MODERN TALKING

We’re all dumb nowadays. We play deaf and use our hands for speaking. We speak in signs, in keyboard ciphers, multiplying witnesses and intermediaries on the way. Our conversations have become more meaningful, less ephemeral. They are more than just the fodder for thought and memory. They’re dangerous, like everything that never disappears. Once you write something down, it starts living its own life – a butterfly-effect one, full of repercussions and interpretations. You can’t deny anything anymore, not in the safe, old-fashioned, “I-never-said-that” kind of way. Yes, you did! Look, idiot! LOOK what you SAID!

As ridiculous as it sounds (or reads), YES! We have lived to the day when conversations can be seen, but not heard. And therefore they can be misunderstood to one’s heart’s desire.. After all, they are only valid in real time and never after. And only at that very time can they be understood. And only by those involved. And sometimes they simply can’t be and that’s that. 

Lots of limitations, wouldn’t you say? This modern sign language is most people’s second, not first, remember? And therefore, no one’s ever as good at using their hands for speaking as those less fortunate ones, not given any other choice.

So maybe it’s not worth saving your breath and involving hands in conversations, hiring expensive intermediaries who charge you extra every time you're mis-taken. Maybe writing down the IT you MEAN should be banned. It’s no use. Recall the limitations. Recall the many times you’ve failed.

But you still LIKE it. Can’t argue with that.

Save your breath (if you like) and feel free to use your hands to communicate. But do it properly and directly. Face to face, hand in hand, skin on skin. That’s what your hands are really for. And maybe, but just maybe, you'll find an application for your mouth, too. And a slip of the tongue will earn you a small fortune rather than cost one.

KEEP THE STREETS EMPTY FOR ME

Driving after dusk and seeing merely five cars in forty minutes (!) must activate the brain-baby maker.

Only a few on their way someplace they have to be or someplace they want to be. Did that mean that everybody else was already there? I am about to make quite an unfortunate division into those happy and unhappy ones on that basis. He who is where they have to be is unhappy; he who is where they want to be is happy. 

But those empty streets beg for explanation. Happiness keeps some people home as they need not to look for it anymore. And the other lot, stricken by lack of happiness, are stranded in the lesser evil of having a place to stay rather than a home. They may have stopped looking. Empty streets, as a result.

Having said this, shouldn’t the happy go out and brag about what they have found? Shouldn’t the unhappy go out and seek their happiness? Perhaps… they are all stranded in some way? And maybe those on their way are running away, in fact? Maybe, those heading someplace they don't want to be should go elsewhere?

I don’t know about them all. I was one of those on the move but I wasn’t running away. I wasn’t in the least bit unhappy though I had not reached my destination by then.

In my case having to go and wanting to go meant exactly the same. I was getting closer to where I was heading. At that time it defined happiness for me. Just drawing nearer.

"IT'S ALL THE STREETS YOU CROSSED, NOT SO LONG AGO.."

One of the most absorbing dreams I’ve ever dreamt took place in the early 70s. Took time is more like it. What a misfit I was in my twenty-first century out-fit.. But I felt right in (the) place. I took a good look and an even better breath of the forty-years-younger air and headed to visit my eighteen-year-old parents. That’s what I'd travelled in night-time for. And I knew exactly where to find them.. After all, in thirty years' time the very same red-brick high school would become my own.

I had that dream a few good years ago, but only now do I feel that I was born too late. Not because of the dream alone. Not because I enviously wish I had been there to appreciate the then music, the fashion. Not because things were rarely made in China, of plastic. Not even because there was lots of post, not post-. Why(,) then? Visuals – somewhat monochromatic, tastes – macrobiotic. It was okay to be a virgin. Of any kind. Things were rated, harder to get.. It required effort to have. A hobby, a girlfriend, a whatever.

Shouldn’t the “now” go all red to hear that..? Knows no shame, so.. no. But flamboyant as it is.. just look.. it pales. In contrast. In comparison.

REAL TIME

I want nothing. No thing can prevail and no(t) one shall. Arm’s length and shortness of sight. Nowhere.. now here.. such a fine, fine line. The now is what matters. And it(s) matters.

Don’t visualize what should only be felt, what can get imagined at the very merry least. The know-how, the can-do. Don’t you all have it? Don't you have it all? So fuck the show. And tell.

