Blog Migration

I don't have much time to spend on this blog, and it's a bit silly trying to update two blogs, so I'll be concentrating on my other blog for a while: http://www.apostmodernbard.blogspot.com/
See you there!

The meaning of life and stuff

So, what is the meaning of life ?

The question keeps popping into my head these days. It always has, I guess, but it’s been bothering me even more, lately. Frankly it's quite annoying. I mean I’d rather be left alone, left to enjoy eating Fry’s chocolate Turkish delight or drinking tea or beer or listening to the Velvet Underground or whatever, you know ? But no. Hm-hm. The Question won’t leave me five minutes’ peace. Not one single day of respite.

What makes things even more frustrating is that as a christian you’re supposed to have all of your shtuff together, you're supposed to have things more or less worked out, or at least that’s what the more sanctified (sanctimonious?) believers expect of you. You’re supposed to accept that you’re here for a fixed purpose (whatever that purpose might be) and that’s that. But it’s not as simple as that. Nothing ever is. (Except perhaps biting into a chocolate bar.) Because meaning doesn’t only come down to purpose. There’s also the question of identity. Even if you have a purpose in life, you can still wonder who you are, how, and why.

Sometimes I envy the freethinkers. No really. I really do. At least for them, the meaning of life is that there is no meaning – or at the very least, that meaning must be figured out or created out of scratch by oneself. I like that idea, probably because I’m a proud git and don’t like to have meaning shoved down my throat. I also envy the more naïve people (or maybe they’re just people of greater faith?), precisely because of the fact that they can swallow meaning (or truth, or purpose, or whatever you want to call it) as if it was maple syrup. I wish I could. At least I’d have some kind of solid framework. Still, I cross my fingers and hope that if I don’t know who/what/why I am, hopefully a Higher Power does.

Maybe the HG2G super-computer was right. Maybe the answer to life, the universe and everything really is 42.


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The Go-Getter

I'd never heard of the Go-Getter until I checked out Zooey Deschanel's filmography ; it's an indie road movie which was released in the beginning of 2007 and only ran for three days, grossing less than $12,000. Most of the cast (which is quite small), I'd never heard of before. Apart from Zooey Deschanel, the only recognisable face was Jena Malone (Donnie Darko, Into the Wild).
I loved the movie. I mentioned this in one of my last posts, but I'm a sucker for those kind of "indie" films. All the ingredients were there : an introspective anti-hero, a couple quirky characters, understated acting, the classic road movie "drive-by" scenes, and of course the trademark indie folk music (M. Ward, Animal Collective, Elliot Smith, the Black Keys).
Unoriginal, probably. Clichéd, no doubt. But it does the trick.


It's funny how different people respond so differently to works of art, be it painting, movies, music or literature. I don't think it's only to do with upbringing or education or peer influence. I can't help thinking that it has a huge deal to do with personality. I know it has its limits, but I think personality psychology could provide some answers, or at least some clues. (I've been interested in the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and the "Enneagram" theories lately.) For example, I wonder if certain types prefer to watch (or to work on) certain films. Maybe SP types ("Artisans") prefer quicker-paced, action and sometimes violence-orientated) movies ; and NFs ("Idealists") maybe opt for slower, more introspective films.

Stories

Stories. That's one thing I couldn't do without. Like music, wine and chocolate.
In fact, it's probably something noone can do without. Stories are everywhere. In the films we see at the cinema, in the soaps we watch on the telly. The best songs are stories put to music—or music put to a story. Paintings often bring stories to life. Why is Mona Lisa smiling ? What happened to Van Gogh's ear ? What was Piet Mondrian trying to put in order, with his rigid perpendicular lines and sober squares ?

Advertisers are aware of our interest in stories. Brands like to pretend that they are several decades or even several centuries old, and often on the packages of their products you can read their "story". One of the most important trends in clothing and decorating is the "vintage look": clothes and objects have to tell a story or at least have a history.

