Smoking

There is only one good reason to quit smoking. If you are planning to stay alive for a while.

Academia is the only vocational choice that is awesomely compatible with getting old. Pick any other job - and you are just getting feebler and more useless. But in the academia age is an asset.

I have been smoking for at least 6 years on and off now. Somehow, my motivation to live always comes and goes. My motivation not to die in agony, however, comes a bit more often. And yet.

Smoking is the closest thing to an orgasm. They are entirely different, of course, but the experience of smoking, too, is difficult to describe, somewhat addictive, and somewhat pointless. And difficult to kick.

And yet. It has come to this that it is very difficult for me to imagine life without smoking. It's like "If I quit what am I gonna do?". What I am gonna do with all that free time, with all these freed up pauses between things, I'm not even sure what it is to live without an oral fixation anymore.

More importantly, is it even worth it? That requires some sort of a deep theoretical deliberation.

Pauses

An article in the New Yorker made me miss Paris. An evening stroll to the store made me miss all other evening strolls to the store when my head was full of ideas. I think in spasms and like all spasms they are barely controllable. If I am lucky, I get something from these mental explosions, I save it for later when it is all over and all is quiet again. But I am rarely lucky and what could have been the most exciting thing in the world yesterday becomes today as meaningless as anything else. And then there is nothing to do but wait: read halfheartedly, speak halfheartedly, and think halfheartedly. This is the time of looking backward. Reminiscing, trying to forget, trying to silence the voices, or voicing over what is normally kept in silence. This is also the time of looking forward; but without hope and right onto death. There is nothing that can be done to vindicate one's longevity, but even more so there is nothing that would justify one's premature departure.  It is a conspicuous waste of time which cannot be simply remedied by a willful act.

Dreams

Dreams are the worst. A bunch of nonsense tied into a loose narrative.

Last night was one of those. First, not only i couldn't sleep but neither could I think of anything remotely interesting or productive. And then this dream.

I had two girlfriends, both crazy jealous, both dressed in all black, hair also black, neither knows about the other. Never had I any fantasy remotely resembling any of this; one is plenty to handle but two! So one of them was super short for some reason and the other had attachment issues. The one with attachment issues had to 'habituate' herself to me by me stroking her lightly until she feels uncomfortable and tells me to stop. Ok I know where this one is coming from. I saw 'Hope Springs' before going to sleep where this was one of the 'sexercises' prescribed by Steve Carell the therapist to a long time married couple of Meryl Streep and Tommy Lee Jones. As one of the reviewers said, "If you like watching movies where old people are trying to have sex this one is for you!" But where the second girl is coming from I have no idea. Tommy Lee Jones was very good in the movie though...

I really prefer lucid dreams, ones when the frontal lobe is not completely asleep and tells you what to think of all the mess that is going on in the dream. They also never feel like sleep. Once I even dreamt of nothing at all but my brain still managed to concoct a whole research theory based on the eight pages of Heidegger's exposition of anxiety in Being and Time. Or Bergson's Time and Free Will actually - there was a lot of stuff about managing the idea of duration and extension.

another update

So no, of course yesterday's Grizzly Bear gig was not divine. But not profane either. How could it be: the venue, suggestively called 'Paradiso', used to be a church and is pretty much still is. Right above the stage and above an appropriate stained-glass window it still says 'SOLI DEO GLORIA' ("glory to God alone") which one can easily take as an astute commentary on the fake idols that are present on the stage at any particular day you happen to be there. And the guys from Grizzly Bear themselves are probably the closest thing to a church choir band than anyone else in my music library. Moreover, the smoke machines hadn't stopped working for a second so the band was constantly shrouded in a cloud, another suggestive symbol. To say nothing of the crazy light effects. Well, I'll say a bit. The main contraption looked like a bunch of balloons floating in the thin air and filled with candles. Need I say candles and churches go very well together. The congregation too was very solemn, the "hands folded tight" (Arcade Fire, 2010) kind of crowd. I, however, have failed to experience anything close to a religious trance. I blame my logic exam that was happening simultaneously with the gig and which (the former) I had to partially forfeit for that reason. When I had finished my exam in 25 minutes instead of 90 the woman who was administering the it looked genuinely worried, asked me if I was feeling well and when I answered I had to go must have assumed a close relative had died or, maybe, that an earthquake was coming. Despite the manic bike ride across the city it was worth it. And the afterparty had a revelation or two to offer. In a place called 'Waterhole' for some reason (reminded me of 'Watergate', ah, Berlin), a band called 'Ruben's Cosmic Jam' had a few revelations to offer. In their rendition of Bob Dylan's 'Knocking on the Heaven's Door' the singer insisted that  she'd rather knock on other people's doors than on God's door (who's not there to open anyway). Lesson learned. And a lot of fat kids dancing for some reason.

