Noting much has changed

Except for me becoming a shoddier writer; dreaming less; thinking less; hoping less; but aspiring for more. Because like Bergson wrote, even language can reach the level of unconscious automaticity.

Foucault

This is rather frustrating. Finding out that a paper you want to write has already been written. And then, of course, finding out that a different paper you wanted to write has already been written too. Academia is like a fish tank. With the only difference, perhaps, that there are clarly many more bottom feeders than is necessary.

Updates

I've been back in Berlin for two weeks, and they have been relatively eventful, given that I now go to work every morning. I love my internship. If it was paid, it'd be my dream job. But at least they feed me, so I sort of work for food. One of my co-workers is a beautiful and strangely black foxhound. He sleeps next to me when I work on the couch.

Berlin still makes me very happy. Just walking -- priceless.

Prostitutes smile at me. Some do silly things and look for approval. I smile. Others just smile and I smile back.

After a year of self imposed isolation it feels right to talk to people again. And when it doesn't there is always cheap wine and beer.

I got miself a new toy, an android phone, and have effectively sold my soul to instagramovich et al. It's fun.

Nach Berlin

Nach Berlin! Tomorrow. Morgen. I am less excited than I thought I would be. It is also understandable. Aversion to change is directly proportional to age. And there is this anticipation, that 24 will treat me to a common fridge (the compartments of which, bien sur, will all be occupied by the time I'm there) and the toilet three stories below. So hard not to be excited...

8

It is hard to believe, but I have been writing this blog for almost 8 years. I occasionally re-read older posts, and it is very basic stuff, but it also reminds me what great times I'd had. And I realize that it has been a pretty sweet life. The things I wrote, say, in 2008, are pretty basic, but I can now sense an important and maybe not very happy development. I used to be able to give in to the happening, sort of feel it on a very basic unmediated level. Today, it seems, all that is going on with me is subject to a bright and unfriendly light, like in a hospital, which makes it that much more difficult to be happy or excited about things.  Although I will probably be thinking the same thought 5 years later.

Encounters

I had a very simple plan yesterday, to go to my favourite Irish pub, have a pint and read or write in the sun for an hour or two. Instead, I was careless enough to strike a conversation with an elderly Dutch geographer who would tell stories about lion cubs in a hotel room in East Berlin, a Napoleonic war reenactment in Grodno, and even spending two weeks in Šilutė (!). He kept on paying for the rounds, so how can I say no, but five or maybe six beers and a similar number of hours later, on my way back home I got seriously lost. I think it was my first drinking and driving event of this magnitude, and I have pleasantly surprised myself by not getting into an accident, but at some point I found myself on a highway towards, perhaps, the Hague. I must have taken a wrong turn somewhere. What probably tipped me of is that there were no more biking lanes - something that never really happens within the confines of Amsterdam. And all this, by the way, in spite of me consulting my GPS-ready phone all the time (while driving, naturally). Amsterdam is tricky. What saved me in the end, perhaps, is that the farther from the center you go, the less intricate and knotty its roads become.

im Juni

There's too much to recount, so I won't. Instead, well, first of all, this is my song of the year. And second, hm, here is a nice dream I've had. A very pleasant romance with a Zoe Kazan lookalike. I was helping a girl with a zipper at an apparel store and as I was having a realization of the "she is the one" variety and also feeling that I, perhaps, never want her to be any farther from me than she was then (very close), she must have had a similar thought because we, as it were, fell into each other's arms with some kind of perfect synchronicity. The sensation of her soft waist through a pitch dark blouse, it bugs me how real it felt. Does it begin to sound like porn? There was no porn. And of course no dream of mine comes without a healthy dose of weird, because it immediately acquired a an extra layer of reality and turned into a video game with bonus points for every successful romantic accomplishment (meet the parents: aced it) but also featuring unpleasantly cynical metacommentary. Every success came with a reminder that this is, in fact, the way it usually goes anyway and that this is, in fact, how you run out of things to accomplish and sink into drudgery, or, alternatively, just fail at some point and it's all over, which is the same thing. I don't know if there were any points for dying or bonus points for dying prematurely.

