Backup of my old LiveJournal blog
בקטגוריות: Uncategorized
25 Apr 2008(This entry was originally locked for LJ-friends only, but I decided that it’s unnecessary. The worst that can happen is that my mom reads this [Hi, mom!] and I can live with that)There are three things I remember about my first kiss. I remember the pain in my neck, sharp and insistent. I was sitting […]
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25 Apr 2008I have never done anything under the influence of alcohol. I have done things under the influence of joy. I have done things under the influence of ecstasy.I have done things under the influence of sadness. I have done things under the influence of loneliness, self-consciousness, and fear and filth and cowardice and shame. I have done […]
בקטגוריות: Uncategorized
20 Apr 2008Whatever happened to the space program? Moon landings? Manned probes to the outer planets? Have we given up finding use for them? Do our solutions turn inwards, or are we so troubled with immediate threats that we can’t even look up anymore? Almost 40 years ago, a man first walked on the moon. That man […]
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20 Apr 2008Too much I want to read. Too much I want to write. Too much music to listen to, friends to talk to, work to do, schoolwork to learn, places to be. I want to do it all – they’re not chores, none of them. They’re all things I want to do. Food to eat, booze […]
בקטגוריות: Uncategorized
19 Apr 2008Galata is across the Golden Horn, very different from Sultanahmed’s twisting alleys and tourist traps. First thing that greets me is the underground shopping mall, crammed tight with consumer electronics and handguns, one shop next to the other, each proclaiming new sales, new models, just for you. Outside two young men push their cart and […]
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18 Apr 200815 pages into Dylan’s Chronicles and the prose is dense, like poetry. Lively as a newly-written narrative, not 40-year-old memories. You can find echoes of his lyrics, from Joey to Ballad of Thin Man. That’s how he writes, that’s how he lives. Good start.
בקטגוריות: Uncategorized
18 Apr 2008In recent years there have been many discussions of the place of art in everyday life. Should a tool that’s functional also be beautiful? Is there place for art in the workplace? Once we’ve gotten something working well, how much more should we invest in making it pretty? More and more, in the 21st century, […]
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18 Apr 2008In William Gibson’s Neuromancer, the protagonists take a detour through Istanbul’s Grand Bazaar. I can see why. It meshes it wonderfully with Gibson’s claustrophobic oldnew dystopia. Narrow streets, winding, rising, falling, interlocking. Old shops selling leather goods, silversmiths, hookahs. Children’s clothing, leather goods, Turkish delight. Spices, doner-kebabs, leather goods. Vendors outside storefronts playing backgammon tossing […]
בקטגוריות: Uncategorized
18 Apr 2008Japanese tour guides are in something of a pickle in this Mediterranean weather. It’s too hot an dry for rain, but what will they raise up in the air to lead their group but an umbrella? Well, they find a way. Sometimes they carry an umbrella anyway. Sometimes they find substitutes. Long sticks with something […]
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18 Apr 2008They are a humble people, the Christians. A cheek-turning, brother-loving, genuflecting lot. How appropriate, then, that in order to share their humility with all and sundry they would build gigantic, overwhelming, towering edifices to honor their modest carpenter. Oh, but they sure knew how to build, those Christians of old. Vaulted archways 15 stories high […]
פעם היה לי לייבג'ורנל. עכשיו הוא כאן, מגובה.