Ka-pow

Cocorosie turned out to be a perfect soundtrack to strolling around Amsterdam. Toy dinosaurs roaring, bells clinking, tiny but very concentrated, like the city itself. Amsterdam is a city with a very very short attention span: it repeats itself every hundred meters or so. Never in my life have I seen so many H&Ms and McDonalds' on one single street. This, it seems, is also part of the attractiveness of the city for tourism: it instantly hits you with everything it has (because it has it everywhere) making it not even necessary to know where you are going - miss one place and there would be another one just like it in a couple of blocks ahead. But yes, Cocorosie. And who else could sing "Well, it's not Yugoslavia. It's not Yugoslavia at all" in a such excruciatingly sweet manner.

Saturday night lights

I thing I've got my life back into my hands. All it took is to clean up my room/apartment. I read like crazy, I have started a serious blog (not his one), I'm working on my foray into the academia, doing nice useless things, appreciating Handel, the only worry I've got left is not to die prematurely. But that's anyone's worry, like it or not. Maybe it's true, after all, all I need is water, a gun and rabbits.

Schlafen schlafen

I've been having a strange relationship with sleep recently. Today, for example, I have overslept a class by 4 hours. And it's not that the class was early. I had to wake up at 10 and woke up at 2 instead... I have also tried some alternative sleeping patterns to aid memorization, but, again, ended up sleeping 12 hours instead of 7. Getting up has become a terrible chore. It has never been easy but now! Can it be all the caffeine that used to circulate in my blood?

Why does pork not stack?

This is a game called 'Guess wtf they are talking about". I did not read the name of the forum and the following conversation made my brain die a bit. A butchers convention?

jokomul:
"Forgive me if this has been asked, but I searched and could not find an answer. Why is pork not stackable?  Is there a specific reason? Or was it just overlooked and never fixed? I haven't tried fishing in a couple updates, but if I recall correctly, fish don't stack either."

Beltir:
"No food stacks, because otherwise I could run around with a few stacks of cooked pork and be perfectly safe, and not have to ever worry about running out of pig meat."

soulslayer88:
"Im not sure really. It would make sense because it would be hard to carry around lots of food like that but you can stack chests for some reason so... it doesnt stack because this is video game logic lol."          

Surreal...

Another Wednesday

I have been drinking very little here in Amsterdam and I haven't been drinking at all for about two weeks now. Alcohol, that is. My body tries compensating for the absent stressor by inducing me to drink more coffee and by thus giving me headaches anyway. It was only by chance that I was spared when I accidentally bought decaffeinated coffee. Kicking addictions since 2012.

I have also learned why the Dutch ride their bikes during torrential weathers and don't carry an umbrella. National pride, I was told, is at stake: if one refuses getting soaked he is declared to be made of sugar.

The tour of revelations (contd.)

Today once again I have embarked on my weekly Friday-bike-tour-of-revelations. With a camera! Not the best day for taking pictures, I thought, all grey and dark and threatening to start raining any minute. And I was completely right, of course - the pictures turned out to be awful and blurry (that's also because half of them I took while riding the bike). But anyways. The day before a spoke to a reasonable study abroad and we were complaining to each other how it's getting a bit depressing, probably because of the lack of sunlight, and she said yes, of course, with this unpredictably ominous weather one is bound to stay indoors more that would be considered normal. So I thought it was about time to learn to ignore what the outside looks like. To the detriment of the quality of pictures, that is.

So today I was asked for directions to the Central Station. This happens to me in every new place and very early on and never once yet I have failed to provide the directions. That's just because a place being new and me having a moderate map fetish go very well together. Another question is why I am constantly being asked. When I was a bit younger and more naive I used to think that's because I looked like a local. Here is a better theory: I seem to act like a local. When I walk alone I tend to be in a hurry, and the more destination-less the walk is the more in a hurry I am. This, it seems, to the outside eye appears as if I really know where I'm going (and what can be easier than looking like you know where you are going when you don't particularly care where you are going?).

Here's another revelation. It seemed surprising at first that there are so many Subways around, as many as McDonalds if not more. The solution, it dawned on me today, must lie in the dietary habits of the Dutch having just one warm meal a day.

Two encounters with unlucky celebrities also. I passed by the house where Anne Frank lived and stopped by the park in which vicinity Theo van Gogh was killed to take a picture of "The Scream" placed there in his memory (below).

Now to the pictures.

What I see every day.

Every day.

De Schreeuw. Theo and the freedom of speech.

This is what I see when I'm riding a bike.

Museumplein

A successful city-rebranding effort. They want less sex-drugs-rocknroll and more nice and cozy things.