It was a pun, c'mon

I marvel at my remarkable ability to persevere at pastimes which are blatantly detrimental to my cosmic aspirations. Like my strange new habit of watching South Park reruns before going to bed. Or staring at computer screens. Ho, I have even taken up walking since my left knee had started giving me trouble. My conscience also whispers "alcohol", but no, conscience, bad conscience, you don't know what you are whispering about. There is a difference between being an awesome robot and a sober miserable ape. Sobriety, I believe, should also be approached with moderation. But to the point. The most vicious tit I had been trying to wean myself from is indulging (avariciously) in Pitchfork's BNM roster. I love it, of course, but music really jams thinking. So I have been experimenting with alternative aural pleasures. On the wave of I-have-watched-all-seasons-of-30-Rock-again I have downloaded an audio book of Tina Fey's selective autobiography and consumed it all in several sessions of dinner cooking. I have been listening to audiobooked autobiographies ever since. It is quite marvelous. On the one hand, you get some rich celebrity gossip (currently: Hemingway's Movable Feast), and on the other it is not so important that you can't miss a passage over whatever is sizzling on your frying pan. Hemingway, by the way, gives marvelous writing tips and inspirational advice on how to be poor and happy in Paris.

A block of I-s

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Fiets

"He once told me that the art of getting ahead in New York was based on learning how to express dissatisfaction in an interesting way. The air was full of rage and complaint. People had no tolerance for your particular hardship unless you knew how to entertain them with it." -- White Noise, DeLillo

This, I believe, is a very astute and a very much universal observation. Unless you know how to turn your grudge into a story - don't even bother. What I have realized since I had read these words is that Amsterdam has spared me an effort and each of my misadventures here came with a narrative I don't even have to make up.

When my bicycle was stolen a month ago I firmly resolved not to fall into despair (despite it being such a magnificent bicycle purchased at such a superb discount that I was going to make profit on reselling it at the end of my stay in NL) and just go an get another one. There is a non-profit (?!) bike shop right in my building. They buy bicycles fished out of canals (there is a job for that in Amsterdam) for cheap from the government, fix them, and sell them at a still very decent price.

My cultural studies professor (the one which looks and acts like Tracy) told us a story of his childhood as an illustration of gender-specific roles forced upon us at very early stages. He fancied a bicycle with a step-through frame, a "ladies' bicycle", and he could not quite understand why his parents forced him to get a boys' one, with a high top tube. Until then I had actually never thought about bicycles in these gendered terms, but I have always found the former type more aesthetically pleasing (and more practical! wearing a skirt? no problem!).

So when I was picking a fished out of the water bicycle for myself to be fixed, I had consciously chosen the "ladys'" one. My little contribution to queering the world. The guy told me to come back for it in a week, on Thursday. I did. The place was closed. And it was closed on Friday too. And then on Monday, and then on Tuesday.

When I had finally managed to get to the place I was told the guy who sold me the bike "went out with the bang" and I had to choose another one. So I did. The ladies' one, again. This time the transaction went smoothly. The new guy who sold it to me also told me a secret. The municipality tows improperly parked bikes to a specially designated place. "So my 'stolen' one might be there?" I asked. "Where did you park it?" "Leidseplein". "Oh, definitely!" he answered, "Call this number. Now you have a spare bike".

I don't like talking on the phone to strangers, so I wrote an email. "Hello! I was wondering If you might have my bike. It is a black Locomotief registered under the number AF0626227". Meanwhile, I felt like a fool. No, not like a fool, just upset. I have just bought a new bicycle, while I could have just retrieved my old one (for the price of 10EUR, but still!), if only I had known how this whole thing works. I conveyed my frustrations to my mother and she immediately understood me. I would have preferred my bike to be legitimately stolen than to have this silly mishap on my hands.

How relieved I was to receive an email "Unfortunately I can't find a bike under that registration number."

But the guy also asked for more details, like where it was removed from, and when, and what it looked like. I described, but did not get an answer for days. I relaxed. Until today: "I think I found your bike" with a precise description. Oh for fuck's sake.

Of course I'm gonna have to go and get it now, in the rain, at the price of paying for the public transportation, and something strange is going on with my knee... But LCC taught me to think on the margin. And that I'd definitely sell it with at least 300% of whatever I pay to retrieve it. So why do I feel so miserable about it?

Postmodernism?

