I like Ike / It seems it doesn't talk to everyone

   so, yesterday sweetlove [who is residing in my den, almost like people do in a normal relationship (read: non long-distance), studying the days away for another round of his law bar exam] and me saw indi 4 - crystal scully.

did you know harrison ford recently had his chesthair waxed on tv to protest against deforestation?

[indiana jones theme fades in]
from the first minute until the last, the movie delivered what it promised: indiana jones action. not only did harrison ford seem in amazingly good form for the movie, but also did stephen spielberg.
[enter: irina spalko a.k.a. cate blanchett]
oh, the fun of it! stalin's rapier razor fatale irina in her perfect outfit with perfect hairdo, mutt's hair, ox's poncho... to me, the movie finally suceeded in being not only an hommage to the old ones but faithfully transporting the indientertainment into a new period.
[enter: conehead crystalguy]
at first [and later, at the end (hinthint)] i was somewhat let down by the lack of inventive new design for the plot's main objective, until i realised how perfectly that fits in. why make up yet another otherwordly design for gods/superhumans/crystalskulls when all the movie is about is legends being somehow more true than the average person [read: average professor of archeology] thinks they might. so finally i was happy spielberg chose the designs and ideas he did and to be honest: i want more.
[indiana jones theme fades out]

where's my hat? where's my whip?

grand opening

  so, i've progressed far enough with my redesign to enable access to my website again. nothing there is rigidly final, so anything might change, and quite probably will.
you may enter through the front door [clickyclickyclicky] and enjoy some voice, or sneak to the appropriate section via the navigation on the right of this article, though that will exclude the joy of the front door. it's up to you, cherrypies.

together with this, i've added one new image to my gallery: p is for play. that is from a shooting not long ago, and one or two more should follow eventually, just like some pieces in the music section as well as the texts in the words section. right now i'm still pondering about where and how to host my music, youtube doesn't appeal to me that much since it requires video. any of you know a youtube for music, with players that can be embedded?

rain and sleep

  oh, rain. in 2006, when i moved to vienna, the simple lack of rain in this city didn't cease to amaze me for a long time. nowadays, i got used to this meteorologically favourable zone. i always liked rain, to a certain degree, and certainly rain in summer; so when it does rain here, most of the time i'm happy about it.

on the other hand, though, i don't use public transportation but go everywhere either on foot or by bike. rain isn't really a problem on the bike, whereas snow can get really uncomfortable, when it isn't too much. today, it rains. and it rained a lot. going home from university in the afternoon, it rained so much i came home quite perfectly and thoroughly soaked - i don't even remember when i've been wet down to the underwear the last time. once you're wet and still in the [heavy] rain, it can even get pleasant, provided the temperatures aren't too low. everytime i stood at a traffic light i enjoyed the water pouring down on me, it had something very free and equanimous, in a good way. when you're moving though, the speed cools your forehead and hands to a degree that can get rather unpleasant.

after i got home, placed my bike on a towel, got out of the layers of soaked clothing [not an easy task sometimes] i curled up under the blanket and faded into a wonderful dreamless sleep of two hours.

now i'm up, i've eaten, am drinking tea and feeling really quite peaceful. when was the last time you got soaked in the rain?

germanic languages

  some days ago, sitting on the danube island amidst trees and birds, on quiet grass, i busied myself with tibetan vocabulary. after entertaining the birds and bees with that for some time i took out my hindi book to learn and review some things from the last lesson.

in reading a chapter about future tense and presumptive, one thought of annoyance echoed in my mind: always these indogermanic languages. how refreshingly different and surprising tibetan is, in contrast to the structures of languages belonging to the indogermanic family, for me.

of course, especially working with sanskrit never ceases to be amazing, but i guess the grass is always greener on the other side. what's your favourite language; do you have any?

on another note: i recently discovered [yo-yo ma's work with] the silk road project. a musical diary of travels along the ancient silkroad and the dreams arising from that. truly an inspiration for me, these days.

horse dead

do you remember your dreams?

a good way to do so is starting a dream diary, sticking with doing it even when the only thing you write into it is that you have nothing to write into it. you'll see, soon another life of yours will become visible.

