“Love is the saddest thing when it goes away.”
From the song “Once I loved” by Antonio Carlos Jobim
Archive for April, 2008
Tuesday, April 29th, 2008
Another realisation while doing sports, today rollerblading: when you have back wind and it pushes you to go further and faster, you don’t even realise it is there and you are actually receiving help. But the moment you turn around and the very same wind blows into your face, making your advancement harder and slower, you not only realise that it is there but also how strong its force is.
The SnowWhite 2008
Sunday, April 27th, 2008My hung-over brain wasn’t up to anything very intellectual last night so I dropped on my couch and decided to watch The SnowWhite, my favourite cartoon, for the first time since childhood. And yes, yes I admit I always wanted to be SnowWhite! The best compliment I ever got was when I was 12 and Svebor and I were running through snow and he looked at me and said in surprise “Ana, you look like the SnowWhite!” I was so in love with him…
Hehe, but this SnowWhite is sometimes turning into a cynical witch, especially on the day after a few vodkas too many. So while enjoying the movie, I was also thinking about how the story would develop in real life. Even better – today’s real life.
Well, first the guy who was supposed to kill the SnowWhite would tell her he will spare her life if she paid him (a fortune). So she would quickly have to find some money. She would have to steal or become a high-class prostitute or find a job as a waitress. But come on, she is a princess, so she wouldn’t want to work as a waitress. Let’s not go into details now, but she would get the money, pay the guy and decide never to allow herself to be blackmailed again.
Then, she would never, ever just go into that little house and clean it for the fun of it. She would wait in the garden and catch some sun and make plans about what to do next with her life. And the first thing she would ask the dwarfs would be “So, what is it that you do for living?” (She never asked that question in the movie and they never told her.) And as she found out they are diamond diggers… hehehe! Her eyes would brighten and she would immediately offer to join the business – while they are in the mine, she could use her looks and her princessy style and connections sell the diamonds. To do this, she would of course have to wear the biggest and clearest of them on her ears/neck/fingers. So now that they all had a job, she would of course never accept to clean and cook for them. But she also wouldn’t accept to live in such a shit hole so she would make dwarfs help her do the housekeeping in the evening and on weekends. So now that they all work and do the housekeeping, they would always just be tired and frustrated and fight whenever time allowed it. And yes, although she is a very rational princess, she would take the bite of the apple because she would never, ever miss a chance to make a wish. She would wish to get out of this wood and this small business and become the spokesperson for De Beers or Graff or similar. And for that slow Prince Charming to hurry up and finally find her and fuck her brains out. And for bigger breasts/smaller butt/longer legs. And for wonderful 2,4 kids sometimes in the future, when her career as The Diamond Princess was already well established.
So now that she took a bite and died, today’s dwarfs would immediately bury her and find a new, younger, blonde SnowWhite who would love to just stay at home and take care of the house. As long as they found enough diamonds and made enough money, of course. But this exercise is not about today’s dwarfs but today’s SnowWhite, so let’s say they stay the same and they put her in the glass coffin. I am not sure if today’s prince would really search long and wide to find her again, because he has a facebook/myspace/small life account and there he can find millions of SnowWhites to choose from. Or he is too busy with his career. Or already has a wife. But as same applies for him as for the dwarfs, let’s assume he is the real old fashioned prince charming and he wants only her and he will really turn the world upside down to find her, no matter how horny he might be right now and what a big project he is working on. So he finds her and gives her “the first love’s kiss”, she wakes up. And first, she gets a tantrum because the old bitch poisoned her and she missed so much time from her work and dwarfs surely have a new PR/marketing lady in the mean time and her skin suffered this toxic shock. But then she realises it is the prince charming who just gave her the kiss so she calms down and lets him take her to his castle, just to make sure it really makes sense giving up her career for this guy/castle. Now, if she liked the castle, she would very soon realise she had a problem with Prince Charming’s character, or with his dick, or his job, or friends, or something else. So she would go back into the wood to wait for the perfect prince with the perfect character, perfect looks, perfect dick, perfect job, perfect friends, while she continued working on her sparkly career. Until she realised she was getting too old – this is when she would take just any good old prince. Or maybe she would marry Prince Charming. But forget “they lived happily ever after”, this would mean: The SnowWhite 2 movie. Everybody remembers “War of the Roses”? OK, now just put that into a cartoon with SnowWhite and Prince Charming in main roles. And moi, I’m out of here.