"SHE'S A MAN-EATER.."

The other evening. We are lying on the bed, me mourning over the father getting rid of all the charcoal remnants. No barbecue party then. No two’s company. The sister turns on her usual uplifting mode. "- Hey, let’s make a fire instead," says she. And then, "- I’ll cut your fingers off and we'll roast them, what say you?" An uplifter? Yes. And no.. I hear the familiar click as the head projector starts a frantic slide show.. Not again! It's all in front of me. I get desensitizied, have my fingers cut off, sprinkled with spices, grilled and served together with French fries, French salads and a cruelly inviting smile of a French waitress. Now, would that dish look or smell any different from those featuring other kinds of red meat? Not at all. And so I wouldn’t be able to tell that it was actually myself I was having for dinner! Well, unless it was my left hand that lacked fingers and I had nothing to hold the food in.

It goes without saying how uncomfortable the whole idea made me feel. Still, it's not a revelation that what is known as me is just as edible as those creatures portioned and served on my plate every Sunday. How funny.. You might even know you’re made of this.. luscious meat and that it’s consumed in some cultures, but the moment of realization results in a wave of nausea anyway. Well, self-disgust it was in my case.. At that very point, I wanted to call it all off, spare the sausages and become a vegetarian. It suddenly punched me right between the eyes that one should only eat raw, unprocessed food. This leaves.. leaves, fruit and vegetables (for most) and maybe fish and dairy such as milk or eggs (for some).

If you can’t bring yourself to eat your food raw, you shouldn’t have the right to process it, you shouldn’t have the right to eat it. I think that whatever you have to kill and process first is NOT suitable for human consumption. And quite probably, this is the only healthy way of thinking. Fair enough, at least for those not wanting to be treated like somebody (something) else’s prospective meal. Eating meat is eating what you too consist of. It is a yes to cannibalism.

Having said this, I didn’t practice what I've just preached, not that very night. I’m still a man-eater and therefore.. a hypocrite. But I had to drink a lot of wine to be able to swallow the meat we finally roasted. And I didn’t pick the dessert hanging down from the nearby apple tree.. Instead, I knelt down (read: bowed) and looked for some unattached fruit in the evening dew. This deed isn't much, I know, but I have nothing else to say for myself for now.

"WHAT ARE YOU GONNA DO? BLEED ON ME?"

If I could pass my own law, only one little law to be ruthlessly executed, I would ban littering. Both with and without intent. One little law and one little.. execution for breaking it. I intended the pun you might be deciphering just now, I meant a real, bloody execution. A substantiated incident of littering would be punished with cutting off one of the culprit’s fingers. A spectator bloodsport with noble intentions, a warning. Let them choose which of the ten little perpetrators they want to sacrifice for their mindlessness. Aren’t I being merciful? It will heal in no time. A huge, mean pun intended this time.

Joking aside, think of the benefits. One careless homo not-exactly sapiens wouldn’t possibly commit the crime in question more than ten times.. Simple mathematics. Pure practicality.. bordering with obsession, all right then, but shouldn’t the greater good be the priority on this? Or the lesser evil at least?

AFTER THE RAIN

It stopped raining, but I haven’t managed to convince my old folks to organize this little barbecue party we had planned before it started. They had a voluminous list of not-to reasons, including the unwelcome but perfectly understandable presence of dew and mosquitos. This sounded putrid enough to make me stop and wonder. We all know how advanced age comes to an end but how (and when) does it begin? Where's the scratch which announces the most curious of all races: one whose rule is to slow down on your way rather than the opposite; one in which finishing before others makes you lose? Is conception the very off? Or is there a virus lurking, waiting for an unguarded moment just to filter in and install this oh-forget-it button now to be pressed with a frequency directly proportional to the passing of time?

Naturally, no one ever admits they’re growing old (read: giving up). It’s always their own well-being and freedom of choice, their adult right to pick and choose, or the sake of warmth and comfort. But it’s also a trap. It’s entering the place where the candystripe-legged spider waits to weave your personal, eternal cocoon. Each of us has their age of consent to this. Fortunately, it's ontogenetic.

