Lem

Stanisław Lem, the author of one of the most profound and, maybe, the only truly beautiful science fiction novel, Solaris, died today.

Cello

A cellist and his cello, from a (very) alternative rock gig we went to last Thursday.

Celje, Triglav & Co.

For the last four days the Capital has been full of Slovenian flags. While driving I have gazed at the dramatic clash between red and blue on them flapping in the wind, and the stylised, high on design, coat of arms.

This morning, the taxi I caught to work was stopped for the Slovenian president's cavalcade to pass through.

From the beach to the mountain and back in time

Funny weather, autumny, breezy. The building under construction next to where we live had doors installed today, but no door handles. So, doors on four floors of empty flats flap shut and then back open continually in the breeze.

Just back from the dentist, no root canal, not this time.

The last two weeks have been pretty full of things to see and do. I will use the pictures posted as signposts, to remind myself where and what in telling you.

So, where did I leave off, ah yes, that beach where the kite dies, a couple of weeks ago. I did not mention that there is a quarry next to that beach, and a monastery and some tavernas. In the Outpost, when not swamped with mega-hotels, beaches tend to be endowed with industrial landmarks: quarries, power stations, cement factories — and so on. Anyway, here is a quarry-related warning sign.

During the following week, our mood could be reflected on images like the following — actually of Landmark in the Outpost Capital.

Last Friday we went back to Finbar's, for a St. Pat's / Jod Birthday party. We had lots of fun, again. We have been pushing it by now, so we'll wait a bit before we go back there for a third time.

On the following day, Jod's mum came to visit and on Sunday we took her to Second Most Famous Outpost Mountain Village ('SMoFOMoV' henceforth). I was taken to SMoFOMoV four years ago, by Adversary. Adversary was a lousy driver, so our way there was scary. Moreover, because I am a huge mountain lover, I found SMoFOMoV almost unremarkable then. In other words, last Sunday was my first time back there after four years. This time, I found the place delightful, elating, beautiful: green, running water, trees, cool dry weather. This is what four years in the Outpost can do to you: they make you deeply appreciate the humblest of mountain streams (like the one running through the village),

the most modest patch of vegetation, or the smallest extent of non-brutalised architecture.

Last week again felt pretty much like this:

Yesterday we were offered a guided tour of a neolithic settlement, actually a UNESCO World Heritage site. Now, as you might have figured out, archaeological and historical sites are aplenty here, remember, this used to be the centre of the world once. Actually, the main produce of this country is History and wine (although its potatoes are also among the best in the world). Anyway. What we learned from our guided tour to the site was actually too little.

The reason was that our guide, a polite and friendly employee of the Principality's Bureau of Antiquities, was not qualified to be our guide, as he just works there and he is in fact specialised in the History of Archaeology. Thankfully, the site guard was at hand, very knowledgeable and helpful.

One thing we learned was that excavations in the site (discovered in the 30s, I think) are going really slowly, carried out by the French Archaeological School. The reason is that the Principality's Bureau of Antiquities has only "twelve souls working for it". So they fund no excavations. This, I am sure, strikes you as very odd for a place with a history of 10,000 years of continuous settlement.

Second, our guide informed us that Outpost "history is produced for us by the Americans and, given that Americans want very specific things from us (Loxias: not their oil, for there is none), you realise the state we are in." Most participants nodded in anti-americanist assonance.

Third, evil Americans are so bent on producing history of the Outpost for the Outposters, surely to rule over them and "sow doubt on their identity", as someone said, that they are running thirteen archaeological missions in the Outpost. Whoa! All that money! It must be crucial for US foreign policy (surely behind all American enterprise, business-related or not) to sow doubt on Outposters' identity. I am so ignorant.

Fourth, neolithic settlements gave great views, especially in the Spring:

The particular one also featured a cute tree:

Yo Ho Ho

Below you can see the search terms that brought visitors to this blog today:

Caries profundissima

(A word of caution: the post below is not for the squeamish. If you are squeamish, read something else, e.g. on people’s livelihoods and lives being ruined all over the world by (not just) the West’s need for more political power, more and bigger cars, cheaper thongs, more malls, more sophisticated weaponry and a greater variety of half-eaten burgers. These are not disturbing topics, teeth getting drilled (as below) is. But enough with irrelevant musings, here is the post:)

I dislike going to the dentist. Now, that was deep, I know. The reason I don’t like going to the dentist is not the so much the pain or, even, the expectation of pain. It is the helplessness, with you lying on a chair and staring at your flat (in my case, at least, as the dentist is right opposite where we live) and someone fumbling in your open mouth, filling it with chemical smells and tastes and — sometimes — those of putrefaction. It is the maddening thought that tiny white bones surrounded by genitally-tissued flesh and wedged into your mandibles can cost you so much time, pain, money. It is the usually bad news that follows a visit to the dentist: a slight sensitivity? to cold? Ah, well, oh, it looks like we’ll have to drill and fill. Hm, this one runs quite deep. Does it hurt at, say 2 am? No? Hm, then we might not need to pluck the nerve out.

“Do you think the decay has reached that deep?”

“This is possible, yes.”

“Please shoot me with your best.”

No way. If I went numb, then we would not be able to tell how close to the pulp the decay had reached. I said to myself ‘yikes’ but to the dentist I said:

“Fine, but I will moan and sigh. And if it gets really uncomfortable, I will raise my left hand, so that I don’t scream into your prying face.”