i've been on and off writing the diary for more than a year now. it's hard to keep on doing it after some weeks, when you feel you basically remember most of your dreams anyway. so you get lazy again, stop writing them down regularly, and eventually your rate of remembering falls again. but writing just after waking up, early in the morning when i have little time before university anyway is tough.
anyway, last night i had a fascinating dream, in which i had a horse [i don't really know where i got it from]. still living in my flat in vienna, the horse stood in some little room on ground level in another building, being accessible form the street. now forward some time and my cousin [who has a lot of love for horses; maybe i got the horse from her] visited, or rather first i was somewhere with her. she seems to have lived close to some forest where we both rode on horses and talked, when she told me she'd come and visit me in vienna. skip forward and i'm back in vienna, suddenly panicking because i realised i had forgotten my own horse! all dressed up with saddle and gear i left the poor creature in its little room, without food or drink or company. since it was a dream i have no idea how long i left the horse alone, but i knew it might have been too long for it to even survive. oh the horror, of thinking what i did to the poor thing by forgetting it and then the fear of my cousin's looming visit and explaining her why a) the horse is in such a bad condition or b) is dead.
i woke up before i made the walk from my flat to the horse, so i still don't know wether or not it survived. in my prayers, though, all horsies survive being forgotten by idiots.

yesterday i saw some posters for special lectures about freud and his dream analysis at the university, but sadly they where already held last week... i'd have loved to check them out and maybe get some insight as to what horses might stand for in dreams. any ideas?

on a wednesday, on foot

  walking over a pedestrian bridge crossing over the eastern union drive freeway, watching the midday sky and foggy lights, a familiar sound reached my ears: cars crashing into each other. down a few steps on the other side i stood and watched the row of twenty cars, all crashed into the others' trunks, and more coming in regularly. a city jeep was pushed up by the cab behind it, half rolling over the frontman's roof half trying to break free on the still magically empty right lane when i spotted the first few flames underneath.

the inevitable followed - some got away quick enough, alarmed by the first explosions, but most of them were soon tumbling through the air, ablaze and black, out of the billowing smoke and onto the opposite lane. a young businesswoman, in green miniskirt and high heels, having stood next to me watching the chaos intensify, dropped her coffee-to-go with the words Oh.My.God! and ran off back towards the skyscrapers.
all this ballett, that whole spontaneous choreography, without my lifting a single finger.

greetings from liberty city ---

the mysterious ways of fate

  when i was a child, a long long time ago [insert irony] i used to both dream and believe being endowed with the mystical and hidden forces of magic. however, there was one huge drawback, that in the course of time got more and more clear to me: i was like a bad luck charm.

seriously, i began to think that not only would i generally bring bad luck to the people around me, but more specifically every good magic i tried to weave would twist itself into something more or less opposite and certainly bad for either me or people close to me.
long did i carry these thoughts, long did i try to train myself not to allow the thrill of anticipation for my magic or fate would certainly do something to keep me from whatever i anticipated. clearly to me, the more i was longing for something, the higher the chances of it suddenly and inexplicably going out of my reach.

puberty came and my mind and body were busy with many other things and battles far away from the living magic of my childhood. as i saw the world as generally against me [i guess i'm not talking about anything unknown here] i had other reasons and mechanisms to deal with anticipation and disappointment.
later, i somehow got closer to the magic of my childhood again, though very differently, of course, and it changed me again. i gave up searching for strange and mystical reasons and simply tried to accept the course of life and the fact that we can never understand all factors that determine actions, happenings and luck or bad luck around us. one could say, i got somewhat optimistic, over time.

yesterday i wrote a blog entry motivated by the anticipation of my playstation3 coming back from repair today. anticipation; oh, the thrill of it.
i waited this morning for a call from the store, which never came. then i called and was informed that the console was there and ready to be picked up. so i headed out, made the few steps over to the store and the friendly assistant went off to get my precious.
after standing there for what seemed like a very long time he came back, empty handed, and asked for my papers because he couldn't find the console, even though the system said it was there. another half eternity followed, in which i watched disney / pixar trailers on huge tvs and listened to an old couple buying wireless headphones to watch tv in bed with. the assistant came back, empty handed again, and told me my console simply wasn't there and he had to call the headquarters about the situation. after assuring me he'd call, he turned to the next customer and i walked home through the fog of my disappointment.

