Day Dreams

thought steli might want to read this

2006-07-31T09:24:00.000-07:00

http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/middleeast-crisis/un.html

Like...

2006-07-31T04:42:00.000-07:00

Like I have to pack and clean my room and get ready to leave for Pareez. So many things to do. I will see you again on thursday. OK. Have fun.

Random Measures

2006-07-29T18:21:00.000-07:00

--Caution : Extremely nerdy post--

Are something I am reading about. A measure is like lenght. Like the measure of a road is how long it is. A random measure is a new strange idea. It is that the length can depend on luck. Let me give you an example:

Everyday, I wake up at 2 p.m. I feel hungry and walk to the chinese restaurant not far from my place (ok this is not true, it's an example). Imagine that on certain days I wake up and walk to the chinese and the road is 200 meters long. On other days I wake up and walk and the same road is 1000 meters, on other days I wake up and walk and the road is 0 meters long. On other days I wake up and the road never ends. Just how long the road is everyday is a matter of luck. Like there is a different probability it would have a certain length everytime.

This is such a new idea to me. I am happy to be learning it. I mean it is really like in a dream or something. It is even stranger than dreams.

Random measures are very useful in finance, people who try to predict the stock market use them all the time.

This is very nice, it is making my imagination crazy. All this remdinds me of a quote by GGM :

"On that day, the world was so new to him, that many things didn't have names yet." (from memory, btw. So it is not the exact quote.)

My Girl

2006-07-29T16:57:00.000-07:00

My Girl c'est de la balle. It toally rocks. I love how the actors act. Especially Yoo Rin, she is like a real life manga character, exagerrating her jestures and expressions. The story is quite nice. It is very smart because there are a lot of sub-stories going on and they all revolve around a main theme: Relations between rich people and poor people. I also love the music, they use Mozart often and I really like how they use the same song with different arrangements for different kinds of scenes. The same song goes for a happy, sad, awkward scene. The same music just a bit faster or slower or...In general the show manages to be very funny, the characters are all so lovable, the story is at the same time fun and meaningful, there is a lot of suspense so sometimes I watch up to three episodes together...C'est vraiment de la balle.

Nothing really

2006-07-28T14:44:00.000-07:00

-I-

Nothing in my mind. I can not think of a single thing to write. So I am posting just to post and give a sign of life. Now for some mundane details, I mean let me talk about myself. I will go to Paris and then to Italy for a while. My holidays will last until October. There is the plan of going to Turkey for some time too. For those of you who want to hear a recording of me speaking, I don't have a cell phone. I will see my sister on August the 3rd and then I will post a sound clip, or even a video clip. (Just like Olivia did)

-II-

So S.P. will finally come out of the closet. I am using this expression but I have not the faintest idea about it's meaning.

-III-

Currently I am reading a book, I mean 2 books, on Measure theory. I had to put Galois theory on hold. C'est dommage. In general, I am totally unable to think, all I can do is follow the news of this war that no one wants to end. Isn't this a precedent. Like a war starts and no one tries to end it. That's totally crazy. It's like other countries think they are watching some kind of game and not a real war.

-IV-

I would so love to visit Russia. In fact I would love to live there.

-V-

I even find it frustrating to make the numerals. I just don't want to do anything. But how about another numeral..

-VI-

Yesterday I read parts of The Picture of Dorian Gray and parts of a book about Alexander. I went to sleep at 4 a.m. and woke up at 3 p.m. It rained all day long today. Heavy rain and a kind of sand storm coming from I don't know where.

-VII-

Is it true that 60% of German people are over 50 years old?

-VIII-

I am sorry about the music not working and an error message popping up. I don't know why it is happening. This is a new music. It's Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto no2.

-IX-

I had a dream last "night". I will post it tomorrow.

100 years

2006-07-25T15:49:00.000-07:00

100 years ago Cezanne died. He left you his paintings. He also made you some cake but I wouldn't eat it now. It is way too old. Yu can give it to your pet, if you don't like your pet.

Let me say now, why not, that I think Spain is my favourite country in Europe. First of all, it is the only young country in western Europe...I will tell you the other 3 reasons later, why not.

Dream no32

2006-07-25T08:43:00.000-07:00

I dreamed I was running. I was running from Marseille to Paris. That takes a TGV (fast train) some 6 houres. I ran it in 20 minutes. All the time I was eating candy. The candy was so big, it was like as big as a big watermelon. Like giant haribos.

On the road I met people I know and all asked me what that was and I would say "candy, candy" and they would look at me like "you are crazy" and walk away.