Oral storytelling is probably as old as humanity itself, and every culture's mythologies are based on stories—more so than theology. History is boring when it's presented as a list of dates, intriguing when it tells the story of the people that lived ten, a hundred, a thousand years ago. Philosophy, religion and science become dogmatic when they concentrate on the particulars and forget the story.

Heck, we all like to have some amount of drama going in our own, real lives ; we all want to have a story to tell.

It was my grandfather who first introduced me to the world of stories. I remember him sitting in his old dark green armchair, resting his hands on his generous belly. I would sit facing him, on the sofa, my toes barely touching the floor, looking out of the window at the semi-detached red brick houses which surrounded the street. The only way you could tell them apart was by looking at the drain pipes, which hugged the walls like ivy: they were all painted in different colours. Brown, blue, green, yellow, white, red. Granny would come in to the living room, bringing me a cup of fresh milk and a plate with a buttered scone or a jam bun. Grampa would only get a cup of tea. He would give Granny a sad puppy dog look, but she would never yield. He, however, would always get a bar of chocolate or a biscuit from somewhere—he must have had a hidden stash. He would give me one, take a bite of his an say: "Well-now." Then his story would begin. About musketeers, with their swords, capes, and moustaches. About pirates, with their eye-patches, parrots, and panache. He would tell me about James Bond—his gadgets, his girls, his martini—when I was still too young to be allowed to watch the films. Sometimes he would tell me one of his own stories: as a boy scout he had slept in a haunted castle and heard the banshee scream ; he had come across the terrible pooka-horse when cycling down the small Irish country roads as a young man, and it had made him ride into a dung hill in a field ; he had seen a faerie in the isle of Man and had caught a glimpse of a leprechaun in his own garden.
Grampa's stories sent be back in forth in time, they took me all over the world. They taught me how to daydream, how to fantasise, how to develop a rich inner life. They set my head firmly in the clouds. I've never come down since.

Furry Happy Monsters

Matreesmo

The picture isn't very clear, but hey.

Procrastination

This short video more or less summarizes my day-to-day life during these past few months.

Well I better go and get my stuff done.




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Fey Pride

This post may be a good deal more personal than usual, but it’s something that has been on my mind for quite some time now. So here goes.

This is the 21st century.
But if a guy doesn’t follow certain cultural conventions, supposed to be traditional masculine norms, he is depicted or perceived as being gay. (This is actually another stereotype. As if all gays were effeminate… But that’s another story, for another time.)
For example : traditionally, masculinity is associated with : being into sports (especially team sports), preferring beer or strong liquor to wine and cocktails, being aloof and reticent or reluctant to express one’s emotions, appreciating depictions of violence in literature, cinema, etc, being reluctant to commit or to start a family, being homosocial rather than heterosocial (ie preferring the company of men to the company of women, in a non-sexual way), being less sensitive, talkative, romantic and moody than women, caring less about one’s own outward appearance (though admittedly that is due to the fact that there is far more pressure on women to conform to certain norms of physical attractiveness ; however that is changing, as it has been reported that more and more men are starting to feel the pressure too.), being attracted to certain colours, not caring about interior design, not being interested in cooking or gastronomy, liking meat etc… This is just the tip of the iceberg. There are many, many such conventions. They may vary slightly from one country to another, but most of them are firmly engrained in Western culture.

But they just don’t reflect reality.

I know heterosexual women who love beer, team sports, gory horror films, who are reticent, heterosocial and decidedly unromantic. But they’re still heterosexual and they’re still women.
I myself don’t eat meat, I can't stand graphically violent or gory films and am nonplussed by action films, I actually like some “chick flicks” (of the “intelligent” kind), I’m not into team sports (mostly because I hate competition ; playing for “funsies” is okay), I like the colours pink and purple, I hate confrontation, I’m over-sensitive (nooot a good thing), I think cooking is fun, I’m a bit mushy (in a tasteful manner, I like to think. Inasmuch as mushy can be tasteful), I think most beer is overrated (I did say most), I like things fey, I’d like to have kids someday… okay I’m not going to type out all my likes and dislikes and characteristics, and I’m not submitting them to anyone’s moral judgement. I’m just trying to prove a point here. These attributes are rarely considered ‘masculine’ in mainstream Western culture, yet last time I checked I was still a man, and to quote Stuart Murdoch “I’m straight to the point of boring myself” – “even when I feel like a girl”. And by the way, my mannerisms aren’t considered to be effeminate, as far as I know.

