Picture taken by Ines in London. Thank you for thinking!
Yes, let’s do!
February 4th, 2010Please, just let me be (a Woman)
February 3rd, 2010Oh, I am so tired of making excuses!
When I’m thin, I “must take care that I don’t become anorexic”. When I start gaining weight, I’m warned that my “dad’s family tends to be overweight” so I should be careful.
I worked as a manager in telecommunications business and my boyfriend was angry because I was “too concentrated on your career”.
I go to university in my trainers and I’m warned that I should take care “not to become one of those intellectuals who don’t wear make up and only own black clothes.”
Then I hear Alice Schwarzer say “you cannot fight for women’s rights and look girly”. So when I put my beloved dress on I’m scared I look “too much like a doll”.
When I read The Economist and Die Zeit and Spiegel, they say I’m boring. But then I have to feel guilty when once in a while I fetch Gala or Elle.
I have to think about how many men I had sex with. If that number is OK or not. Who cares?
I date a young man and they say “but he’s too young”. When he is muscular, he’s “primitive”. A business man has “not so much in common”. When he is an artist, then he “cannot give me any security”. And then the same people ask me why I’m alone!
When I wear make up, they wonder what I’m hiding. When I war none, they wonder why I don’t take care of myself.
When I show my intelligence I hear that “men don’t like clever women”. When I enjoy shopping with girls they say I “behave like a bimbo”.
When I feel great I hear “you scare men off”. When I feel shit it’s “but men like happy women”.
When I say I practice tai-chi sword, they say “oh you’re the kind of a woman that could kill a man.” When I say I also dance ballet, they ask me if I can do the split. Oh, please!
When I say I want to find the right man and marry him and have kids, they blame me for “clichés”. Because I didn’t yet find the right man and marry and have kids, they wonder “what’s wrong” with me.
When I say I don’t like going to clubs anymore, they say “oh, you got old”. When I had my fringe cut, I was blamed to “look too young”.
They say my breasts are too small, and then they bitch against plastic surgery. They show me porn with all those balloons and wonder why I feel bad because I have none.
When I offer to pay, I feel like a feminist. When I don’t, I feel like a whore.
I was asked in awe “why the hell do you want to do a PhD”? Why not – my both grandfathers had one?
I only see pictures of women with perfect bodies and then they say “but we like women who feel comfortable in their skin.”
When I get excited about politics, they look at me in surprise. Just as they do when I discuss Barangelina’s upcoming divorce.
And now, I have to feel bad about having written all of this. Someone might get something wrong. I’m so sorry.
Stop Online=Free!
January 21st, 2010I am very happy to announce that New York Times has decided to start partially charging its Website starting with early 2011.
“Starting in January 2011, a visitor to NYTimes.com will be allowed to view a certain number of articles free each month; to read more, the reader must pay a flat fee for unlimited access.”
This idea that web has introduced, that someone’s products are for free just because they are online urgently has to change. The terrible thing is that most of those content is intellectual property, mostly valuable for our society: music, books, articles, news and films (oh, yeah pron, sorry, almost forgot that!). You would never expect to get a pair of shoes for free, would you? So why should it be normal that someone’s intellectual or creative creations are for free (just because they are digital)?
No, I like the idea of starting to pay for content. We definitely must le-learn to value intellectual property.
Girls to Women
January 20th, 2010Three of us eating lunch. Just as we did all those years. Ten or so.
I look at them, I look at the ladies around them and I realise “Hey, they are not girls anymore. We are not girls anymore. We are women.” Our faces are marked. So are our souls.
We used to speak about our latest sex escapades. Now, we speak about the kids, the married lovers and how it feels to get fired.
We used to drink Champagne. When did we switch to lemonade and coffee?
We used to say “Girls, let’s go shopping, I need a new dress for the party on Saturday”. Now we say: “Let’s go shopping, I need a new anti-wrinkle/anti-puffiness cream.”
We used to be loud and laugh and burst with energy. You don’t hear us now. Unless we want you to.
We used to fish condoms or reserve pairs of strings out of our bags and laugh about it loudly. Now it’s a dummy and we smile about it silently.
We used to wear those crazy high-heels. Stylish clothes. Our nails were perfectly done in beautiful colours, always shiny. Now we wear our nails short (but still shiny), our clothes are comfortable, our shoes practical.
But then….
Now, we sit here at peace, like three Buddhas. We are not nervous, hungry, unsatisfied, hysterical, insecure anymore. We are not scared. We know our worth. We’ve learned our lessons. We are fine. And we are aware of it.