Jealousy

2006-07-25T08:35:00.000-07:00

I was thinking, I do this sometimes. No matter how bad we are doing, there is often worse; no matter how good we are doing there is often better. No matter how content we are, there are still moments where we think, "I wish I was better". There are moments where we are jealous of people who are richer, happier in life or in love, more beautiful...than us. Everyone is jealous of something or someone. Jealousy is probably the most universal feeling, I thought. If there is a feeling every person on earth experiences, it is more probably jealousy than anything else.

I am jealous of people who have settled down. I know I will continue to travel inside and outside France for some 5 more years. Whenever I see someone who has a very regular and boring life, I envy them. Some of them are probably jealous of me because I travel all the time.

Now my mind has stopped thinking..so the post is over.

Yesterday

2006-07-23T04:36:00.000-07:00

I woke up, it was soo hot, so I took a shower and went out. I walked to my usual chinese restaurant and had lunch/breakfast. Then I continued my walk to the FNAC, which is like a big bookstore/DVD/CD/library.... I walked around, I didn't buy anything. I went to the litterature part. There were very few people. However, as I walked by the different parts, asian litterature, middle east litterature, greek litterature, spanish litterature, etc..I found there was a huge crowd in front of the Books in English part.

It was interesting. There was exactly nobody looking at the books in any other section, but like 15 people pushing each other in front of the Books in English section.

I thought there would be a special book they all wanted to see. But there was really nothing. A few of the books I looked at were even totally silly. "The Last Templar" for instance. This book seemed so silly.

Then I went to the music part. It was full of people. First I visited the classical music section. Not for any special reason, but it is the first one on my way. It was full of 40ish bold and sometimes fat men. I overheard this conversation:

bold fat italian looking man: I threw away 75 euros on La Traviata.
bold thin man: 75 euros, wow, that's a lot.
bold fat italian looking man: But it was worth it, I really had a great time listening
bold thin man: yeah, but 75 euros, omg
bold fat italian looking man: hmmmm
bold thin man: *turns away*

I am tired now, I'll continue later.

Wait wait, the only Oscar Wilde work I don't have is De Profundis, which he wrote from jail. I have just found it on the net. God Bless the little monsters that make the internet work.

Going Classical

2006-07-21T16:10:00.000-07:00

I want to write about good concerts I went to. One of Rachmaninoff and one of Mozart. But before, I have bought a very surprising CD. Here is it's story...

Johannn Nepomuk Hummel has a very funny name. Nepomuk. Is it check? In addition to his lovely name he was a virtuoso of the keyboard and a student of both Mozart and Salieri. He was a good composer but his work did not remain famous to our day. Mainly because he is much more known as a teacher and player.

This CD I have bought is a rearrangement by Hummel of Mozart's symphonies Haffner, Jupiter and Praga. These symphonies were written for orchestras and Hummel rearranged them to be played by a Quartet. A piano, a flute, a violin, a violoncelle. Only 4 instruments bring all the sensations ans sounds and details of these 3 symphonies.

Hummel must really have been very talented and skilled to be able to do this. I will upload a part soon. But can I rest for the week end.

Saturday morning...

2006-07-20T10:17:00.000-07:00

After the party, we had a rendez-vous with some other friends of our family. We were supposed to meet them at 1:30 at the Comedie. They didn't show up. We went to the hotel and chatted until 3 a.m. and then went to sleep.

We woke up at 7 a.m. we had to. Mom went to work and me for some more tourisme (with an e like any word). I walked in the esplanade and chose a nice cafe where I sat for an houre, had breakfast. It was melon slices and a lemonade. There were many people selling stuff at the esplanade.

One lady was selling old school books and maps. It was very fun to see what kind of English book French kids had in the 60s. Another stand was selling history books, I bought one about the Vikings.

I walked to the Comedie and ran into Joy again. I just said hello, we didn't talk or anything. Then I decided to go to go get a gair cut.

I went to a place I had noticed the day before. It was called Greze coiffure. It is owned by Mr Greze & his son. I got a hair cut, it was quite good. Better than the one I get here. I don't know why Mr Greze Jr insisted on shakig my hand when I came into the place and when I left.

After that, I walked in the neighborhood behind the opera. There was something very funny. Everything is called Opera. There was the Opera grocerie store. Opera bakery. Opera electronics. Every single thing was called Opera. Only becuase it's the neighborhood behind the opera.

