25-03-2012 om 23:01 geschreven door Tederdraads  

You look like the Hawaïan beauty in some commercial for shampoo, who jumps under a waterfall like a tanned nimble dolphin with her black hair full of soap. Well, at least during a shower. You shower a lot. You use up the daily ration of warm water all by yourself. Some people seek the limit by going on a survival tour through the Australian desert. You get your adrenaline kicks in more mundane ways. You like ordering the most expensive dish on the menu, you like booking rooms in boat hotels only three streets from our block. The only thing you don't spend huge amounts on are clothes. You always wear the same outfit. I never met a woman with such a minimalistic wardrobe. When we travel your suitcase is smaller than mine. “Why are you hogging all those books?”, you ask me. “Leave some to the other library geeks. They don't do you any good. They don't make you any smarter.” Smarter in your world means: making more money. And no, you're right, if there was a link between reading books and making money I'd be a millionaire by now.

“Stop reading books. You need to merge more. With life people, not dead authors. Those books are only written to make the publishers rich and to make the writers look smart. Don't think you're smart because you read, because you're not.”

“It's my curse that I fall for opinionated women”, I say.

“Oh, don't do that, please don't do that. Your self-pity makes me gag.”

I'm not sure why I'm with you. It can't be just your beauty. On the train to work I see women at least as beautiful as you are. Objectively speaking.

Some of my friends wonder why I get to have pretty girls like you. But it's a fairly easy trick. It's easier to get you, than it would be to get a less physically attractive girl. I recognize the type. The woman alone on her throne. The nice guys don't impress you, and the bad guys are too threathening. Which leaves a loop-hole for me. The erractic mix. The passive-agressive kind. Your outward dominance and your inward insecurity, my outward insecurity and meekish ways and inward smugness and cruel lust. On the one hand I reassure you and the other hand I scare you just enough to excite you. There's attraction, sure, but there's no real connection, no harmony.

It ends when I get too arrogant outwardly and too insecure inwardly. A law of communicating vessels, of course.

Or it ends, when I stop returning your calls, submerge and dissapear. All in keeping with my passive-agressive nature.

“What happened to this latest one? Nina was it?”

“No, Pia.”

“Well, I knew she was named after one of Colombus' ships.”

“That was the Pinta.”

“When did you date a girl named Pinta?”

“I didn't.”

“So, anyway, what happened to this Pia?”

“She was a tiny bit too generous with her harsh comments.”

“Why do you always pick these cold-blooded chicks?”

“They're not cold-blooded in bed.”

“Still, you know what I mean.”

“I don't know. Secretly I hope some of their firmness and emotional stability rubs off on me.”

“Then pick a nice, solid one, someone you can lean on.”

“A: they're never hot. B: I'm not their type.”

I like the storm too much. And the restlessness in between the storms. And being out there, like a tree, naked in the field, and feel the storm gathering around me, how it slowly intensifies, until it's all upon me, and I'm there, flirting with disaster. It's hard to fuck the demons out of a woman when she has none to begin with.

11-03-2012 om 13:45 geschreven door Tederdraads  

Russian girls come with a couple of certainties. They will treat your money like they treat your sperm, they drain it all, daily, with a smile. The only area they economize in, is textile surface.

It's harder to keep a Russian girl away from her two-weekly manicure and pedicure and near daily shopping spree than it is to keep a rooster from cackling.

Oljga has green Scorpio eyes. When she looks you in the eye you never know whether she wants to slit your throat or hump you. When she drives her fluorescent pink nails in my back, I never know if she didn't dip them in some poison that's gonna make me vomit blood. Strange thought anyway, my she looks like this giggly radiant angel. Still, I don't trust angels. And I don't trust giggles.

Four days into this escalated flirt/ hormonal rollercoaster/ budding relationship (??) my hands smell like this salty-fishy blend of semen and pussy juice. It's in the air, it dips the bedroom, the hall and the bathroom in some ubiquitous lecherous haze. It puts us in a state of constant arousal.