And the pioneering dentist drilled on and on, deeper and deeper. “Oh, look at all this blood!” (no, I wouldn’t, thanks), she exclaimed. “Ouch, the gum has grown over this.” (‘what? I dunno. Why didn’t you bother checking this out before Xmas, when I came for polishing? Huh?’ I said to myself, once more.)

Its rotations were sending ripples of mild pain through the thinnest film of dentine separating the drill head and the pulp, alternating with the numbing pain of the chilly air cleaning up the debris — a sensation that is to me the closest approximation to the painful numbness of bereavement.

There was no actual acute pain at any moment, though.

When she finished she showed me on the inevitable tooth chart hanging on the wall next to her SCUBA certificates what had happened: the decay had started low and had internally proceeded upwards, only just bypassing the pulp. In fact so ‘just’, I could now feel my pulse throbbing in the tooth. “So, if I had given you the anaesthetic, I would have had to go straight for plucking the nerve out, because I would not have known how nasty the thing would be. It would make me seven times the money, of course, too.

She amended my dental record with a caveat for the future. She explained:

“So, this is tooth 17. We have three kinds of decay, according to their depth: caries supeficialis, caries media and caries profunda.

Yours is caries profundissima.”

I guess all that could be a fine start for an allegory on morality, its white material covertly eaten away by bacteria, turning it into shite and threatening its very livelihood. But this would be both a bit contrived and uninteresting, wouldn’t you think?

Chongqing? Where’s that?

I read this piece on China’s mega-cities today. Recommended.

Between weekends

The weekend before the one that ended yesterday started wonderfully. On that Friday we went to Finbar’s for dinner. Finbar’s is, yes, an Irish pub, more of a gastropub than a pub. They do Guinness and Kilkenny and Caffrey’s and all. Anyway, I usually avoid it because it gets dark and loud and pointless as evening progresses. Not on that Friday. We went in fancy dress, because it was a fancy dress party, and after dinner it transpired that

1. the DJ was one hell of a DJ;
2. the place was full of Brits and Europeans (are Brits Europeans? no, if you ask — most of — them): fun and non-stop dancing guaranteed
3. we had just had excellent food for dinner

Then the dancing commenced. Then One of the Seven strategically joined. Then there was dancing and merriment. Then this guy won a prize for his fancy dress,

although to me it is evident he is Bob himself back from the dead. Then there was more merriment into the wee hours, with every free quasi-horizontal surface being used for the purpose of dancing, as dancing on the bar below illustrates:

We eventually decided to leave because our feet and legs and all were sore but the DJ would not let us.

The following day we went to Aerosol and we had a crappy time not so much because nobody wanted to do anything, but mainly because Jod spent a couple of hours trying to get all of us to go somewhere. Which was unpleasant both for her and me. We stayed in a low for the whole week, that of the ‘what are we doing here’ / ‘where are our friends’ / ‘why is it so bloody hard to have fun here’ sort.

Now, last Friday we went to a birthday dinner party. It was the sum of all the nightmarish dinners, pub crawls and parties in the Outpost: guests criticising the choice of place and food in front of the birthday boy, while ignoring him completely. Rude self-absorbed guests shouting at waiters, guests complaining about “that music” that gave them back their morning headache, the birthday boy in utter loneliness, sad 40-somethings staring ahead into the emptiness and rude 30-somethings making their presence manifest by being callous and X-somethings too absorbed into text messaging… but we left early.

We had booked a table for Old V’s indoor gig. Jod’s beautician (i.e. a normal person who can have fun) and boyfriend joined us. Now, a disclaimer: Old V is a Compatrido rocker who could be my father. He has identified himself with the Communist Party (from when they were the allegedly cool revolutionary guys) so closely, I have allergic reaction reflexes towards most of his songs and him as a, you know, presence. All that until last Friday. Because the gig was great. You know what they say, real rock ‘n’ roll is live rock ‘n’ roll. Well, it’s true: I would still be very frugal in buying any of his CDs, I can’t say he made me love his songs, but I would go back to a live of his: he is a great, self-sarcastic performer who really rocks.

Yesterday we went for fish. We stopped on the seaside and we flew a kite. The kite met its end here.

It’s a man’s world

In order to respond to devious diva’s battle cry, I thought I would write something on International Women’s Day. Before anything else, and before any (typically British or American) gits accuse me of promoting stalinist holidays, let me just point you here for some relevant info. Besides, even if there weren’t a Women’s Day, we would have to invent one.

I have thought I would write something all day today. But I don’t know what. I don’t know how it is to start 400 meters behind your male competitors; I don’t know how it feels to have men stereotype every single behavioral trait of yours; I can’t know how it feels to be paid much less for the same job some man does; I don’t know of the pressures to get married no matter what the cost; I can’t possibly imagine having to bear kids, raise them,alternately be chaste and virtuous or sexy and seductive in a perfectly timely fashion — for the sake of men and not because I could get any fulfillment myself out of any of these; I cannot conceive being seen first as butt and tits (or lamentably deficient in them) and then as someone — and mind you, I am of a not unpleasantly proportioned physique myself.

Seriously now, I can hardly do any of the above. Still, I haven’t even touched sexual coercion and repression, bans on education and employment, a homebound life, genital mutilation, rape, poverty, war, AIDS, being just an expendable commodity bought and sold and lost and won home and abroad.

I’m sorry, I can’t respond to the call.

Beauty and the beast

Two pictures, one of a good cat made of papier-mache, the other of Gizmo the Poltergeist.