just quickly..
I saved this picture under the name 'fuckme boots.' Too bad they're six hundred and eighty quid (I feel I should type the numbers out, instead of just saying: £680..possibly to give that amount of money the respect it deserves)
Thursday 29 January 2009
Levin and Anna
Right. So I was meant to be outlining the purpose of this blog. Can I just say quickly how much I hate that word? It is almost up there with 'choccie biccies' in terms of words that make my skin crawl. Brrr.
From now on I shall refer to the context of these musings as an o.j. - online journal.
actually, I've just thought about that and it conjures up disturbing connotations with the crazed OJ Simpson. cyber musings? screw it, I'll think about it later.
Sooo... Anna Arkadeyvna Karenina. The main protagonist in the Tolstoy epic, aptly named 'Anna Karenina.' The book, as some would lead us to believe, is a love story - Anna falls for the dashing (if balding) Alexei Vronsky, and, as love dies away *MASSIVE SPOILER AHEAD*
throws herself under a train, as she realizes she has lost everything - her place in society, her child, Seriozha, and her lover. However, being a subjective reader, I really feel the novel should have been re-titled 'Levin'. Konstantin Dmitrievitch Levin is the novel's other main protagonist, and his idelogical struggle, for me, makes up the entirety of the book. This is not a love story - it is a social commentary about Russia and its relationship to the Westernized Europe in the late 1800's, and more importantly, an ideological struggle in one man's brain. I leave you for tonight with a quote from the man himself, as his attraction to the physical intensifies. To set the scene: Levin, to his brother's horror, decides to join the peasants workming the fields on his farm, in a distinctly Marxist move. more tommorow.
'Levin kept between them. In the very heat of the day the mowing did not seem such hard work to him. The perspiration with which he was drenched cooled him, while the sun, that burned his back, his head, and his arms, bare to the elbow, gave a vigor and dogged energy to his labor; and more and more often now came those moments of unconsciousness, when it was possible not to think what one was doing. The scythe cut of itself. These were happy moments. Still more delightful were the moments when they reached the stream where the rows ended, and the old man rubbed his scythe with the wet, thick grass, rinsed its blade in the fresh water of the stream, ladled out a little in a tin dipper, and offered Levin a drink.
"What do you say to my home-brew, eh? Good, eh?" said he, winking.
And truly Levin had never drunk any liquor so good as this warm water with green bits floating in it, and a taste of rust from the tin dipper. And immediately after this came the delicious, slow saunter, with his hand on the scythe, during which he could wipe away the streaming sweat, take deep breaths of air, and look about at the long string of mowers and at what was happening around in the forest and the country.
The longer Levin mowed, the oftener he felt the moments of unconsciousness in which it seemed not his hands that swung the scythe, but the scythe mowing of itself, a body full of life and consciousness of its own, and as though by magic, without thinking of it, the work turned out regular and well-finished of itself. These were the most blissful moments.
It was only hard work when he had to break off the motion, which had become unconscious, and to think; when he had to mow round a hillock or a tuft of sorrel. The old man did this easily. When a hillock came he changed his action, and at one time with the heel, and at another with the tip of his scythe, clipped the hillock round both sides with short strokes. And while he did this he kept looking about and watching what came into his view: at one moment he picked a wild berry and ate it or offered it to Levin, then he flung away a twig with the blade of the scythe, then he looked at a quail's nest, from which the bird flew just under the scythe, or caught a snake that crossed his path, and lifting it on the scythe as though on a fork showed it to Levin and threw it away.
From now on I shall refer to the context of these musings as an o.j. - online journal.
actually, I've just thought about that and it conjures up disturbing connotations with the crazed OJ Simpson. cyber musings? screw it, I'll think about it later.
Sooo... Anna Arkadeyvna Karenina. The main protagonist in the Tolstoy epic, aptly named 'Anna Karenina.' The book, as some would lead us to believe, is a love story - Anna falls for the dashing (if balding) Alexei Vronsky, and, as love dies away *MASSIVE SPOILER AHEAD*
throws herself under a train, as she realizes she has lost everything - her place in society, her child, Seriozha, and her lover. However, being a subjective reader, I really feel the novel should have been re-titled 'Levin'. Konstantin Dmitrievitch Levin is the novel's other main protagonist, and his idelogical struggle, for me, makes up the entirety of the book. This is not a love story - it is a social commentary about Russia and its relationship to the Westernized Europe in the late 1800's, and more importantly, an ideological struggle in one man's brain. I leave you for tonight with a quote from the man himself, as his attraction to the physical intensifies. To set the scene: Levin, to his brother's horror, decides to join the peasants workming the fields on his farm, in a distinctly Marxist move. more tommorow.
'Levin kept between them. In the very heat of the day the mowing did not seem such hard work to him. The perspiration with which he was drenched cooled him, while the sun, that burned his back, his head, and his arms, bare to the elbow, gave a vigor and dogged energy to his labor; and more and more often now came those moments of unconsciousness, when it was possible not to think what one was doing. The scythe cut of itself. These were happy moments. Still more delightful were the moments when they reached the stream where the rows ended, and the old man rubbed his scythe with the wet, thick grass, rinsed its blade in the fresh water of the stream, ladled out a little in a tin dipper, and offered Levin a drink.