We never talk. We joke and we fuck, but we never talk. She's either laughing or moaning. Or humming. She likes to hum. Very zen, very hot, very zen. I don't know why we are always laughing so hysterically. I can't recall a single joke. It must be the exhiliration of an absurd situation. We met on a plane. I don't know what started us talking. I think you wanted to trade your chicken for my salad. I don't usually trade food, but it's hard to refuse a girl in a tennis short with thies that meet olympic standards.

We went straight to this house. It's neither mine nor yours. It's the house of a friend of yours. A phd student in engineering. Sasja. A guy with the biggest pair of glasses I ever saw, judging from his pictures. There's no vodka in the fridge and I say: 'He is not a real Russian.'

'He is', you say, 'a true Russian doesn't store vodka, he drinks it. Besides, a real Russian drinks cognac, especially in his class.'

There are two bottles of expenisve looking cognac on the book shelf of his study. The taste of cognac blends with the aroma on my and her hands, her belly and the inside of her wet thies.

'Where is this going?', I ask on the fourth day.

'With that question you piss in our soup', Olga with a mjagkij znak says.

Olga with a soft sign: Ольга as opposed to Олга without a mjagki znak.

'If you manage to pronounce my name correctly for this one time, I will tell you where it's going'

This mjagki znak makes the L sound like a French L, she tells me.

'You know French?', I ask.

'Russian aristocracy is traditionally well-versed in the French tongue', she says sitting wide-legged on my chest.

'You're an aristocrat?'

She rubs herself off on my chest and says:

'With a jewel like this, how can I be anything but royalty?'

This isn't going to last. I feel it. Girls like these, they don't stick around with guys like me.

On the fifth day we have to leave. Big Glasses Sasja is about to return from his engineering conference in Dublin.

We promise to stay in touch. She kisses me on the cheek, not the mouth, when we part. A doernij znak. A bad sign, as they in Russian. A doernij znak from the girl with the mjagkij znak.

I send her a friend request on Facebook. She doesn't respond. Russians use a Russian variant of Facebook, an actual friend tells me. But I don't find her there.

Two weeks later I see her in the main shopping street of Gent. There this small, fat, round, bald, pink worm-like entity glued to her arm. I hear her giggles, before I see her. We pass. She looks me in the eyes, but says nothing. Two guys in black suits follow them. Holding 5 or 6 shopping bags in each hand. They dive into yet an other clothes-shop.

Gas and oil money, I take it.

My friend sees my face drop and says: 'Cheer up, dude, you had four days with her. And it didn't cost you anything.'

'I don't know if it's such a good thing', I say. 'I feel like a man who was born blind, got his eye-sight for four days,only to have it taken away again. Those four days were so short, it's like they never happened.'

My friend shoves me against a tree and walks on, saying: 'You know what I can't stand about you? No matter what kind of delicious soup life serves you, you always have to piss in it.'

I protest. The soup was great, I just want more of it. A little bit too much, is just enough for me. And 4 days is far, far too little.

My friend is adamant: 'Cherish the memory. Quit yanking. Move on. What else are you gonna do? Stalk her? Become a billionaire?'

I read somewhere that lavender suppresses sexual desire. For weeks I wash my hands in seas of lavender. I put lavender on my night-stand. I hang lavender on my neck. Lavender like garlic to fight off the lethal attraction to a modern day vampire, a giggling angel. Olga with the mjagkij znak.

My friend frowns: 'You're excessive about everything you do.'

I don't answer. The lavender works. It's better to be always blind, than to be always blind minus four days.

20-02-2012 om 14:15 geschreven door Tederdraads  

I read this in French.

It was once given to me by the aunt of a French speaking girlfriend.

I picked it, thinking, which 'classic' can I finish in under two hours?

I didn't keep track of time, so can't say if I managed to do exactly that.

I read it in French to rub off some of the guilt I feel for indulging in such an unproductive act as reading. If it were legal my family would have burned me at the stake on charges of heresy by now. Or stoned me to death. One rock for every book I ever read. I think that would do it.

As you can see, I'm not really saying anything about the book itself. That is because there is very little to be said about it.

