Hoarfrost

Hoarfrost. An old english survivor in the modern hasty world.

Last night, the sky was dark blue with the orange reflection of the city lights.

The trees stood out against the orange blackness of the sky in a silvery glory.

Suddenly, the world was so fragile. Like a crystal creation of myriads of tiny blades, reflecting all light and darkness.

I stood there, dumbstruck.

And all the laws of physics and nature held their breath.

Are not the human souls fragile like that? One wrong touch, and the beauty crumbles. One more breath, and it spirals to the ground in crystalline dust. And what remains is the tree, the dark core that looks less lovely yet is infinitely more important.

I see the fragility of all shells and all appearances in the brilliance of hoarfrost. And I love them both: the tree and the needles.

Reptilian dream

My reptilian brain
looks out to the sun.

I want to be somewhere warm (not the South, it’s too hot)
I want to have nice food
A want to digest it slowly. Doing nothing.
Belly-up in the sun, lazily observing the world.

Instead of that, I am here.
Ok,ok. Maybe this all is because I had no breakfast.

A door is a door is a door is a … what?

Ye deities of one’s preference.

A number of things happened this day.

First. I got hangover without drinking. The god of Hangover (see Pratchett, Hogfather) might have mixed up the doors or something.

Second. I woke up at 5 a.m. O misery, o moonless snowy night. O world indescribable by mortal words. I have not been the same ever since.

Third. The little green men that normally swim in my coffee, those ones had gone and painted themselves deep brown, so I could not see them. Cheerless, I consumed my coffee. And because of the hangover, I could soon see it again. And so on.

Fourth. I got bloody lost in the Alte Mensa. That building has those steel firedoors, with weird handles. Those doors go ‘click’ at some point of one’s passage through them. And the handles do not work after that click. So I spent an educational half an hour studying my possibilities to escape from the corridor. I contemplated panicking for a moment, but then realised that there would be no human to watch me panic. What a waste of energy. Then I tried the door again, and lo! it was locked as before. Then I walked down to the ground floor, and tried the door that lead outside. That door was shut. Then I climbed up again, to the door that I had entered by, and surprisingly, it was as locked as before. Then I observed some footprints outside the groundfloor door from the first floor, and a thought entered my mind: what if this door is only _frozen_ ? and I descended and I rattled the handle, and I gave the door a mighty push, and it sprang open, it released me from the corridor.
Then I got frustrated, and went to vent my anger to this blog entry.

Fifth. I still have the hangover. Without drinking, too. If anybody see that wee god of hangover, he is known to walk around saying ‘oh, me’ and complaining of a headache all the time, give me the word. Just give me the word.

how curious

Christmas 2005

It feels like March,
Only the roses
Are not bitten by snow.

The melting smell in the air,
The sky grey with a margin
Of translucent sun.

Someone is born,
Only to walk
To the end of their life.

It feels like joy,
Only the smiles
Have thorns in them.

Someone is born,
And all the world getting ready
For a killing.

Petals dew-dappled,
Roses stand in mid-winter:
Life has no end.

The blackbird sings
Under the street-lamp
Oblivious of all theology.

It feels like March.
Only it is December
And I look at the roses, immortal,
In a web of memory.

… … …

Tonight, I dreamed of trying to return home.
I was in the airport, all things ready, and then it turned out that it was the wrong day.
I lost my boots (dreams are like that, incoherent), and suddenly was barefoot in a blizzard, looking for the airport entrance.
I found it.
Then, I tried to find someone who could explain to me what to do next. And it turned out, there was no way I coud _ever_ return home. Because this ticket was meant for a different day, and I had mixed it up, it had become invalid.
So I woke, barefoot to a blizzard.

Harry Potter at night

Yes, I went to see “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire”

That was an adventure worthy of a ballad.

First of all, the only show un English was at 8.30 pm. That would be ok, the film being ca. 2 hours and a little long.
I located the cinema alright, even got the ticket which said that the show would be over a Quarter to Midnight. Now, that was a piece of puzzling info if there was any.