"What do you say to my home-brew, eh? Good, eh?" said he, winking.
And truly Levin had never drunk any liquor so good as this warm water with green bits floating in it, and a taste of rust from the tin dipper. And immediately after this came the delicious, slow saunter, with his hand on the scythe, during which he could wipe away the streaming sweat, take deep breaths of air, and look about at the long string of mowers and at what was happening around in the forest and the country.
The longer Levin mowed, the oftener he felt the moments of unconsciousness in which it seemed not his hands that swung the scythe, but the scythe mowing of itself, a body full of life and consciousness of its own, and as though by magic, without thinking of it, the work turned out regular and well-finished of itself. These were the most blissful moments.
It was only hard work when he had to break off the motion, which had become unconscious, and to think; when he had to mow round a hillock or a tuft of sorrel. The old man did this easily. When a hillock came he changed his action, and at one time with the heel, and at another with the tip of his scythe, clipped the hillock round both sides with short strokes. And while he did this he kept looking about and watching what came into his view: at one moment he picked a wild berry and ate it or offered it to Levin, then he flung away a twig with the blade of the scythe, then he looked at a quail's nest, from which the bird flew just under the scythe, or caught a snake that crossed his path, and lifting it on the scythe as though on a fork showed it to Levin and threw it away.
Sunday 25 January 2009
This was supposed to be the enlightening post..
Ok, so I realize this is meant to be the enlightening post; the post chock-full of purpose, agency, and information. However, I must urge you to click the link below.
I know, I know, I hate following links too, especially if you have a browser that, if it was a person, would have been smothered with a pillow years ago.
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=mpxw0iCP4q4
However, wasn't that worth the effort??
You didn't do it, did you.
I'm only going to ask one more time
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=mpxw0iCP4q4
Whats not to love? Just when you think Elmo cannot possible be out-gayed, Chris Brown plays the trump.
I feel quite ashamed that for the last 24hrs I've been humming 'closed....op-en' quietly under my breath. damm brown and his catchy melodies.
I know, I know, I hate following links too, especially if you have a browser that, if it was a person, would have been smothered with a pillow years ago.
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=mpxw0iCP4q4
However, wasn't that worth the effort??
You didn't do it, did you.
I'm only going to ask one more time
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=mpxw0iCP4q4
Whats not to love? Just when you think Elmo cannot possible be out-gayed, Chris Brown plays the trump.
I feel quite ashamed that for the last 24hrs I've been humming 'closed....op-en' quietly under my breath. damm brown and his catchy melodies.
Friday 23 January 2009
The Beginning
This isn't the ideal way to start my first post, but I feel quite desperate after writing 1000 words, and then promptly deleting it by accident. However, a 2nd draft was probably necessary anyway, as you can probably tell that me and the computer are not harmonious in our partnership. Its more like an abusive relationship, where I'm the beaten spouse that keeps coming back for more.
Anyway, enough with the domestic abuse metaphors, this is meant to be a light-hearted blog, and I am determined not to bog it down with details of my mums breast implants, or how I got away with killing that old lady (a spiked bundt cake and rubber soled sneakers - for sneaking)
I realise that 'The Beginning' for the first post on a blog sounds a bit pretentious/biblical, and in any case, this is by no means the beginning. I have pootled along quite happily for 20yrs without feeling any need to document my life.
Recently I was reading an article which claimed that the reason Generation X was so dissatisfied with their lives was the endless memorialization of them by their parents.
Case in point: my nieces, and nephews in Florida, who every year are lovingly documented in a calendar showing them at christmas, skiing in Vermont. Them trick or treating in October. Them on beach pony rides on the beach. This, the writer claims, is dissatisfying because it leads each of us to believe we're important, a belief which is promptly shattered when we reach 18, and noone seems that interested in a scrapbook of our first steps. Call it cognitive dissonance, if you will - a gap between our perceived beliefs (that we are significant people in the world), and known reality (small fish in a huge ocean)
I was thinking about sites like twitter, myspace, facebook - each of them allowing us to create a persona, details of the minutiae of our lives that we think people will be interested enough to read about. For instance, a friend of mine recently updated her facebook status to read 'Nadine is eating a meatball and cheese panini'. Now, I don't mean to be rude (actually, I do), but WHO CARES?! Who on earth is actually interested in reading that?
Which brings me on to my first resolution for my blog - there will be no unnecessary details about the terrifying ordinariness of my day-to-day life. I realise this is probably easier said than done, but by God, I'm gonna try it. I don't know why I'm capitalising God, by the way, because I'm an atheist, but it just feels so right. Next, I will try not to veer off onto a tangent, which neither my readership, nor myself five minutes later, can follow. Again, this might be a hard one to stick to, and I want to delete that bit about God because it doesn't exactly segue, but by deleting it I would be breaking my next rule: not to edit any streams of consciousness that may prove insightful, or provoke discussion. So above, we have a potential argument for the existence of a higher power; not bad for an opener eh?