It's about silk. But not really. It's about eggs. But not really. It's about getting the eggs. In Japan. And bringing them back to France.

But it's also not quite about that.

Do I even know what it is about?

Maybe, just maybe, it's about the power of our imagination in constructing experiences that never happen, but that are so enticting, they bewitch us and even make us travel for three months, just to catch a glimpse of the thing or person that could make the product of our imagination real.

The end made me slightly melancholic (even more than I normally am) and made me feel extra guilty (could it be I have enough guilt to start my own religion?- a quote borrowed from Toris Amos) about every time I took being loved for granted. The book isn't about that, it just made me feel that way. Maybe most of all because I didn't get any sun today and was alone most of the day.

It's a nice story. That could have done without the first half and would have made a nicer short story than a slender novel.

There's a letter at the end that probably was the main reason for bombarding this into such lists as '1001 books you should read before you die'

I have the list that was custom-made for the environment of Aalst, town marinated in alchohol and the historic haze of a textile industry, long since moved to Asia.

So being such a slender book, it had a much bigger chance to get on this Aalst edition of '1001 books you should read before you die'. The length of the selected volumes being stricly in keeping with the local life expectancy.

06-01-2012 om 21:29 geschreven door Tederdraads  

I'm not sure who gave whom the -lazy- idea, but this book smells like Murakami's 'What I think about when I think about running' (see somewhere else on this blog) 

Both books are written by famous writers. And both rave about their preferred sport and make some comparisons between that and their writing. In Irving's case it's wrestling, in Murakami's case it's long-distance running.

First of all, one of the more obvious remarks to make here:

If either one had sent this in as his debut novel, both would have been instantly rejected, without a thought. 

I don't recommend reading this. I only finished it, because it's mercifully short, and well, most any autobiographic appeals to a certain degree.

So what do we learn? The same thing as in Murakami's book:

writing isn't so much about talent, it's about self-discipline.

A friend of mine happened to quote Murakami in a late night email yesterday:

“I think certain types of processes don’t allow for any variation. If you have to be part of that process, all you can do is transform— or perhaps distort—yourself through that persistent repetition, and make that process a part of your own personality.

To keep on going, you have to keep up the rhythm. This is the important thing for long-term projects. Once you set the pace, the rest will follow. The problem is getting the flywheel to spin at a set speed—and to get to that point takes as much concentration and effort as you can manage.”

The friend adds: “To sum up: Motivation is what gets you started, habit is what keeps you going”

Or as Kerouac used to put it: 'If you want to write, write and keep it up like a guy hooked on benny' (benny not being a person, but the era's drug of choice) 

Irving states: “my life as a writer consists of 1/8 talent and 7/8 discipline”

The same was true about his wrestling career, he says.

My life as a writer consists of ¾ talent and ¼ desperate fear of death caused by my genes vomitting up a dark hole which suddenly inhales me (I'm not kidding)

How this could help anyone's writing? It can't. The only interesting thing Irving says about writing througout this book, is that writing can't be taught, and that you can only point out his or her weaknesses and strenghts to a budding writer. Which the budding writer would discover on his/her own, but then at least you save him/her some time.

Any reason why anyone should read this? It's more interesting to a wrestler, than to a writer. The genuine love of wrestling the book comes with and Irving's apparent joie de vivre can cheer you up. 1/8 of a Prozac pill pulverized into 148 pages.

I like the tone of Irving a lot better than Murakami's. If I had to choose between having dinner with one of them, I would most definitely go for Irving. He seems a lot more fun to hang around with.

If you want to read a famous author's book about writing, go for Stephen King's 'On writing', it's also autobiographic, it doesn't come with a sport and it does help budding writers save some time in developing their craft.

06-01-2012 om 21:01 geschreven door Tederdraads  

I liked this kloon of Bright Lights, Big City, by the same author.

These two quotes were worth the read:

1. “Beware the woman who doesn't like other women; she's probably generalizing from her own character.”

So true.

2. “If the concept of romantic love has any use, it is to denote that vast residue of inexplicable attraction which is not covered under the categories of blind lust and well-informed self-interest.”