It is however a small neighborhood with little paved street, very quiet and beautifull. And the small streets meant you can walk in the shade all the time. Which was great in the very very hot weather we were having. Then I saw a church and went in. It was quite nice. One wall of the church was covered with little tiles, all of them had "Merci Sainte Rita" written on them. There were probably several thousand little tiles with "Merci Sainte Rita" on that wall!

I left the church and went to the mall. I went to the book shop. It had a whole floor for "spirituality" books. The ones that come with tapes, you know. I had an excellent laugh reading the titles. All these books pretended they could change your life in 5 days and make you happy forever.

Also, in the book shop I ran into the Russian lady from the party.

Then I went to the hotel, it was midday and I had to give them the key. I said goodbye to the nice lady who cleans the rooms. I took the bags and left.

Carrying and draging some 40 kg in 30 degree heat was, how should I say, perfect. I met my mom at the espalanade where we had lunch. I just had a salade. Then we went to the train station.

We stayed there for like 15 mins and then I left. My mom also was then on her way to England.

NEWS : Do not read if you want to sleep. I will create a blog for this and stop posting here.

---I feel so sad these days. I have just seen pictures in a Lebanese newspaper (as- safir). These pictures were not allowed in western newspapers. They show dead children on the ground by tens. It makes me want to cry until forever. Today every last foreigner left Lebanon. Nobody knows what will happen tomorrow. The foreigners were a kind of shield for the Lebanese. Now we can expect anything and we can be sure none of it will be reported. How does killing tens of children in one bombing fight terrorism. How many children have to die before we call it a war crime? A question that was asked by journalist Robert Fisk. When you see these pictures you don't beleive yourself.

---White house spokesman Tony Snow, the man with a great haircut, has called Journalist Helen Thomas a Hizbolla member becuase she dared ask him about the human consequences of the war.

---The New York Times has confirmed the war might end Monday.

--We, the civilized world, are doing this to the people we are supposed to be teaching our great values. My ass, my ass democracy and my ass human rights.

Pic from greece

2006-07-20T05:32:00.000-07:00

What I liked most was not the ancient ruins. It's how slow life goes. People can sit like this all day long. I was in greece in 2002, I never told you. By the way, I am sure this life style is what makes mediterranean people creative. (the pic not by me)

Why

2006-07-20T05:26:00.000-07:00

Why am I posting this? I don't know. Felt like it. This drawing was in my masters report. It's about geodesics.

Random questions

2006-07-19T05:32:00.000-07:00

-They didn't have a zero-

I fixed the music yesterday. It seems to work for a day and then just fall silent. Very extrano. It's extranio, when you pronounce it. I don't have the spanish thingy they put on the n. The tilde, I mean. I will fix it again today and it will not work tomorrow. I could go on like this forever. Also I forgot to say, thank you all for your opinions on the last post. I am sorry if you were not in the mood for it. Numbers X and XI here are somewhat good news I am reporting. Again I am sorry if you are not in the mood. This is the last last time I promise.

-I-

Do you like the new coffee coca cola? I really do. Pepsy are responding with a Cappucino pepsy. I can't wait to taste it.

-II-

What's your desktop? mine right now is a French stamp for Evariste Galois. Before, it was Yuri Gagarin. Before, it was a music score. Before, it was Buzz Alldrin. Before, it was a Kandinski painting...before that I was born.

-III-

What is your screen saver? I don't have one. I prefer the blank screen. Like my mind.

-IV-

As much as I dislike going to bed, I have to say the moment right after waking up is one of my favourite. I feel so fresh and usually I am not thinking of anything.

-V-

I was thinking the other day, Very theoretically, how hard it must be to impersonate someone. Like in the film Catch me if you can. Di Caprio pretends to be a whole bunch of other people. That is allready very hard. Even harder, is impersonating a specific person, like in Gathaka. It's hard.

You have to learn all their gestures, how they walk, their accent. You must remember everything about them. You need to be very smart. There is also so much psychological pressure. The real you remains blocked all the time.

-VI-

Do you know the design of the numeral we use, like 1 2 3..., I can't remember if these are called arabic or indian nuemrals, comes from each symbol having as much angles as the number it represents. The numbers 1 and 2 originally look like this : 1 , Z so 1 has one angle and 2 has two.

Isn't that so interesting. I am so interested +P

-VII-

Do you think cyclopses put their tongue out at people? or even at cyclopses?

-VIII-

More tonight...

-IX-

How did you three get those great designs for your Multiply sites? I can't even upload anymore music and you have these great websites allready. Can you help me?

-X-

Relatively good news: The Guardian and Israeli newspaper Ydeote Ahronote have reported that the US gave israel the green light for only one more week. They will be allowed to bomb until Monday, according to these two newspapers. Then the US will ask for ceasefire.