Coma in a coma
January 14th, 2010We have an overdose of catastrophes. I wonder how much we really need of the global media. Just few days ago, I was sitting in Tirol finally enjoying some peace when I turned on CNN and saw a volcano eruption in Philippines. And I thought “How horrible, but sorry, I just don’t want to know”. I can’t process all of that. The world has always been full of wars and natural catastrophes but people were only aware of the ones that struck them. Now we have to digest every singe ounce of pain happening on any single spot of this planet. Whenever you turn your TV on or open newspapers, some disaster will jump on you. It is too much. We just cannot absorb that amount of tragedies. As Nietzsche, said “if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.”
The possible results are: either we get immune, or we get swollen by the abyss. None is good.
Holidays in a coma (stole this from Beigbeder)
January 13th, 2010God, this is just as horrible as the Tsunami was five years ago.
Why do catastrophes like this always hit the poorest regions of the world? On the other hand, I guess that this is part of the reason why they are poor.
And the most horrible is – my friends have left to Carribean today in the morning. For holidays. To spend their money on five star hotels (are there any left?) and basking in the sun. That constant clash of rich and poor, catastrophe and extravaganza, emergency and abundance. Out world is far from healthy….
My sympathy goes to people of Haiti.
Altruism for sale
January 11th, 2010Have you noticed the new trend: “altruism for sale”? Yes, we are now we are selling out altruism to the corporations! Helping others, making a difference, the most crucial aspect in our feeling of fulfilment is being sold out. Altruism, so precious for our well being, has lately been suffering a crisis just as big, if not bigger, than our economy. We lose altruism, here comes 1984!
Buy a certain Gucci bag and 25% of the retail price will go to UNICEF (for the trick, check out the small letters: only if you buy it between 16 November and 31 December). Kate Spade’s new collection is featuring those cute mittens and hats, all hand-made by women in Bosina. Those women get $7 pro piece, which is, according to Spade, double of what they normal wages. Oh how nice! The small letters say: It is a day’s work to knit such a hat. Its retail price is $85. Is it great help, is it fair, should we really be proud to make people earn $7 a day, only 500km from here? How about teaching them to fish instead of giving them a (small) fish? Roberto Coin, jewellery designer is helping CARE. A percentage of every package of Pampers goes to some charity (sorry, no details, am not into diapers). If you subscribe to The Economist, they will plant a tree for you. And you can even watch your tree online….
The trick is new: they are trying to make us feel better about spending money on unnecessary, overpriced stuff and keep the vicious circle of consumerism alive by promising that our action will benefit someone. Instant clearance of consciousness. Instant great feeling. Of course, the ones that benefit the most are the corporations. Rich getting richer. The effect is sad: we are deep into learning to hand over our responsibilities, decisions, even feelings, to the corporations. We only need to consume and everything else will be taken care of. This distances us even further from the actual problem. We don’t need to understand what is going on, and why. We don’t have to consciously decide to help someone, we don’t have to chose whom and why. Gucci/Economist/Spade will take care of that. And nothing changes. Gucci keeps on making millions, we keep on slaving to afford a Gucci bag and women in Bosnia keep on living in poverty. But hey, now we feel good about it! Thank you Gucci/Economist/Spade/Pampers.
Horny, monogamous, glowing Hulks
January 8th, 2010Great! I’m reading in The Economist that scientists have identified both the hormone for monogamy and the protein molecule that acts as a receptor. It is called vasopressin. They have already turned a certain “promiscuous” mice type into monogamous mice. And out of some reason (I’ve lost the thread here), the article continues explaining how scientists also managed to create mice which glow in the dark. So hey, we’re ready to go. But the article ends with “It may be some time before such interventions are available for human males, but women can always live in hope.” Which asshole wrote that article? Like all men are promiscuous and all women are not…
Anyway, I was trying to imagine they really invented a pill for monogamy. Would anyone want to take that pill on their free will? And if not, would we end up with WOmen (this is not a typo) secretly feeding their men the pill….Then I came to the cocktail of pills they could also give their men to improve them a bit, if they have already invented the secret pill-feeding technique. A pill for monogamy, a pill for weight-loss, a pill for building muscles (do anabolica exist only as injections or also as pills?), a pill against hair loss, a little blue-pill called Viagra for… well, you know for what. We would end up with a world full of mad Hulks running after their exhausted wives with big hard-ons, glowing in the dark. How about a new game: “Recognise your Hulk by his… hmmm…glow!”?