Hit me like a glass hammer soaked in truth. Though this could also be the feeling I get from drinking three (??) liters of coffee a day. Which probably also explains my current reading speed.

What's the book about? If you read Bright Ligt, Big City, (I strongly recommend it) you know what it's about.

Setting: New York.

Guy works for a magazine. Doesn't like the work. Lots of self-loathing. Is in a relationship with a hot model. The hot model has more ambition than love. She goes on a business (no, career) trip. Doesn't come back. Is very stingy about shedding any light on her not coming back. Guy loses it. Goes on a half-year (?) drinking binge.

There's more cocaine in Bright Bright; Lights big city, which was more to my taste. Alchohol doesn't quite do it for me. In Bright Lights, Big City the main character wants to be a writer, and works as an editor. Here the main character is a fashion journalist, who wants to do, I don't know what exactly, something useful anyway, either that or be screenwriter. In the end he's a screen writer. He also has a best friend who IS a writer. The kind of writer that thinks he is the real thing. And maybe he is, because he writes short stories. I am a fan of brevity outside of the bedsheets and Nirvana songs not included.

I'm drifting. What is the book REALLY about?

About not cherishing what you have. About getting something just to make other people envious. About only wanting a toy because someone else shows interest in it. Other splashes on this literary canvas:

-how to behave when you want to be taken serious as a writer. The correct answer is: not to give a shit about how to behave to be taken seriously. The writer in the book does care. He tries to avoid the parties of the jetsetters and is afraid he will lose all credit with the credits when he's photographed with a famous model.

-when we lose something the value of the thing or person (in this book mainly symbolized by a dog and top model-turned-actress) suddenly rises sharply and then we sulk and get a little bit crazy in trying to get it back

-'casualties of privilege', most of the characters in the book underachieve because the necessities of life came far too easy to them and they got lazy. The one that lost pretty much everything as a child is the only one who kicks ass in the real world.

-the very fickle opinion of mainstream media towards famous people. They get their ego pumped up to the stretch limit, just to get ripped, and torn down, all for the bloodlusting crowd. Modern day gladiators. With the blood mainly spent in warm bath ubs gushing out of opened wrists. (no, no, I get carried away here: there are no suicides in this book, thank you for that Jay, the last thing we need is an other novel with a suicide in it)

Bright Lights, Big City and Model Behaviour both give hope. If you just got dumped read either one and skip your personal half-year drinking binge.

If you try to avoid angel dust, don't read Bright Lights, Big City, there's something about that book that makes you want to rush into the nearest toilet and do a line off the toilet seat.

If you're thinking about studying literature, read Model Behaviour, and opt for law school.

06-01-2012 om 18:47 geschreven door Tederdraads  

I like writing about books, not the minute I put them down, but months after I read them. Just to see if there's any, ANY bloody use to reading AT ALL.

I remember enjoying this book. Which doesn't happen very often. I read, mostly because I'm a masochist.

It's about a couple.

A young couple.

In the fifties.

The guy wants to have sex with her.

She wants to postpone this devilish act for as long as possible.

He thinks the only way to get to the carnal delights is to marry her.

They get married.

They don't fuck. (This is called a spoiler)

She says he can fuck anything in a skirt, and she won't say anything. They can live happily ever after, together, all the marital bliss, but without sexually consuming the marriage, which needn't be a problem to the woman, she tells the guy he can go and get it anywhere.

The guy for whatever destructive residue of too many bed-time fairy tales and culturally dictacted decorum, doesn't think twice about it and rejects the offer.

She runs off. They get a divorce.

They don't fuck.

The guy comes to the understanding later on, that it was an offer ahead of its time. A sixties offer of free love, handed out in the fifties. He comes to see she really must have loved him and never stops wondering about the might have beens.

All in all, the book struck me as an advocate for patience and tender care.

It's the quick decisions we make to get instant gratification or because we fret because we didn't get instant gratification.

It's short, the prose is fast-paced, the mood has everything of the oppressive fifties and makes you scream for air on every page, which makes you appreciate the agonies of free choice open to us all today, so much more.