I don’t want to be seen as overreacting or as whining – it’s just that such stereotyping can be annoying on the long term. I have more or less come to terms with this ‘altermasculinity’ now, but it took time. Interestingly it’s usually not something that women have a problem with. Women have other battles to fight, they are probably aware of the dangers of stereotyping as they themselves are constantly subjected to stereotyping in this patriarchal society. And not all men are guilty of this reactionary behaviour. (I’ve had mates who felt more or less the same way as I did.) But many are. Religious people, and in my experience conservative Christians, are among the worst, and often tend to misapply misinterpreted verses from Scripture .

I have in the past tried to conform to more traditional, conventional masculine gender roles, but on most occasions it was an absolute disaster. (I actually enrolled in a football club and practised every week for a year in 1998, because I thought that was the thing boys were meant to do. I was so bad at it that I wasn’t even allowed to play one single game for the team. I’ve tried to watch gory movies but was either bored to death or just disgusted. And I’m not even going to talk about my short and disastrous experience with the boy scouts…)

It’s an issue which has sometimes been addressed in ‘out-of-the-mainstream’ literature, music and cinema, but very little in popular culture. There are, however, signs that things are slowly changing. A character like “JD” (Zach Braff) in the TV show Scrubs, while not always being depicted in an altogether positive light, allows the idea that a man can flout certain perceived masculine norms without necessarily being gay. This is also the case, but to a lesser extent, with character Ted Mosby (Josh Radnor) in sitcom How I Met your Mother. It’s nice to see main characters like that on mainstream, widely popular, prime-time TV shows. It wouldn’t surprise me if there were many men out there who feel forced to conform to norms of conventional masculinity.

Now I’m not suggesting that all conventional masculine norms be traded for feminine ones or unconventional ones. Everyone is different. It’s just that people should cut us some slack and let us be who we are.

End of rant.

I heart France

I just noticed that whenever I blog about France or the French, the post usually takes the form of an ugly rant. That's probably because I only post about France when something about the country has just cheesed me off (pun intented). My apologies. I actually really love living here. Since I don't want to give the wrong impression, here's a list of some of the things I love about this country and its people (no order of preference):

• France has many beautiful and very diverse landscapes
• France has a fascinating history
  
• the French are rarely superficial
• the French are less materialistic than people in anglo-saxon countries (no matter what people say)
  
• France is a republic. We have no useless monarch. (But plenty of useless politicians).
• the French language is beautiful (when spoken properly)
• France hasn't fallen for the extreme political correctness of some anglo-saxon countries (though sadly that's changing)
• France has had some great poets, writers and artists
  
• the French are always ready to question the authorities and stand up for their rights
• the wine (no further comment needed!)
• the food, especially the many different salads and cheeses
  
• the weather (in general)
• the urban French usually have a good dress sense
• the French have a cute accent when they speak English
• in France it isn't embarassing or socially abnormal for a man to cook or be interested in gastronomy
  
• ordinary French people are interested in politics
• it's a secular state ; no link between church and state
• many French people are pacifists and are anti-war
• the French kiss to greet one another (how better can it get?)
• the French use their hands when they speak
• in France, you can put your hands on the table when you eat
• French markets aren't only full of hip bourgeois people
• the French dig the Irish
• José Bové (I don't know whether it's his moustache or his alter-globalism which I like best)
• the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen
• the French are almost as cynical as I am
• the French are into home-made cooking rather than ready-made meals
• in cases of emergencies, men can pee in women's loos, without being shot down (mentally) by the muttawa
• junk food is considered uncool
• on a religious note (sorry peeps, I had to get this one out), French Christians generally don't give in to the Christian Right-type nonsense about politics and end-times theology that you often find in the US and in Norn Iron
  

(Dedicated to Camille)

Horse before the week ends

I've just received the strangest phone call ever.