Meanwhile (Time magazine) all foreigners have been evacuated from Lebanon. Lebanese people are very scared. They are saying that now that the foreigners are gone, anything could be allowed against them. Time magazine mentioned.

-XI-

Also relatively good news: All the refugees from this war are in Syria and they are (according to Agence France Press) receiving very good treatment. A country-wide blood donation campaign is open to help the wounded. Hospitals are receiving them for free. Also they are all housed in school and university dorms -since it is the summer, schools and unis are empty!- so they all have "real" houses not tents. A phone number was created for families who wish to receive a refugee family in their home. So some refugees will be "guests" (if the word can be used in these conditions) of volunteer families. (All this in the AFP report.) ...Some excellent work by the local red cross and red crescent organizations.

-XII-

Today I was walking where all the homeless people sleep behind my neighborhood. In fact I live in a somewhat rich neighborhood. Howver, behind it there is a poorer one. The homeless people sleep between the two. One of them, who sells African clothes and gadgets sometimes, was listening to Rachmaninov's concerto number 2. I was like, wow.

-XIII-

It was incredible but today I had some paperwork to do and a French government employee was helpful. This is like a palnetary alignment. You will read, if you read the book about France -we keep talking about to the extent that I do not want to mention it's name anymore - how grumpy a French government employee can be.

-XIV-

Loius XIV is now beig honoured by me as I read number 14. I would have loved to be this guy. He was so idle. Idleness is an ideal by itself to me. Doing nothing..

Political Post

2006-07-18T11:30:00.000-07:00

JL has posted on the inacceptable human cost of the conflict in Lebanon right now. I think it was a great idea of her. Although I hate posting about politics and I even almost dislike all politicized people. I have something to say.

JL was right to point out that civilians were dieing, all of them innocent. Indeed, in the last 7 days, 240 Lebanese people were killed. 850 wounded, 1/2 million lost their homes. Lebanon, where the civil war stopped in 1990 and which has rebuilt itself very quickly into a very lively and touristic country, has lost all the infrastructure it has built in the 15 years since the end of it's war. Just like defense minister of Israel Ameer Peretz said "We will take Lebanon 20 years backwards". I wonder if he is proud that has been achieved.

Wars are part of human history. There will always be wars. This is why it is important to have war ethics. This is not a contradiction in terms, wars should follow certain rules. Not harming civilians is one of them. In fact the Geneva convention says civilians should not even be made uncomfortable, let alone be harmed. Another principle is proportionality.

Proportionality : Well the word is clear. I don't need to explain it. What is happening today in Lebanon violates this idea. The Lebanese attack was against a military facility. 2 soldiers were taken prisoner. 2 **soldiers**. The response was the above mentioned damage to **civilians**.

As Spain, Norway and France have pointed out, this is a disproportionate answer.

The point I wish to make is this. Why is the world tolerating this? Big countries, in my understanding, are supposed to fairly police the world in order to keep things better. This brings me to my main point. We are all racists!

Yes we are. The west has never looked fairly on Arabic countries. It's first contact with them was the crusades. In that time crusaders and the mass of Europeans said that if you kill an infidel you go to heaven. Then, in the 19th century, came orientalism. Orientalism formed most of our modern views of Arabic countries. Orientalism was an industry of cliches. It is to orientalism that we owe wonderful expressions such as "sand monkey, Camel jockey, etc...". I would like to say so much more about this racist trend. Not enough place here.

Today the world is watching as people die. Whenever someone calls for a cease fire, everyone tells him to shut up. Bush has said 3 times in 3 days he is against a cease fire. However, a cease fire is a human necessity. This means one thing. We do not care Lebanese people are dieing. To us, they are Arabs and so they are human dust. Our enlightenment values do not apply to them. I think we as citizens of advances countries should face this bravely and not run away from it. We have come to the point where we do not care when people die.

Personal note:
I have 2 Lebanese friends here, they work in the same building as me, but in different disciplines. They are Vera (girl) and Maher (boy). They are both stuck in France. They can not call their family since phone lines are cut. In short they do not know if there parents, brothers and sisters, etc. are dead or alive and with the Israeli air force doing up to 50 raids on the same city in one day. Who knows. I don't. Maybe you don't need to call your family, you just get a special feeling when they die. Then you have a depression and that's the end of your active life. It's a shame. You were talented but you were born on the wrong side of the fence. And oh, an asshole who works with Maher was making fun of him the other day, like whoops your country c'est le bordel right now. C'est le bordel = It's a brothel. It means a mess in French. How nice. I am telling you we do not give a fuck, they are not human.