And how does it apply to me? Well, there have been concerts I went to but finally missed due to the length of queues, there have been those countless mornings slept through and wasted. Still, at the very same time I would work my ass off four days a week just to afford a ten-hour couch journey to the capital on the fifth day of every other week. What for? Well, there was something missing in terms of my university education, or so I thought. Picture a year of frequent 5:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. violations of basic human rights, acts of incarceration of the bladder (only released twice on the way). The return ticket entitled me to a series of horrifying experiences, nocturnal rides back home with drivers notoriously speeding and jumping the lights. And now? I’m sitting in the company of those after-rain mosquitos, let alone other insects too close for comfort, on a day too cold for comfort. I’m wearing the wrong kind of clothes and my feet (one still healing) are recklessly diving in the evening dew. Does this mean I haven’t been infected with the old age virus yet? Hopefully. To be on the safe side, my look-out is womanned and armed. Anti-ageing cosmetics? No, just obstinacy.

GRAY MATTER

The weather is what it has to be like. Don’t blame your moodiness on it. Lack of sun and surfeit of it are equally desirable and productive. Plants need both and they are just as alive and entitled to vitality as you are.

And.. gray too is a colour. It has a wide spectrum of shades to marvel at for any eye that's keen. Or to be made clear if one only fancies. The photo featured was taken on the grayest, rainiest and windiest day of May. All I did was meddle with the contrast preset. Just a fraction. Just look.. Would you really want it any other way?

Oh, it’s clearing up. As if Mother Nature is smiling upon the words of her humble servant..

NATURALLY

I went to the river and it was there. You can count on nature. Always. It has this curious quality of influencing moods, so I went to see if it would do any good today. And yes, it has soothed me a little. And to think that this Canadian friend of mine cannot get his head around the fact Poles love forests so much.. Maybe it’s because his people grubbed out whatever they found in their way so as to make the other continent fit for human habitation.. No mercy = No sentiment = No wonder. Yep, that must be it.

EXTRACTED

Brick walls refuse to respond. On false pretences they assume their glazed looks. All deaf-mute. Just deflect.. bang.. bang.. bang.. It’s dauntingly, mischievously convenient to play one. Never bend or collapse. Just stand still. If only the corollaries were reversible.. If only the genies in walls could simply jump out when a whim takes them.. I’m not Spanish so I cannot draw a window just anywhere and flee. Nor can I use an extracted, portable one like this. There’s a brick wall on the other side, which will handle me likewise. Eye for an eye. Grim laws of dynamics.

TURKISH DELIGHT

Always winter and never Christmas! It echoes in my wind-swept ears after a walk in the woods. Yes, I have been to Narnia: deprived of its summery dryads and naiads, but teeming with tale-telling trees and other creatures at Her service. It has all been so real I wouldn’t take a look around in fear of spotting the lamppost and having to get back. I guess Gaiman (whom I am not particularly fond of usually) was kind of right in his preface to M is for Magic: one reads to store it all dormant in the back of the brain. And the moment it kicks in is always one of ultimate, almost perverse pleasure.

I took my camera with to capture the invaluable impression of actually being in a book. How inconsiderate, huh? How can a piece of (useful and exciting, but still) junk serve such a noble purpose? The only kind of feeling it can evoke is the objective correlative based on appearances. It objectifies in a Maloryan (feel free to spell check me on this one) kind of way, by imitating what’s natural and unromanticizing what should be left hopelessly romantic. In the case of photography, the exact opposite is the dragon chased by many a challenger. It's about making prose into poetry, snapshooting. Not the other, cruder way around.

NEEDLECRAFT

The world is a people’s republic. Probably the first time in history it’s the youth’s own republic, I daresay. I have my reasons after a piercing session with a bunch of seventeen-year-olds.

I've learnt a vital lesson today. Saving a life against a rainy day prolongs it, but the life is rained out anyhow, somehow, eventually. As long as the life is a lonely one, the rain check is bearable to the liver. But it ceases to be when on the way one meets a few inexperienced, careless creatures embodying what one has avoided (as a cause) in hope of becoming (as an effect). Troubled and hurt, but not exactly frail. STD prone and iberal, but not naive. Curious and artful. Pure form without a tear. Life dwells someplace in between excitement and fear, they have taught me. It dwells in arrhythmia, in a pulse uneven and troubled, but obliviously stubborn. Like the very pulse, it goes on. So one must learn the art of not thinking from their highness frontal lobelessness. Nothing else will do.