Oh, they DO NOT GET TO FUCK.

Which believe it or not, makes it a damn good read.

Best read in the nearhood of a loving spouse. There might be a sharp rise in the want of instant gratification after turning the last page.

Do IT at least once, just to take revenge on an oppressive decade.

Then opt for the blissful choice of ignoring instant gratification, most of the time.

Because it's only any fun to do that, when instant gratification is in such luxurious abundance, and the choice is yours, and dictated by oppressive morals. 

05-01-2012 om 01:04 geschreven door Tederdraads  

08-10-2011 om 00:00 geschreven door Tederdraads  

What do they think, what do they want, what are they capable of? Written by Greet De Keyser and Miel Dekeyser

I picked this book mainly because Greet De Keyser was the Belgian on-the-spot-correspondent in the US for many years. She always came across as being passionate about her job.

Everything you always feared to be true about America, is in fact:

disturbingly true (at least according to this book)

So, to make this summary very terse: what do Americans want, according to this book:

*they want to drive their SUV's everywhere (though mostly within the US) without paying attention to how much gasoline their tanks-without-cannon soak up, no they don't care about the environment

*they seem to evaluate everything on its size. The bigger the better. A large farm is necessarily better than a small farm, in there eyes. They decide this without even considering that the small farm might actually be producing a bigger crop than the larger one.

*they want to pay the lowest possible price for their gasoline, sending off boys and girls to get blown up by an IED somewhere in the sand, is not concern to them in this respect

*they actually believe in the American dream, they are blind to the American nightmare, being poor in America is your own damn fault

*the state doesn't regulate social security, so most Americans are very much into charity and will try to contribute something to orphanages, shelters for the homeless, soup kitchens and so on. This has to compensate for the lack of a well-functioning social security system

*it's really hard to be well-informed in America. Much harder than in Europe, because American news focusses on American events and devotes very little attention to foreign news. Most Americans are really not aware about what's going on in the world.

*a lot of volunteers for the US Army, only volunteer because the army pays for their education. For many it's their only chance to get a decent education. They don't know the real risks involved.

*the military academy at West Points doesn't necessarily put out great officers, it mainly makes highly effective business executives, graduates are sought out by private companies as these men and women have an unwavering discipline and are very loyal, they value their subordinates more than they do themselves. West Points teaches them to lead by example.The book's message is, among other things, the US is a higly militarized society.
But apart from their officer corps, quality of the troops is low, due to low motivation and not being trained for the tasks they are burdened with

(e.g. policing the strees of Bagdad)

*it appears on the outside that the US is a very free nation. But in fact, especially the middle classes, are very unfree, shackled to a rigid social convention. They HAVE to attend church, they have to get their children to softball, they have to be involved in charity work, they have to work all they can, they have to get ahead in life or suffer social penalties. 

*they've kept the pioneer spirit alive and want to have a gun near at hand

*they are very patriotic, are not prone to criticize their government, not even when they are willing to admit they have a weak president (“something good might still come out of it”)

*they look down and look up to Europe at the same time. Europe is a medieval backwoods in their minds, whereas at the same time it's also the place of art, fashion and 'grand' style

*when they say they don't invade countries to steal their oil and overflow them with American products, but say they do it with the best intentions and to spread democracy and higher values, they actually believe it (scariest part in the book)

*they are very prude when it comes to sex, lots of 'forbiddenness' which ironically leads to a sex-crazed youth. Nipplegate is an emblematic affair of the American attitude towards sex. Highly hypocritical.

*America does not have the ambition, nor the willpower, nor even the capability of actually conquering the world, their strategy when it comes to messing with countries is:

1. engagement

2. exhaustion

3. exit

*president Bush knew something like 9/11 was coming or at the very least CHOSE not to know

In short, interesing piece of journalism, more nuanced than this brief summary, but still clear that America might be the most powerful country in the world right now, but certainly not the smartest. 

The author did confuse the American revolution with the American civil war, in such an unforgiveable manner as to give rise to the fear they got other historic facts horriblly wrong. 