I'm browsing through a vast collection of contemporary art at artsy. It is truly impressive, but, and I think it would occur to anyone after 10 minutes of browsing, there is so much angst and fear and paranoid-schizophrenic fragmentation... This, of course, is as much about our epistemological predicament as it is about contemporary art, so, in a sense, all these paintings, lithographs and installations are certainly right to be angsty about the impossibility to appraise the world in its totality. But this is a fearsome situation by itself. If a hundred years ago an artist was still a hopeful figure capable to lead the way, the message today, it seems, is that all of us are pretty much in the same hopeless boat. Hence, perhaps, the oft repeated remark regarding contemporary art: "Anyone could have done that". It is amusing, in this respect, to read about the reception history of Hirst's shark in formaldehyde and his retort "But you didn't, did you?" immediately followed by a story that, well, actually someone did, two years before. This, I believe, is very telling. Just like truth has become whatever we make it to be, so has the value of art. If back in the days the genius of a work of art seemed to be still independent of whether yours or mine puny mind was capable of appreciating it, today more than ever it demands a conscious decision, like the decision to consider the Emperor fully clothed. The notion of "masterpiece", in this sense, has lost its meaning once and, perhaps, for all.

On the margins

I was very impressed (and proud) to learn today that my father's blog has the same daily readership (in thousands) as one of the top local newspapers at which he also (charitably) works. I don't say it very often, but I am in an immense debt to whatever (potentially) good has (or ever will) become of me.

In Brugge

I almost got busted at the Dutch/Belgian border for not having a passport on me. "Did you know" they said "that this card is not valid without a passport?" they said. "No shit" I thought, "No I didn't" I said. They looked at my residence permit through a magnifying glass and walky-talkied someone to check its number. I felt betrayed by the Schengen agreement.

But that was after. Bruges was full of Russian tourists. Of all places... A lady in her fifties, whit a rich Soviet past, no doubt, was unpleasantly surprised to see people take the hand of a boat driver (I cannot quite bring myself to call him a captain, he just steers a boat) on getting on and off a tour boat. "И бабы и мужики" was her wording; the rest of judgmental message could be inferred from the intonation.

Brugge's Onze Lieve Vrouw Kerk (Church of Our Lady) is one of the rare places outside Italy where one can see Michelangelo's work. One's misanthropic sentiment could be easily fueled by the following picture. People, who were obviously not clear on what they were in for, would pass the beautiful statue of Madonna and proceed towards a flashier tombstone in the back. Then they would take a short glance at it, then a picture, and walk away (no doubt, they are going to study it at length in the comfort of their homes). Ok, maybe I've always been a bit coy about my true ability to appreciate Renaissance art but this!

The city, though, is really an eye candy. Especially when you walk away from the tourist areas. Only 20k people actually live within the city limit so the chance you will meet a local is next to nothing. No surprise. A piece of real estate in the quieter part of the downtown, we were told, was selling at 9+ mil eur...

But travel itself, it is so refreshing for the head. Not only have I come up with a potentially lucrative idea, mulled over old conclusions, but also have finally been able to truly appreciate Panda Bear's Tomboy (as well as the new Akron/Family).

I know that perhaps very few people believe me when I say that travelling alone is a choice and not some sort of a thousand years of solitude gig. But this is what it is and I do not remember when travelling did me more good than when I went alone, first to Paris and then to Brugge. There is a special thrill in being one on one with a city.

The one in which I review the queen's day

6.8.

One fine milky-eyed gentleman of unspecified level of intoxication inquired if I were the police.

Another gentleman, no less fine I am sure, crossed a blocked road shielding from potential altercations with a small child. Rebuked by a policeman, he insisted "You bust me? You bust me with a baby?!" and took a picture of the man of law, adding: "Man, you ugly!". "You are ugly too", replied the policeman and both laughed. Male bonding?

The Dutch traffic jam

Maybe it is just me, but I get the feeling that people here have very unsophisticated music culture of the 'drop the beat' variety. I struggled to tell apart the contents of the numerous sound-spewing venues sprinkled around the city. And the huge main stage at the Museumplein with it's numerous billboard-sized screens featured, to everyone's delight I'm sure, shoddy karaoke. What's that? No, you heard that right. Ka-ra-o-ke.

What sold me in the end, though, is that it has become legal for a day to have a beer outdoors. What can I say, I am a simple man.