some hours later, terribly annoyed by the lack of calls from the store, i went back to inquire about the situation. two times, the nice-eyed assistant said, had he talked with the headquarters and they had no idea how my system got lost on the way from the to the little store. he assured me they were on the issue and told me he hoped to call me back this afternoon with results.
i walked home over the shards of my shattered day.

less than an hour ago, i began to get uneasy about the shop's early closing hours, my mobile rang; finally. charmingly-voiced assistant told me happily and shortly that the headquarters decided it wasn't my fault and he'd give me another ps3.
so i went over again, got a new ps3, new insurance papers and my smile back. right now, the system update progress bar shows 56 percent and i'm already happy i managed to connect to the internet so much faster than last time [i.e. weeks]. soon, my dears, i will vanish from this day and fade into the world of GTAIV, maybe to return sometime tomorrow or else into this crazy world of anticipation, magic and fate.

the holy spirit has arrived

let's be unpretentious for a while. let's be honest.

we all don't live an ascetic life, well don't live up to the morals we set out with into each new year. my point is, we're not as holy as we want to be. or anything. weakness comes from not admitting weaknesses, we should all confess we're nothing more than human.

anyway, the point i'm trying to make is simply that no one will ever be a balanced and whole person if she or he doesn't accept and embrace all parts of her or his personality.
what's the use of sitting in yoga class five times a week when half of the time you're dreaming about movies, or food, porn or shopping. the only thing it does is make you unhappy with who you are, because you might be able to hide your allegedly dark sides from others but never ever from yourself. stop pretending.

i'm not a friend of extremes, and in this i agree with the buddha's middle way; but even he promoted an ideal that is far too ascetic and extreme in my eyes. for imagine, everybody would slowly but surely walk on the path of strict religious life and exit society as nuns and monks, ascets and saddhus, siddhas and prophets, wise women and wise men... there would be no society anymore. and who then would repair the monk's window, or provide nails for doing so? who would donate food to monks or ascets, who would keep streets intact, provide energy, anything?
this doesn't seem to convincing to me, honestly, and never has. there must be a better way, which truly lies in the middle an doesn't demonise any side, doesn't fall into ironclad social rolemodels. what is needed is not refinement through separation and specialisation, but through integration and foresight. i wonder if our heads will ever be big enough for that; but i surely won't stop trying.

incidentally, and this is my motivation for writing this down today, tomorrow my playstation will come home from the repairs, which means i'll finally play the game i've been looking forward to so much. today, i'll play the flute, study and meditate, tomorrow is for gaming. the wonderful thing is, i remain myself both days and see, that neither of these things corrupts or compromises me or my aims.

drums, drums in the darkness

  today is the extremely rare occasion that the austrian national holiday falls onto may the first. while that means having one day off less, it also means, well, having two at the same time.
my usual participation in this is passive, though in this country i've come to learn that already is quite a spectacle. from germany i was used to first of may [day of the work] being basically a buffer for all those who danced into the may the night before. an elegant solution for everyone not to loose their job.

but not so here. it's quarter past eight in the morning, and i've just had the day's first marching band pass my window, and believe me that that is far from anything you could ignore in your sleep. seriously, their valiant drumming made me fear for my windows. of course first thing crossing my mind were curses for my neighbours, who are renovating since half a year and usually starting at 7:30am, but this time it was simply the procession in the distance, coming closer.

imagine you're on the streets,
demonstrating for more men in the kindergardens and fight poverty, etc. etc. etc. and you're enforced by a professional marching band and children with whistles, doesn't that sound like gathering attention? but when this stream of people - demonstrators, children, balloons, posters, marching bands [yes, plural] and the much needed ladies at the very front with their handy portable beer barrels around their torso and breadbasket in their hand [hello austria] - passes the streets at 8 in the morning, i'd question the receptiveness innocent bystanders.

this is austria, and it never ceases to amaze me.