Not a bad book, on the whole, but not a good one either. And as will always be the case with literature on a fast developping nation: 7 years after publication it's no longer up to date, so it's certainly not the best book to get some useful insight in the spirit of the US.

18-09-2011 om 00:00 geschreven door Tederdraads  

12-09-2011 om 00:00 geschreven door Tederdraads  

It's not a waterproof approach, but the prospects of remembering the woman's name are much brighter once you've been inside her.

And Margot is a beautiful name to remember.

The things you said about yourself were painful to hear.

You would sigh and say: 'Life is fair for no one, but it's the least fair for ugly women'

I hate the word 'ugly' and never use it, never even think it.

It's my feeble attempt at not being superficial.

Margot, you had an obession about your abs. 'It's the one thing I have going for me', you said.

I couldn't agree. I don't care about abs. Abs don't do 'it' for me.

I care about long hair, big eyes and thies.

And, not as much as I should, but still, I care a great deal about personality.

You had a lot of that going for you, if you hadn't cut yourself down with every other sentence that sprang from your pitifully pale and thin lips.

But you were fun. You were such fun to hang out with. And you were a babe magnet. A real babe magnet.

We'd go places and you'd be chatting with a ton of good-looking girls in an instant. Maybe you didn't pose a threat to them, but no, that can't be it, you were simply that much fun, let's leave at that.

And ok, at first I went out with you, primarily for that magnet quality, but seriously, there were soon so many times the best part out of a night out was when we were slumped back in sacks used as chairs and talking about anything. You had a sharp, quick-witted mind and you were amazingly well-read.

'Girls like me don't get asked out between the age of 14 and 20. So I had plenty of time to do a hell of a lot of reading.'

'What happened after 20?'

'I realized the stunning imbecility of waiting around for guys to ask you out to start a social life. I only had two dates in high school. One was with a guy who wanted to figure out if he was gay. He thought he was after our date, but no. He hooked up with the girl next door a week later.'

'And the second?'

'The second really was gay.'

I don't really know why I waited till then, but I kissed you. Right smack on those near invisible lips, which seemed to have developed attractiveness out of, well, thin air.

'Is this going to be a pity fuck?', you asked.

Talk of kill the mood...

'No,' I said, 'I really think you're hot.'

And you really were hot. Not in a beauty magazine kind of way. But who in a right mind cares about those?

I saw it. Right that instant I took in your beauty. And the old rock and roll of attraction found its devious rhythm.

And we could have been great together. We really couldn't have been something.

If it hadn't been for streets.

There are a lot of streets in this world.

And couples walk those streets and get stared at.

And I saw your beauty. But the others wouldn't.

Evil others.

Evil me.

I never deserved a slap more than the one you gave me when you walked out on me.

And the truth is that I miss your unique look. It's not that you were unattractive, it's just that you were totally different.

A bit like a sinewy Viking woman with droopy eyes and an albino complexion.

Magically attractive at fifth or sixth glance.

If only there hadn't been streets.

Ok, you're welcome to give me an other slap now.

09-09-2011 om 00:57 geschreven door Tederdraads  

09-09-2011 om 00:00 geschreven door Tederdraads  

08-09-2011 om 00:00 geschreven door Tederdraads  

29-08-2011 om 17:08 geschreven door Tederdraads  

28-08-2011 om 10:24 geschreven door Tederdraads  

1 a flemish dude who divorces his wife to start a relationship with a hot looking lady boy

2 american bodybags in Afghanistan and Iraq (nuke 'em or pull out)

3 stock market crashes, especially if the people interviewed look scared

4 riots in London or any other European City

5 Palestinian rockets that hit something else than desert sand

6 Navo proving to be cowards

7 anything that threatens society as we know it

27-08-2011 om 13:23 geschreven door Tederdraads  

27-08-2011 om 13:16 geschreven door Tederdraads  

27-08-2011 om 13:04 geschreven door Tederdraads  

27-08-2011 om 01:17 geschreven door Tederdraads  

27-08-2011 om 01:15 geschreven door Tederdraads