I've heard meta-commenting on meta-picture-taking is in vogue again.

More water.

Theo

Today I have learned that I live five minutes away from the place where Theo van Gogh was assassinated.

Fri

I was gonna write a long post on Friday but I didn't and now I don't remember what was gonna be so long about it. Well, it was a relatively eventful Friday. First, I have recently become all legal with my new fancy Dutch social security number so I went and opened a bank account like a real working man. Then I took a walk in the center and witnessed a weird street performance by a weird Australian guy who was sort of offensively funny, soliciting money and cigarettes from the crowd, insulting passers by, and performing a magic escape from chains and plastic wrap. I didn't see how he did it because when the guy said "If you think my show was not worth at least 5 euros you may leave now" I did leave but when I was coming back from a coffee shop having spent 5 euros I saw him half-naked. Monologue:

The Guy: "People who think I can get rid of this chain - clap now!"
[very few people do]
The Guy: "Seven people! Now, people who think I cannot get rid of this chain - clap now!
[very few people do]
The Guy: "Same seven people! Now, people who think I should just get on with the show and stop wasting their time - clap now!"
[everyone finally begins clapping]
They Guy: "You assholes!"

Also, I think I have finally been christened into Amsterdamers (Amsterdamites? Amsterdorkers?) by getting under a heavy rain while biking. I was sure it would be the end of me but what do you know, I made it. Which was fortunate because it allowed me to finally do my laundry when I came back. A trip to the future that was. Machines talk to you in human language ("Pay up!") and add detergent automatically.

I'm crunching away at my duties and obligations, have enough time for side projects, do well in school and generally feel at peace. I have been reading fifty pages of fiction every night before going to sleep, haven't skipped a single night yet (Eco's Prague Cemetery - i cannot quite follow the intellectual rollercoaster of names and facts in all detail but there is still some weird pleasure in reading that novel) and (attention!) am drinking tea with milk! Oh how time changes people. Crazy things can happen. Who knows, I might even start wearing a watch or sleeping in pajamas!

wow

This is mind blowing. I have this dictionary plugin for Chrome that gives you the definition of a word if you click twice on it. I have accidentally clicked "7" and will never be the same again. 7 as a noun: "the cardinal number that is the sum of six and one", adjective (my favorite): "being one more than six". "Dude, I am so more than six". "You mean seven?".

Five circles of Amsterdam

I poked my head out of the window today at about 6pm. The weather prompted me to leave my lair. Sunny, still and fresh (now, a couple of hours later it is still quite magical - misty, my window is covered with condensate, it's like a very thick fog, so that you can see the beams of street lights standing out quite distinctly in the dark). So I took my bike and went.

They say in the tourist guides, "Don't be afraid to get lost, that's quite all right, happens to everyone in Amsterdam". I can see why you could say that, all buildings look pretty much the same (that's because of all the water actually, regulations: big windows to make them lighter, not too many floors etc), but it has not happened to me. I have deliberately left my bike on a street like any other next to a fence like any other so that when I want to come back from my walk I will not find it instantly and in this manner prolong the walk. Didn't happen. Found it. There seems to be just one secret to navigating the center of the city: streets are not straight but concentric. This made me think of the Inferno and I was prepared to make that comparison right here, but then I did some googling, and, surprise, Camus: "Have you noticed that Amsterdam's concentric canals resemble the circles of hell? The middle-class hell, of course..."  I should read The Fall. I have "liked" Camus on facebook some time ago and now I get these unsettling updates, "Albert Camus posted a new picture"...

I enjoyed the walk. It was pretty crowded but in an amusing way. Seamen who came to shore, in their bleached uniforms, taking pictures. A two-dog-powered bicycle. Tons of Britts... I might have also ventured into the red light district but I would not vouch for it, there were no red lights anywhere.

The very first store I went to in Amsterdam, my total at the cashiers was 10.99 but they charged me 11. Ripoff, I thought, would have never happened in Germany. But today I have learned that it works both ways. I got my eurocent back. Eurokarma, eh.