Sunday, April 27th, 2008
A discussion on TV about growing old, 4 fantastic participants, all over 80. Among them the inventor of the pill (80-something) a geologist lady who posed in a bikini at the age of 84, a psychotherapist around 90. I was amazed by the amount of experience, courage, talent, intelligence gathered in that room. I wished to be there and have 30 minutes of their time to ask questions and learn, learn, learn.
The Attack of Bosnian Sausages
Friday, April 25th, 2008I wanted to witness Dita von Teese’s book presentation, hoping to learn a lesson or two, but unfortunately I got there too early (yes, this can happen) and didn’t have much time to stay. Her diligent audience started gathering two hours before Dita was supposed to arrive and I decided to stay for a while and watch the colourful variety of Dita’s fans. What surprised me most, was that they are mostly women. A few young women, some with a touch of punk or Goth, but mostly very normal looking women, let’s say – secretaries in their mid 30’s. What was also surprising, was a small number of young men, but many middle aged to older men, mostly from a working class. But this shopping mall is located in the middle of a “working class” district so maybe this biased the picture.
The big round hall was surrounded with three stores of galleries and very quickly, people filled out all the galleries to get a better glimpse of the pretty queen of burlesque. In search for the best view, I went up to the first floor and managed to find little space in the middle, directly opposite of the stage. Next to me were two Bosnian men, mid forties, I think construction workers. I believe they didn’t have much clue about what they were going to see – some pretty babe, often showing much skin. The place was full of security guys in dark blue uniforms, trying to look very serious but obviously excited like little kids. What a beautiful woman can do!
At one point, one security guy walked towards my two Bosnian neighbours. He asked them about the stuff they are holding in their hands. It turned out their hands were full of packaged sausages – they obviously stopped here spontaneously, on the way to eat lunch back at work. The security guy ordered them in a barking tone that they should please find a locker and lock the sausages there. “You seriously think we were going to shoot the lady with sausages?” one of the workers asked. I immediately saw the picture of two Bosnians shooting Dita von Teese with Wiener sausages, so I couldn’t help but burst out laughing. The Bosnians realised the security guy also had an accent so they asked him where he came from. It turned out he was also from some place ex-Yu. So now, they started attacking him – why the hell he was speaking to them in German when he heard they speak his language! Suddenly, his tone turned apologetic. Good work, guys! I was getting more and more amused. Unfortunately I had to leave, so no clue how the story ended. But I can imagine they all (including the security guy) went back to their construction site and had fun eating sausages and drinking beer instead of waiting for Dita. A sausage is a sausage. And I kept on laughing for hours.
Good News for Plastic Fans
Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008A new incredible discovery made while researching for my new article:
www.MyFreeImplants.Com is an online community established in 2005. It brings together 4,500 women who want to have cosmetic surgery but cannot afford it, and 30,000 men who wish to financially help them with achieving this goal. Do not frown, the absurd idea works: since 2005 the site has helped tens of thousands of women raise over $2 million dollars towards their plastic surgery goals.
Nothing stays in way of plastic world anymore. Happy, boys?
I Was Desperate
Tuesday, April 22nd, 2008 
Gillian Wearing, `I’m desperate’ 1992-3, Tate Collection
The series of photographs called „Signs that Say What You Want Them To Say and Not Signs that Say What Someone Else Wants You To Say” brought Wearing international recognition when it was first exhibited in 1993. This selection of five images shows the range of responses which Wearing elicited from passers-by, whom she selected at random, and asked to write their thoughts on a piece of paper. Wearing challenges social stereotypes and assumptions, and often works in collaboration with members of the public as a means of ‘interrupting the logic of photo-documentary and snapshot photography.’ She has said ‘A great deal of my work is about questioning handed-down truths.’ (From the display caption September 2004)
The Art of Criticism
Tuesday, April 22nd, 2008Last Friday, this critical Miss was attending a conference on criticism, “Art of Critique” http://transform.eipcp.net/conference And just as I walked into Flex, the grungiest club in Vienna in a fur coat many years ago, now I walked into this conference in Wuk, an even grungier place, clutching a red Hermes look-alike bag under my arm. No, it is not a real one, but in this place, it could be a legitimate reason for a murder. So here I was, in this big factory hall full of people with raster hairdos, cargo pants and torn sneakers, trying to keep myself and my bag invisible. The show started: first, two artists present their work, one video from the G8 summit protest in Heiligendamm and the second from a “reclaim the streets” protest in
Movies finish, discussion starts. Artists bullshit, audience’s questions ask for more bullshit and I am bored to death by theories of images and symbolism and protest and activism. There is only so much bullshit I can take, so after 2h of the raster audience tapping the shoulders of raster artists, I decide it is time for this Miss to speak up. I sign for the mike.