On the Verbiage

Often the appeal of all these quirky indie flicks is that people in them find each other on the same page about the craziest and most specific things. What are the odds of this happening: I stand in front of my open window, sipping some sort of merlot, looking into the distance somewhat wistfully and somewhat short-sightedly, a passer by slows the pace because I'm playing "Holland, 1945" and says: "Have you heard, Neutral Milk Hotel have reunited for a tour?" and I say "Yeah, but only in the U.S. and Japan. Japan!" "Yeah, how fucked up is that?".

Coming out of the capitalist closet

This was the last straw. And this is the end. I've considered myself a sympathizer to the Marxist cause for quite some time. But now I know even better. The Frankfurt School perhaps speaks to me. And so does Althusser. The state of being terrified has always been crucial to my intellectual development. I was first truly terrified when we read Bloom's The Closing of the American Mind (which I should re-read perhaps). And he terrified me into very important decisions. The minds have been closing ever since.

In other developments. Spring break, yay. I have just half-assed in six hours a fabulous paper on Shakespeare, delivered a presentation the preparation for which made my legs hurt physically, and have checked my weight which has reached 73 kilos (so much for the disenchantment with capitalism).

I have also re-read some Borges. Which I keep on doing. The more I learn about this world the richer his short stories become. Will it ever end? I hope so. Because I really want to learn to write like him. And not only in the gesture (easy) but also in the substance.

Oh, horror

I was reading Althusser's 'Ideology and Ideological Apparatuses', wondering, how was it not just a more specific (Marxist) reiteration of what 40 years earlier Heidegger called Das Man. Or how it is not a reiteration of what Foucault was writing roughly at the same time.. And if so how come he's become so influential? And how most of the second half of the 20th century philosophy is a variation on the same theme..  It is true, of course, that these people might have not been reading each other very carefully. But the horror part is that it had dawned on me how I am still very much at the very beginning of my (speculative-philosophical) journey. How I have finally learned to discern very broad brush strokes of thought and how I still am not able to see the nuances. I can only compare it to my knowledge in music. I can easily discern between big genres, but there is only a couple in which  I can claim some proficiency. I don't know much about the classical or jazz, but I can name them when I hear it. Some genres of rock, however, I can hair-split until all of us faint (and, not to be surprised, those sound the same to most of the people I know). But philosophy is so much more demanding in this respect, especially for an alcohol-impaired mind which had never been very effective about remembering things in the first place... When I'm done with philosophy I will focus on wine, coffee and cheeses.

Notes

I have been filling notebooks with certain things that come to my mind and which I would otherwise inevitably forget. Most of it becomes outdated rather quickly as I roll through more readings. But some of them seem to beat even me on re-read. From the red book: "8. Dutch dam connoisseurs". What? The yellow book: "41. Cloud, not timeline.", "76. Pirate philosopher.", "81. Change the venue!". But I like this one (whatever it means): "14. Underground, in the middle of a sentence, dusting off my old jacket, we sang".

Ze Vikend

Many a thing has happened! Well, it is finally warm so it is not as shitty to live anymore. One can travel through all the major cities in the Netherlands in one day. The Hague is such a pretty place. I can see now how Amsterdam got all the hipsters-potheads and how the Hague got all the decent people. And all the decent architecture. Here in Amsterdam all the modern builderly escapades look like they had been created by an army of deranged architects. In the Hague the modern and the old look as if they had been built by only one deranged architect. It is extremely pleasant and coherent. And they have access to the sea!

My bicycle was finally stolen. I am now quite free to claim a full Amsterdamite experience. And as a true amsterdamite I know that it is absolutely pointless to report it stolen. I will, instead, celebrate the good riddance and just get another one. Everyone, by the way, in anticipation of exactly this situation, rides ugly used bicycles in here. What is the source of new pretty ones is still a mystery to me.

I am going to Bruges in two weeks. There is a basilica there where they have a phial holding a cloth with Christ's blood. Allegedly. No one has ever opened it. And why would they. It would be a bit suicidal for tourism.

And I have finally made peace with the steep museum prices. Even at almost 20 eur per ticket the van Gogh exhibition is so full it is almost impossible to enjoy it. 

Delightfully Decadently

Tonight there is some special pleasure in sitting on a plastic chair (fuck you ikea couch, fuck you swivel chair) in the middle of my room, pigging out on belgian pralines and a 6.50 bottle of shitty merlot i bought an hour ago in a night store, and having to care about absolutely no one at least for a little while.