Nay, let’s rather like our men the way they are. Like Austrian author David Schalko said, you can always forgive infidelity, as long as you don’t know about it.
Cardiac Arrest
December 21st, 2009Yes, I was shocked as I read that Brittany Murphy died at the age of 32. Yet another young celebrity died of “cardiac arrest”. I don’t like young American celebrities dying of “cardiac arrest”. Have you ever heard that a young European star died of “cardiac arrest”? OK, I admit, I don’t read so much gossip press (although I do read it a bit), so maybe I am not that well informed. But all those “cardiac arrests” make me wonder.
When young stars of the older generation died, it was of an overdose. Drugs overdose. The bad stuff. Heroin & co. Now, they are dying of “cardiac arrest”. I would say they are dying of the “good” stuff. While the “bad stuff” had a certain attitude, lifestyle, and yes, romantic or rebellious touch to it, the “good stuff” has no special aura. It is normal. It is for everyone. After decades of the psychotherapy ruling, now the pharmaceutical industry has become, especially in the states, a new religion. New God. Only God can do magic and have a quick solution for everything. Depression, anxiety attacks, exhaustion, loss of appetite, too much appetite, loss of libido, hyperactivity, LIFE…: all stuff that you used to deal with on a different level, by getting to know yourself and your life better, and changing things that don’t work well – now you just close your eyes and swallow a pill. It is a new form of a prayer. Or, if you like it more bluntly – simply legalized drugs helping the pharmaceutical lobby earn a fortune. Someone has to.
I have an American friend who takes antidepressants, sleeping pills, muscle relaxants, appetite enhancers. I think the list of Austrian army’s weapons sounds less deadly. You just need to accidentally take a wrong pill or one too many and – oops, here comes the “cardiac arrest”. I don’t know. I just know I started liking my doctor more and more. Last time I had a bad case of sinusitis, I had to beg for antibiotics. On my knees. I didn’t get them. And the sinusitis went away. No “cardiac arrest” for me, thank you.
Let’s play “Direct Democracy”
February 8th, 2010Today, Vienna is starting a game called “Direct Democracy”. It is a very cute game. Really! It is designed and promoted for 6-10 year olds. The only confusing thing is that to play, you have to be at least 18 (or did it drop to 16?). The game has been advertised for past weeks in various media including newspapers and TV, with those lovely people smiling in the camera and saying stuff like “We should all have a bicycle”. Yes, and a lollipop! The intention of the game is very nice: It’s an “instant feel good game”. It should give you a feeling that you have the power to determine the circumstances you live in.
Like in Huxley’s Brave New World, where kids get lessons played directly into their ears while they are sleeping, so we in Vienna listen for past weeks about “direct democracy”. Few weeks ago, we all (that includes Austrian citizens with permanent residence in Vienna) received a bunch of pre-printed envelopes, letters and a ballot. I love my ballot! I am actually considering framing it with a scripture “Direct Democracy” and hanging in on my wall. It has a touch of Warhol with its pastel pink and baby blue and vanilla yellow and those big round JA and NEIN buttons all around it. It looks like something that would come with your new Barbie doll. And then you read the text. And you really feel like 6. The questions are completely suggestive: “Vienna always wanted to be a metropolis and is still suffering because it hasn’t achieved that status. And London and New York have metros operating whole night long (we have night-buses and they work fine but we want what NYC has!!!). So shouldn’t we have the same thing?” Or things that are too generalised to make any decisions: “Should the owners of attack dogs have a licence for the dog?” (What exactly is an attack dog? And how does the licence really help?) and questions that are just so clear, they shouldn’t even be asked: “Should Vienna offer the possibility of day-long schools?” (in Vienna, schools finish at 13h so if both parents are working, the kid is…. well…on the street? Home playing Doom or watching porn on the Internet? No clue.) And questions we really don’t give a damn about: “Should we re-introduce janitors?”
No, don’t get me wrong, the game is really cute! It should be it costs €6,7 millions. But it makes me sad. Because I want to play the same game of “Direct Democracy” with questions that really matter, when it is decided if another country should be bombed in my name or not; if my billions should be given to bail out banks who brought the whole global financial system to collapse; if managers should really get millions of bonuses for messing up the world; and if financial transactions should be taxed or not.
But in that case I guess this cute design should be changed a bit. Pink wouldn’t really fit…..
Tags: Commentary, System
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