Phone rings.
"Allô?"
"This is (so-and-so), do you need horse before the end of the week?"
"Huh... Sorry? And you are...?"
"This is (so-and-so). Do you need horse before the end of the week?"
"Horse?"
"Yes, don't you need any?"
"I... think you've got the wrong number."
"Is this not (some phone number)?"
"Nope."
"Oh, sorry sir. Bye!"

Hope she finds the right number or some unlucky person will not be getting horse before the end of the week. Whatever that means.

The Sound of Place

Découvrez Neil Young!

You've probably noticed how smells and odours can bring back memories of people, places and events that were sometimes long forgotten. For example, the smell of certain types of manure always reminds me of Ireland, because that was always the first thing I smelt coming out from the aeroplane once it had landed in Belfast International airport. Or the smell of rice boiling in milk brings me back to when my late grandmother would serve me steaming hot rice pudding in a tiny bowl with a blue flower pattern when I was a child.

Well, lately, listening to music has had more or less the same effect on me. It didn't bring memories back to me, but it made images of places pop up in my mind. For example, listening to Nick Drake's third and last album, Pink Moon, brought to my mind the picture of hilly woodlands under a dark starry sky, with the slender trees bending in the wind, and the top of a church steeple somewhere in the distance behind one of the taller hills. Joni Mitchell's Ladies of the Canyon painted a Provençal landscape in my mind's eye, with its blue mountains, proud poplars, lavender fields circling a quiet little market town waking up to the soft morning sunlight. My favourite Neil Young album, On the Beach, reminds me not of the coast or the sand, but of the open sea ; the ocean, dark but not agitated, failing to reflect the pallid sun ; the impression of loneliness, sadness, but not despair. It's probably no wonder, because the album itself is rather melancholic and bleak.
You might be wondering what I've smoked. But that's what music does. It sings to parts of us which are beyond our intellectual reach, beyond our conscience.

Evil Cymbal-banging Monkey

The other day I was speaking to a friend about things that used to freak us out as kids... you know, things like monsters under the bed, great aunt Martha or Father Christmas.
My childhood trauma - and one I shared with my brother - was linked to the evil cymbal-banging monkey toy. Yes. The evil monkey toy. Fear its wrath!

On my brother's 8th or 9th birthday - I can't quite remember - my Dad gave him a video cassette of a film, Merlin’s Shop of Mystical Wonders. It sounded like an innocent, child-friendly fantasy story. My brother watched it, alone. And was freaked out. He asked me to see it again with him - you know how fun it is to freak yourself out - so I watched it with him. It turned out to be more of a horror film than a kiddie's movie. The first part of the film (which is set in contemporay America) is the story of a sceptical journalist who borrows a book of spells from Merlin and ends up iniating himself in magic - only to find himself confronted with a zombie cat, his wife's blood, and a demon apparition.
The second part deals with a cymbal-banging monkey toy which is stolen from Merlin's shop, and ends up as a present for a young boy. Trouble is, the toy is haunted by an evil spirit, which tries to destroy the boy and his family. When left alone, its eyes light up red. Each time it bangs its cymbals, something dies. It sets the house on fire, withers all the plants in the home, kills the family dog, and almost causes the kid to die in a road accident. When the boy's father manages to bury it in a field far from home, it somehow manages to find its way back with the family. In the end Merlin comes to take it back, so there's a happy ending. But still... freaky film.
I was probably about 14 when I saw the film, so it didn't give me any nightmares... but it was pretty uncanny. Now the evil cymbal-banging monkey toy is a kind of inside joke between my brother and me. Someday I'd like to find the film and watch it again - for old time's sake. I wonder if any other unsuspecting kid was freaked out by Merlin’s Shop of Mystical Wonders!

It's funny, though, how memories like that stick with you all your life - especially the unpleasant ones. It seems that we let our lives become much more affected by the negative things that happen to us than by the positive things. Maybe someday I'll learn to be less cynical and pessimistic, and begin reflecting on all the wonderful things that have happened to me, and - as they say in France - "see the world in pink".