laws

I have so many thing to do I do none of them. I've been thinking about the spatial aspect of the law of diminishing returns. This law was formulated by mm fuck Ricardo. It's very simple. Add more labor to any task and with each new labor unit the useful output will decrease. If I need someone to dig a hole in the ground I could hire one worker and give him a shovel and it would be a great help compared to no workers and no hole at all. Get another worker and they would dig it twice as fast. Third one - they'd probably already begin slacking off, having smoke breaks and playing table tennis. Four, five - and they would just start getting in each other's way. Every new worker is less useful than the previous one. What is fascinating, I think, is the pure spatial dimension of such interaction. I always imagine like 20 people thrown in a pit, swarming like a bunch of worms, doing nothing, of course, just trying to disentangle their puny 3-dimensional bodies. Now if we have learned anything from modern physics this need not be the case on all levels of the material world: particles fly through walls like there's no tomorrow, electrons end up in a few places at the same time, some even say there's just one electron to all there is, whizzing around in time and space. Humans bump into each other all right, but that need not be the case universally. I couldn't find any formula on the Internet for the law of diminishing returns that takes mass into consideration. Midgets would obstruct each other's movements twice as little probably, and you can fill a hole in the ground with much more cats than humans, and probably on a certain level the law would not be applicable at all.

footnotes to bigger grievances (to come)

I wash my socks in the sink of my bathroom because there are six hundred students and only two washing machines here. Then I hang them to dry on a few coat hangers hanging on the edge of my desk because there is not really any other place. Pretty surreal it feels. What is also surreal is that I have 4cm long nails sticking out of the walls of my room, placed symmetrically but also randomly - their function is a mystery to me and I shall leave that to my landlord. I have been spending so much time in my room that the university feels like a small appendage to my surreal adult life (especially now that I have to cook for myself and wash socks in a sink). Which I am quite enjoying. Apart from the socks part.

almost forgot 2

Courtesy of Chatlin. Quite jolly.

almost forgot

Satie

At the rehearsal of Parade the orchestra thought Satie's was ballroom music. Cocteau had to go fetch Ravel to convince them it was a piece of stylized genius. A flutist rose and said to Satie: "Mr. Satie, you seem to think I'm stupid". He replied "No, I don't think you are stupid. But I could be wrong".

the fucking rain

so no, it doesn't just rain or not rain here, the netherlands seems to be unable to make up its mind; i have found it useless to look at the forecasts, and useful to carry an umbrella at all times. and people here behave in the same way: yesterday we went to an open air cinema, it was not supposed to rain but it did, of course, and half of the people left as soon as they felt a couple of drops whereas the other half stayed through the whole torment. i have a feeling this place is full of ambiguities like that.

Amsterdam

I have a single room all to myself. Completely self-sufficient too, which has allowed me to stay indoors for three straight days quite comfortably. It has also made me feel as a character from the Sims: eat, sleep, exercise, work - bars are going up, self esteem included.

It seems that the rain here takes little breaks every half an hour or so. I have counted eleven rains this Saturday. It also rains disturbingly quietly.

Everyone seems to be friendly. I like the size of the place. Around 700 students, almost half of those has never seen each other before. Easy to disappear. From an orientation for example.

I bought a bike but I fear the biking lanes. Cyclists seem to know what they are doing and even if they don't - how am I supposed to know?

I am reading Kant and taking notes. Found my old notebook for the notes about books I am reading. Camus, Sartre, Nietzsche and Heidegger. Why does the past me always seems a more thoughtful me than the present me? I'm pretty sure it is not true but can I use the illusion to my advantage?

Beers here are very small but strong. I haven't been out much but from what I've seen Amsterdam looks very uniform: similar houses, similar bridges, lots of water, bikes bikes bikes. They tell us the city is not very representative of the rest of the country, to to Utrecht they say. Go I will. I haven't taken a single picture yet.

Apparently, if a bar has an outdoors terrace you are forbidden to drink while standing. Also a little bit of cannabis in a cafe is ok, but tobacco - no no. No drinking outdoors either. My sentiment for Berlin seems to be running very deep. Probably that's why I have begun learning German on my own and on a regular basis. Das buchstabiert man I-D-O-N-O-T-W-A-N-T-T-O-G-O-B-A-C-K-T-O-T-H-E-C-O-U-N-T-R-Y-T-H-A-T-I-S-S-U-E-D-M-Y-P-A-S-S-P-O-R-T.

I have been listening to lots of music. Spotify began playing Ditch advertisements for me. I'm not your market, stupid. And it sounds really weird too. My top-5 lately:

Erik Satie - Gymnopedie #1 (lent et doloreux,  a soundtrack to all the good things that happened to me)

Grizzly Bear - Yet Again (itching for the new album)

The Antlers - Drift Dive (as underwater as it gets)

Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti - Nostradamus & Me (reminds me of Sparklehorse's "Maxine", love when he sings "Good bye.."

This Will Destroy You - Quiet (rediscovered, after six long years)

I'm brewing all these projects in my mind. Do I lack time? (I will have a Wednesday off, by the way). Rather skill. Also patience, persistence. I've been told recently that it's a myth that successful thinkers need to live in poverty and their own filth, that making money (lots of it) and living a comfortable life is ok. I'd like to stick to that suggestion. I'll have some yogurt now.