“The goal of protest is change. We have this kind of protest for quite some time already, but it seems that the goal has been forgotten. The only change that is happening is for the worse. Rich are getting richer, poor are getting poorer, people are rioting because they are hungry. And the protest seems to have become protest just for the fun of it. The pictures of students throwing Molotov cocktails do not reach or touch anyone anymore. The shock factor is long gone. So I believe we desperately need a new level, a new version of protest, if we want to achieve change. How do you as artists envision a new form of protest which can make a difference again?”
I got an applause. The artists were angry and speechless. One spoke up and explained that change takes time, “just remember how long it took the feminists’ or workers’ movement to bring change”. I grabbed the mike back “Those movements happened hundreds of years ago and back then, time had a different dimension. In today’s world, change can happen very quickly. Especially when you look at the other side of the system, the beholders of the capital – they are able to create a true revolution within 5 years.”
The moderator closed the conference with this statement. Artists stayed seated, discussing vigorously, maybe how to quickly organize and assassination of the girl with a red Hermes bag. I got myself a drink and talked to people who approached me congratulating and saying that my question was the only clever thing said in those 2h. Not that I am bragging. But the point is that it proved again that closing yourself in a circle of same opinionated people, and trying to change the world outside, quickly turns into nothing but masturbation. The only way to be relevantly critical and know what you are talking about, and how you can change what is not working, is to stay open and take part in all aspects of the world you are criticizing. Just hanging out in a closed world of intellectual masturbation and Birkenstock fashion is not going to give you the power, or relevance, to change anything.
So, to keep myself grounded on all levels, I did just that: I went to Le Meridien, to the poshest party in town to drink champagne. And dance with my bank.
Why Shiva? Because Shiva is….
Sunday, April 20th, 2008A male God.
Devine Cosmic Dancer.
God of paradoxes:
God of destruction and creation.
Both an ascetic and a hedonist.
Dancing on the demon of ignorance.
Destroying the world of illusions in order to create a better new world.
The philosophy of Shiva is destrucive of illusions, but leads neither to inaction nor to pessimism. On the contrary, its wisdom allows it to enter harmoniously into the great „game“, lila, of life, to take part in it by dancing with all one’s heart and all one’s joy.
New Larousse Encyclopedia of Mythology
But here is one of my favorite Shiva images. I don’t like taking myself too serious….
Something is rotten in the state of Austria
Tuesday, April 29th, 2008There are such dark things happening in this country that I don’t even want to describe that shit on my blog. For anyone who doesn’t know, please check out the news. Repeatedly “normal” people are being discovered to be monsters. Repeatedly, it is about indescribably cruel crime over children. Most often own children. Repeatedly it is happening in the middle of cities and repeatedly everybody wonders “How come nobody noticed a thing?”
What is happening? Is this monstrous deviation anchored somewhere deep in the mentality of these people? Or is it fault of the system in this country, which is systematically building a “children as enemies” atmosphere? Corporations are making it impossible for parents to balance job and family. Women are forced to do minimally paid part-time jobs. There are not enough nurseries. Women’s magazines scream “We are the victims! We can’t handle it all!!!” And advertisement is for years building up negative image towards kids: kids will kick you out of your bed, they will not let you have a piece of cake, they will put stains all over your designer couch, they will ruin your dates, destroy your dish washer, never move out of your house and will not be there when you need them….
And if something is wrong with the collective state of mind here (which I assume it is, because when I think what Bosnian and Croatian people suffered during and after the war but no one ever came to the idea of torturing children), what can be done about it? If a person has psychological problems, people from their surroundings suggest a therapy. Who should suggest therapy to a whole country? And how do you do therapy on few millions of people? But then again – if the system is capable of doing negative brainwashing on its people, it should be capable of doing the positive. But hey, no profits can be earned here…..
Tags: Commentary, System
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