Chasing the wild sheep

Just finished reading Murakami's "Wild Sheep Chase" which was almost boring through the way and blew my mind away at the last 50 pages. A master of slow, detailed story-telling, providing the most vivid emotions through stingy dry words, not to little, not too much of them, just the necessary amount of what needs to be said.

Even though the "Wind-up bird chronicles" kept me awake for a week or so, this one had a breath-taking twist that cannot be ignored.

Educative and real, bringing parts of Japan history and life is mixed with surreal mystery that makes you wonder how real are you and your life. At some parts of the book real and surreal become almost integral parts of each other and bring a ticklish wondering to everyday life.

Next is Mario Vergas Lhosa - The Notebooks, for change of style and language. Then Banana Yoshimoto and the new Chuck Pallanuik. Cosmos in between to keep it down to earth and up to date.

p.s.

is "dance" my sheep? is "new and unexplored" my sheep? is "passion"?

lie to me

lie to me

A recent research on lies claims that an average person lies about 3 times in a 10-minute-conversation. This does not include mythomaniacs or mother-teresas. This does include white lies that aim to ease the opponent’s feelings such as “no, you dont look fat in this suit”.

Public relations are all about “easing” people’s feelings, starting with clients, through the journalists and, of course, the consumers. So how many times do pr managers lie in every conversation?Lets try me:

- Good morning (lie - its not morning anymore, but i just want it to seem earlier)

- Morning?! (well, it didnt work)

- Yeah, after wasting the whole morning in a boring meeting - just want to re-live it again! (lie -i was asleep, but quite ashamed to admit it and trying to make a professional impression)

- Have you seen our new promotion video?

- No (truth!!!), actually I didnt have a chance yet (lie lie lie, its been sent to me once or twice but watching it included pausing the music in my earphones and i was quite enjoying my newly made playlist, then hungry, then sleepy, then unwilling to devote 3 full mins to it).

- Oh you should do it asap - its outstanding! (lie, brutal lie - its the same boring shit with a different shade of blue in the closing frame, its pointless and outdated)

- Sure, I’m on it - sure journalists would love it! (lie lie lie - they will either hate it or ignore and i’ll have to lie to them thousand times more to make them copy-paste the bullshit i will write about it)

- Great! Send me an email with your opinion on it the second you finish watching! (lie - you dont want my opinion - you want compliments=lies your video/copy/art dont deserve)

- Absolutely! (lielielie - i will put back my music the second you hang up and will forget about it till the nearly missed deadline). hmmmm……

temple bluff

- Excuse me, can i please take a photo of you with your hands held together in a prayer?

With those words a young man turned to me as I entered a mysterious colorful beautiful Indian temple. As a prove of his seriousness he waved at me with a huge camera half his size.

Since i was having very little to no interaction with local people i got glad, excited and intrigued and agreed on the spot.

As we were walking towards the shooting point I realized why it felt natural - the guy was a journalist so it was a hint of home. Also it turned out that he was making an article about the mixture of cultures, but since I was obviously the only representative of "other cultures" that was eager to mix - it was my responsibility and duty now to prove his story right by posing to the camera.

After being rejected as a lover, partner and even as a guest in this country within few days I let myself feel "adopted" and was smiling like a newly-homed puppy as we were walking towards the main praying spot for the pic. Members of the temple same as visitors were giving us way, smiling at me in what it seemed at the moment - encouraging way. Even ten minutes later parading down the street i still was filled with this heartwarming sense of kindness of those people and endless gratitude for making me feel welcome.

It was not until two days later when I raised it in a conversation just to hear that no strangers are allowed in this society, sometimes in rather aggressive way. I was also flattered to hear that members of the society feel afraid to be seen with someone not from the same race and more than that - embarrassed.

More interesting things were about to be revealed in that one conversation to irreversibly cut my faith in people's kindness and openness to each other -apparently young generation prefers "whites" while the old one insists on "brown and within their own community". No reference to any inner qualities' human relations or anything else heard.

Spending rather tough 10 days of extreme social survival holiday i only regret one thing - to have taken part in that article which implies fake principles and values of fake reality. Such a bluff.

At least I've tried, I rang the bell

It's been a while since I've noticed an interesent thing - probably caused by my dual origins - i catch myself observing both with sort of snobism mixed with detachment and almost anthropological interest, with a priviledge of having "inside information". (have to work on it bcz its so hypocrite of me..)

Lately my attention was drawn to an outstandingly great interest that former soviets show in isoteric field, whe some focus on the knowledge such as teachings of great masters, philosophy behind it, theories of how the world was created and functions, while others find fascinatingly credible things like horoscopes, magic, spells and so on.
With an unarmed eye it demands to be said that educated people look for knowledge and explanations while less educated and less big-world-ppl seek fortune tellers and ways to influence without being able to do so conventionally. But i'm going to make a mini-research on the subject..
As for the main reason for soviets to pay extra interest in those things - as usual it can be explained possibly by the restrictions that existed in communism - no religion, no abnormal thoughts/events, nothing magical to look forward to..so instead of looking for answers in religion, like european/american catholic or whatever faithful ppl do - they were urged to turn to fast-food-almighty mediums and magicians.
I am aware of the fact that this field of interest exists in every country (maybe not so popular in zimbabwe - their inflation is unpredictable so probably all mediums were killed after mistelling the future of dollar), but still russians seem to be all over it. I got a recommendation for a book, that turned out to be quite isoterical. every russian i told the name of the author was in awe, smiling happily saying that they've read it several times. noone else, from any country havent heard of it ever..it deserves a mini-research..

I want to go on exciting journey

castaneda

started reading carlos castaneda..it blows my mind away

so far:
1.

delete your personal history.

let people comprehend you without labels or explanations, without history and prejudice - good or bad. people that know you "good" limitate your possibilities by their firm definitions of you.
and, what's not less important - know your friends. not wanna-bees, but your real ones.

2. the second instrument that appears in the book is the most important (and i hope i'm already there with this one) -

don't take urself too seriousely
personal importance is nonsense and has to be elominated. {at least now i have a nice explanation to me being a clown at the end of important meetings..sometimes from the very beginning..}

/**
its so gr8 (not) to learn smth and 5 mins later to have an opportunity to practice. i must admit that understanding the nonsense of selfimportance feeling turned out to be unexpectedly not-easy. well, every lesson comes when it's time, although as my educated friends say "coincidence is not necessarily a casualty".

sometimes

sometimes it's crucial to perform a small uber-bitch play in order to make ppl appreciate ur endless nice-ness and friendliness and remind them of an alternative.