ever found itself. Think about that generation who was unfortunate enough to live through both World Wars. First World War comes, 15 million die, genocides (yeah, they had them back then too), starvation, empires fall. To celebrate the end of the war, Spanish flu kills between 50 and 100 million people (biggest natural disaster in the history of mankind). Then they get 10 years of the Great Depression. They see the rise of National Socialism and Communism. WW2 starts, I don’t wanna go into that, but we’ll just say it was kind of ironic that they were calling WW1 “the Great War”. At least 60 million die. Probably more, not to mention those that died in the aftermath of the war. Famine, Holocaust, atomic bombs. Europe virtually destroyed. Then, if they’re truly blessed, the survivors of all that still get to experience the Cold War and all that madness.

Seriously now, are we really entitled to complain that we’re doomed, or are we just jealous ‘cause others before us had it REALLY rough?

1. Mai in Berlin

Overall, it was surprisingly peaceful this year. Mostly because both the police and the extreme left were busy with the neo-Nazi demonstration. They handled it quite well, and the Nazis didn't make it to Kreuzberg. So until 6 in the evening or so, until the Black Block demo came to us, it was sooo peaceful. Music, barbecues, families, children, tens of thousands of people of all possible colours, no incident whatsoever. Then there were some incidents, but compared to last year, insignificant. They burned down a police barricade right next to my house, and about half an hour later, when we were trying to get home, the police wouldn't let us pass anymore, all my street was blocked with barricades. They didn't even want to see our IDs, to prove that we live here. They just shrugged and said that they don't know when they'll let us pass. Luckily later more people came, and at some point we just broke the police chain and went home.

Funny story a guy we met was telling: he went to join the counter-demo, in the early afternoon. When he saw some hundred people dressed in black marching, he joined them, but soon some policemen came and dragged him out. "What are YOU doing here, for fuck's sake, you poor misguided soul?", they asked him. "Demonstrating!", he stated, proud of his democratic right to protest. "That we see, but what are you demonstrating against?". "Gegen Nazis", he said, even prouder. "Shhh", they said, "this IS the nazi demo, not the counter-demo, you fool". Luckily no one around heard the conversation :))

...And when I said peaceful, this is what I meant. The video is taken two bus stations away from my house.

Leapsa!!!

De la Bloody Mary

Nu m-as putea lipsi de...

1. Neamtul meu proprietata personala, care momentan e plecat in Anglia, prin urmare sunt in sevraj;

2. Viciile mele, am doar 3, dar bune: tigari, ciocolata, internet;

3. Audiobook-uri. Nu pot sa adorm, nu pot sa spal vase, nu pot sa fac curat fara sa am castile ferm plantate in urechi. Cred ca am "citit" in felul asta vreo 3 biblioteci de dimensiuni medii. Mi-ar fi luat vreo 20 de ani sa citesc pe bune toate cartile alea...

4. Carti propriu-zise, de-alea de hartie :D Imi placeau inca de dinainte sa invat sa citesc, prosteam lumea cum ca as stii sa citesc, dar in realitate le invatasem pe de rost si le recitam urmarind cu degetul pe pagina, asa cum vazusem eu de la maica-mea, cand imi citea. Presupun ca, daca mor de moarte buna, o sa am o carte in mana cand imi dau duhul;

5. Pisici. Enough said;

6. Cada in baie. Nu am una, am numai dus. Si nu, nu pot trai fara ea. Traiesc doar pe jumatate fara ea;

7. Fond de ten. Trist, stiu;

8. Filme. Seriale stupidute, filme de arta europene, block-buster-uri americane cu impuscaturi si extraterestri, science-fiction, horror, drama, comedie, ultimele filme aparute luna asta, filme mute din anii '30; pe calculator, la televizor, la cinematograful ala vechi si trendy din cartier, sau 3D la cel mai mare si mai modern cinematograf din oras. Nu conteaza, filme sa fie;

9. Day dreaming. Petrec mult timp zilnic cu capul in nori, gandindu-ma la ale mele;

10. Stele. Alea de pe cer. E greu cand traiesti in oras, mai ales intr-un oras unde e innorat mai tot timpul. Dar uneori, in vacanta, mai prind si cate un cer de-ala adevarat, cand poti vedea si calea lactee. Cand sunt in Bucuresti si e vara, stau pe casa, lungita pe un izopren, si casc gura la stele. Pana acum nu am fost contactata de nici o rasa extraterestra :D

11. Calatorii, vacante, excursii. Intotdeauna mi-am dorit sa ma fac turist de meserie!

12. Natura. Toata viata am trait in orase mari, si cu toate astea, sau poate tocmai din pricina asta, tanjesc dupa spatii deschise, verdeata, pomi, animalute, pasarele ciripind samd;

Bonus, 13. (Ca sunt nascuta pe 13!) Canapeaua din sufragerie. Intre noi doua exista o relatie speciala!

I Love the Whole World

It kinda makes you wanna... break into song!



Boom-de-yada, boom-de-yada!

Man, I cannot get that song out of my head!

Totally. I'm going again.

Pandorum

"Holy zombie apocalypse! I wanted to see a hardcore sci-fi movie, and I ended up watching another freaking zombie movie?" Something along these lines was going through my mind halfway through Pandorum.

But oh no, Pandorum is so much more than another zombie flick. Yes, there are zombies in it. Legions of flesh eating, martial arts skilled zombies. They're not called like that of course, but the resemblance to, let's say, the dudes from "I am Legend", is uncanny.

I think the writers knew zombies movies have been done to death and they were ideas hunting: the complete destruction of Planet Earth? Nope, it's been done before. A ship carrying our last hope? Done before. Something about cryogenics? Done before. Space dementia? Done before, and much, much better. Colonising alien worlds? Done before. Erm, spaceship with people crawling on dark corridors with blood smeared all over themselves, running away from some evil monsters? Done, done, done.

Well, then, how about ALL THOSE THINGS PUT TOGETHER?

And so we end up with Pandorum, an amazing mess of a sci-fi/horror movie, that in the end still manages to save itself from, well, itself, by having a few plot twists and a cool ending that I really wasn't expecting.

The plot? Well, as I said, spaceship, mission: last hope of humanity, zombies, space dementia, cool ending.

Rating? 6/10. Could have been much worse.

The Men Who Stare at Goats (the book)

Oh man, where do I begin?

Let's start the way the author starts, by saying "This is a true story". Is it really? We have no way of knowing that, of course. Jon Ronson is a journalist and this book is meant to be (not only a bestseller and the base of a movie script to be turned into a future blockbuster, but also a) journalistic investigation.

It most certainly speaks about real events and real people. Events like the Waco incident, the mass suicide of Heaven's Gate cult members, the Abu Ghraib tortures and scandal, Guantanamo Bay torture allegations, Project MK-Ultra and so on. Real people like several Generals and other ex-military people, ex-CIA, ex-Guantanamo Bay prisoners, plus celebrities like Uri Geller and Art Bell.

But that's where the verifiable stops and the insanity begins. Jon Ronson, in his 2 years long investigation of the usage of unconventional methods by the US military and the CIA, claims to have slipped quite deep down the rabbit hole. How real is this rabbit hole and how real are the claims of the people he had interviewed, that we can't possibly know for sure any more.

So the books essentially leaves us with a lot of questions, rather than answers. But those questions are worth asking and the trip in itself is mind-boggling, tragic, comic, absurd and... vonnegut-esque.

I'm looking forward to the movie (with George Clooney, Jeff Bridges, Ewan McGregor, Kevin Spacey), although I half expect to be disappointed (why in the world did they insist of making it into a comedy??)