The cinema was the way all cinemas are. Cozy, and smelled of popcorn and was slowly filled with human beings that talked variants of english for a change.

And then… The ADVERTS came, pouring in an endless stream over the minds and eyes of the spectators. Half an hour of pure advertisement, in all shades of ambiguity, at least three variants of tobacco, then cars and pepsi, and You Name It. I became severely aware of the fact that it is not fitting to attend te cinema alone as there is no one to disperse the boredom inspired by the advertisement industry.

Then, the film itself…. I guess, they have made the best of it, the book being so long and the film, so brief. I guess, as a separate piece of art, it was.. ok..

I missed the Veela.
But Voldemort was good.
I had imagined Krum to be a little thinner,
But Madame Maxime exceeded expectations.
Dumbledore looked too nervous,
Harry got too bloody (again)- against all the expectations of biology…
But Sirius in the fireplace was perfect.
Ron for an unknown reason was too awkward,
But Hermione was perfect.
Neville exceeded all expectations.

The episode with the dragon egg was too drawn out.
But the underwater bit was perfect.

The maze was too… alive, and there were no blast-ended screwts,
But the Goblet of Fire was convincing.

I did not mind the Beauxbatons, though they did look a little too much like a school of ballet,
But the kitch on a Russian theme for the Durmstrang was a little overdone.
(I definitely appreciate the ideology behind all the pictures, promoting democratic education, etc. etc.)

The dragons were nice,
But the mer-people were borne by computers….
Rita Skeeter looked like a Merlin Monroe at her worst.

McGonagall was perfect, and so was Snape. And why do I like them so much?

Suddenly, I was impressed of how much suffering can come from choices not one’s own. Actually, the whole life of Harry is a response to choices made for him. This comes through very strongly in this film. There is a binding magical contract, which Harry does not sign, yet he has to fulfill it or die trying. And this contract is actually, a trap, a road to death, which again, Harry does not choose. All the choices here are made not by him, but for him. Fulfilling the contract, he risks his health, life and, what is most important, friends.

This might be a story of fate and dignity. Of standing upright even when the best choice would be cowering. As Dumbledore puts it – to choose between what is right and what is easy. Reality of such choices cannot be discussed here, as it cannot be discussed in life.

That moment before the maze: Dumbledore letting them go in, and saying – the maze is dangerous, not because there are dragons and such things, but because one can lose one’s self there. The spirit of competition might kill the spirit of mercy and humanity. Which almost happens. To play fair and to exercise justice is not the easy thing, as is clearly shown in the Cedrick – Harry interplay.

And the last – but not least – note of the film: it asks a question “do you believe in personal evil?” so … loudly. Because believing in personal evil is as important as believing in a personal saviour.

The film is very different from what is expected, but it is by no means boring.

Now, for the conclusion of the evening/night. The film was (you won’t believe me) cut i n the middle, so that the people could get up and walk round, and so on. And after the break, they STARTED THE SHOW IN GERMAN. Till the public got annoyed, and they switched the right sound-track on.

With kicks and starts, then I got home at about one a.m. Had my evening meal, and moved into the realm of nightmares.

Ah, yes! the Dancing Lesson… a perfect quote of englishness, there: on the eve of the twenty-fourth of december, we traditionally indulge in well-mannered frivolity. McGonagall, as you suspect.

The importance of keys

Is full moon enough for a human being to be sleepless? Most certainly yes.
Or is it?
How about one just getting to sleep, at about 3.30 a.m. when the moon has finally moved out of the bed… only to be woken up by the alarm? Because some extra-bright person has forgotten his keys in the room and gone to a different corridor, and cant get back. And the Uni security just gets an alarm and comes on fiery horses at 5.30…

I thought I was a quiet kind of person… Unable to feel too much anger. I was wrong.

Distempered, i stand.