FACE VALIDITY

It’s so good to see it tanned, if artivirtually. All year round. In the picture, in the green eyes of occasional envy, in the boiling summery water. Reflected and reflexive. In and out of shape. Complexion and complexity.


Good to be back to front. Good to be back.

MIND MADE UP

There is that sketch on one of my favourite TV shows, featuring a Russian baby-sitter looking after an infant. The parents get back home and ask him questions about what was happening; one of the inquiries is: Did you change him? And the huge Russian guy with a curious accent is like: No, it's the same baby.

Well, this short intro was to draw your attention to an allegory between this here misunderstanding and the forthcoming one, related to the phrase change one's mind. Changing one's mind should be prohibited for the sake of the word pun introduced, if not for other salient reasons you may be coming up with at the very moment. Mind change? No, thanks. Mind swap? Give me a break. Or don't. I'd like my bones to remain intact. And the mind should stay the same.

As I have downplayed and mocked a phrase, I ought to propose a worthy replacement to maintain my alleged objectivity. Well, make up one's mind can successfully take place of its offending predecessor. It's always better to imagine and create than to give up and exchange your precious brainbaby maker for one of unknown or dubious quality.

And besides, if you make it up, it's not the same mind anymore. I don't.. mind now. How funny.

THE 5TH WHEEL

Everybody knows who a third wheel is: it is somebody nobody wants to be. What I would like to pick on here, however, regards the number used in this expression, not its meaning. How many vehicles do you know of that have only two wheels apart from a relatively small number of carts, motorbikes and bikes? To the best of my knowledge there are four on most cars and so the third wheel is actually crucial for them to pull out rather than redundant, which reminds me English doesn't actually make sense. On the contrary, the Polish language adds two more wheels to this phrase, increasing its reasonableness. The fifth wheel, because this is what people say where I am to emphasize and visualize the unwelcome element, makes more sense, as four is the target number of wheels on the majority of vehicles and the fifth one is useless indeed. However, both the third and the fifth wheel could actually make the journey safer by chaperonage, paradoxically enough. And, to conclude, the fifth wheel is sometimes called a spare. What a gas.

Correction, that's a gas: above, the real-life six-wheeled fifth wheel.

READING GOAL

It's all about peeping, reading blogs. By definition, they're diaries and since everybody wants to find a traditional one and find out a friend's secrets, this is, in my opinion, why people visit sites like this. Sorry to disappoint you, but you're not gonna find anything riveting here. This place is a tribute to process writing and nothing else. You're not gonna get to know more about me than you already (think you) know.

Admit it, you came here to a peep show. By invitation, but that's another story. I told seven people about this place and I'm not gonna tell more than twelve souls on the whole. Why is that? Well, I believe things created for larger public are nearly always vapid. If you need an instance, think of creationism. Plus, I'm extremely self-effacing (cowed is more like it). Still, one of the people magnanimously granted a perpetual open ticket to these peep shows said I simply needed an audience and that's why I began posting. Not really, actually. I was sick of artful homelessness. Frankly, artless homefulness is not any better. Yeah, well.

VORTEX CORTEX

It's common practice to look upon things superficially. It may sound like a paradox, but I daresay people actually get the hidden meanings to the detriment of the obvious ones. I prey on this. Vorticism is the name of the game. All you do is look at a word as if at a sculpture and see it in three dimensions. For me it's obligatory, I can't help it. I've always dabbled in mere looking at words and getting the meanings from sightseeing. There's always more to it, it appears. And, surprisingly enough, it is much in evidence all the time. Of course, it's not flawless and safe, this curious perception. It frequently causes dismay and perturbations. To name a few, until last month in the phrase "if looks could kill" I'd understand the word "looks" as "appearance". Think of consequences. The same was with my literal understanding of "second to none" (scarce or basic). Accordingy, doldrums was.. a toy percussion to me. But isn't it artful, anyhow? Words don't mean things. They are mean things.

Can't believe I'm giving you this clue. But what I aim at is the objective correlative, in a way at least.