So to sum up (and for those who will have skipped that last bit out of boredom)
RESOLUTIONS
1) no pointless details about my mundane existence
2) no segue-ing (sp?) off into crazed tangents - no one wants to read that shit
3) no deleting anything that could induce discussion/heated argument
I want to add:
4) become familiar with at least the basics of HTML, but I fear that is a road that will not be travelled.
So, thats my resolutions done, and I urge you to poke me with a sharp stick if I don't keep to them, much like the MTV stick used to prod Audrina from The Hills from a comatose stupor into a semi-interesting being (they lost that stick in series 2, in my opinion) This is off-topic (dammit, thats 2) broken already), but did anyone see that deleted scene from The Hills where Audrina's friend was trying to talk to her about the particle accelerator in Geneva? She explained a basic outline of the project - how they were going to try and create a particle which would, in effect, create matter out of nothing, thus proving the Big Bang Theory. The downside, of course, was that it had the potential (1/million chance, but still) of creating a black hole, which could end Earth as we know it. Audrina's reply? 'Isn't it funny that Lauren's in Italy while this is happening?'
Quite, Audrina, quite.
Anyway, thats the beginning done and dusted. I realise I have not yet outlined the purpose of this blog, nor its intriguing title (anyone guessed it?), but I am amused at how I'm already talking as though someone is actually reading this.
tara for now,
Gxx
Anyway, enough with the domestic abuse metaphors, this is meant to be a light-hearted blog, and I am determined not to bog it down with details of my mums breast implants, or how I got away with killing that old lady (a spiked bundt cake and rubber soled sneakers - for sneaking)
I realise that 'The Beginning' for the first post on a blog sounds a bit pretentious/biblical, and in any case, this is by no means the beginning. I have pootled along quite happily for 20yrs without feeling any need to document my life.
Recently I was reading an article which claimed that the reason Generation X was so dissatisfied with their lives was the endless memorialization of them by their parents.
Case in point: my nieces, and nephews in Florida, who every year are lovingly documented in a calendar showing them at christmas, skiing in Vermont. Them trick or treating in October. Them on beach pony rides on the beach. This, the writer claims, is dissatisfying because it leads each of us to believe we're important, a belief which is promptly shattered when we reach 18, and noone seems that interested in a scrapbook of our first steps. Call it cognitive dissonance, if you will - a gap between our perceived beliefs (that we are significant people in the world), and known reality (small fish in a huge ocean)
I was thinking about sites like twitter, myspace, facebook - each of them allowing us to create a persona, details of the minutiae of our lives that we think people will be interested enough to read about. For instance, a friend of mine recently updated her facebook status to read 'Nadine is eating a meatball and cheese panini'. Now, I don't mean to be rude (actually, I do), but WHO CARES?! Who on earth is actually interested in reading that?
Which brings me on to my first resolution for my blog - there will be no unnecessary details about the terrifying ordinariness of my day-to-day life. I realise this is probably easier said than done, but by God, I'm gonna try it. I don't know why I'm capitalising God, by the way, because I'm an atheist, but it just feels so right. Next, I will try not to veer off onto a tangent, which neither my readership, nor myself five minutes later, can follow. Again, this might be a hard one to stick to, and I want to delete that bit about God because it doesn't exactly segue, but by deleting it I would be breaking my next rule: not to edit any streams of consciousness that may prove insightful, or provoke discussion. So above, we have a potential argument for the existence of a higher power; not bad for an opener eh?
So to sum up (and for those who will have skipped that last bit out of boredom)
RESOLUTIONS
1) no pointless details about my mundane existence
2) no segue-ing (sp?) off into crazed tangents - no one wants to read that shit
3) no deleting anything that could induce discussion/heated argument
I want to add:
4) become familiar with at least the basics of HTML, but I fear that is a road that will not be travelled.
So, thats my resolutions done, and I urge you to poke me with a sharp stick if I don't keep to them, much like the MTV stick used to prod Audrina from The Hills from a comatose stupor into a semi-interesting being (they lost that stick in series 2, in my opinion) This is off-topic (dammit, thats 2) broken already), but did anyone see that deleted scene from The Hills where Audrina's friend was trying to talk to her about the particle accelerator in Geneva? She explained a basic outline of the project - how they were going to try and create a particle which would, in effect, create matter out of nothing, thus proving the Big Bang Theory. The downside, of course, was that it had the potential (1/million chance, but still) of creating a black hole, which could end Earth as we know it. Audrina's reply? 'Isn't it funny that Lauren's in Italy while this is happening?'
Quite, Audrina, quite.
Anyway, thats the beginning done and dusted. I realise I have not yet outlined the purpose of this blog, nor its intriguing title (anyone guessed it?), but I am amused at how I'm already talking as though someone is actually reading this.
tara for now,
Gxx
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