Whenever I say we, we=our society. I honestly think this is a fact. Our whole society is like this, our whole culture right now.

Consider signing this petition or another one you agree better with.

Friday Night

2006-07-17T13:03:00.000-07:00

We were like 100 people invited to the party. Mainly people from mom's work and their families. From ours there was me. The others happily watching the match on TV. We took a bus to Camargue.

Quest-ce que c'est camargue? you might ask. It is a region near Montpellier. First we passed the swamps of Camargue. These are swamps so big that people who don't know them think it's the sea. In the winter, they are filled with Pink Flamengos. Also in Camargue, there are always wilde horses running all around the place. Arguably, this is the most beautiful place in France.

Well we got to the place. It is a moorish style Villa. We were greeted by a band playing guitars and singing flamenco songs. There were also two dancers, a he and a she. They were ok. The first part of the the party was a cocktail. The Sangria was excellent. So tasty and light, yet still it is wine. And drinking Sangria as you watch a FLamenco dancer is a nice effect.

During the Cocktail, I met people from Morocco, there was also my mom's greek friend from Friday Morning, Dr Gaga. It was ok but the band was being repetitive, so a mexican guy asked them to sing Guantanamera and other South American songs. This was great as they changed to another style.

Then came the dinner. The food was very very disappointing. I will say allready. It is like this extra gourmet food that is so gourmet you just don't want to eat it. The coock thinks he is Eve Saint Laurent or even Sezanne for inventing these dishes. NO.

I met two Russian frinds of my mom. A couple actually, then there was their daughter. She was just as bored as me. The Russian lady was so nice. She looked very Asian. She was russian but you would say Mongolian or Chinese if you didn't know. We chatted and of course mentioned the world cup. She said with a Russian accent coming directly from a saint petersbourg ballet show "Etes-vous Suportar?". Etes-vous means "are you" and the last word is Russian for fan. Suportar means fan. It was so nice to listen to her speak in French and use Russian or German words when she didn't know. It has a very tsarian Russia theme.

to be continued...

stolen from JL

2006-07-16T16:01:00.000-07:00

Help me. Do you know a website or a movie or something I can do that would make me laugh a lot and feel happy again. Something very very funny, I need to laugh and feel better.

It's even cut and paste

Meme(run away now if you don't wanta do it)
01. Name: Steliano
02. Middle Name: Don't have one
03. State: No states in France.
04. Place of Birth: Paris
06. Male or Female: (let me check) male
08. School: Just finished my Masters, going for the phd
10. Initials: SP (like sick person, or signal processing, or single parent)

Your Appearance :

.13. Hair Length: Just like a sheep maaaaa, no short
14. Eye color: Brown (I am so disappointed they are not black)
16. Height: 180
19. Shoe size: 42 . :

Your Firsts :

.22. First best friend: Omar, I was 4.
23. First Award: What does this mean.
24. First Sport You Joined: Gymnastics
25. First thing you did today: Woke up, geeked on my computer
26. First Real vacation: Eurodisney
27. First thing you said today: Allo, Maria..
28. First Love: Carolle
. :

Favorites :

.29. Movie: Apocalypse Now, Amadeus, see my profile
30. TV Show: The Sopranos
31. Color: White
32. Rapper: Eminem
33. Place to get groceries: Carrefour
34. Food: Chinese, Italian
35. Season: Winter (I love rain) and Summer (I see my family)
36. Candy: ooh candy
38. Restaurant: Le Bombay, come here and try it.
41. School Subject: Math, I love it more than food
42. Animal: Humans
43. Book: The Pic of Dorian Grey, I love all books by Lev Landau. He is my spiritual father.
44. Magazine: I don't read any

Currently :

.45. Doing before you started this survey: Stressing to the degree where you burn your nervous system
46. Feeling: In your opinion? I have rarely been worse
47. Wearing: My Homer Simpson t-shirt and shorts
48. Crying about: nothing (come on)
49. Eating: Una hamburgessa
50. Drinking: milkshake
51. Typing: another endless report
53. Listening To: the music on my blog (a new one)
54. Thinking about: when you stress you can't think, in the back of my mind were hurwitz integers (do you like them, I love them)
55. Wanting: for it to stop
56. Watching: nothing

Future :
.57. Where do you see yourself in 5 years: Right here.
58. Kids: Please no, I don't like kids
59. Want to be Married: No no no....

Which is Better with the Preffered Sex : .

All girls are beautiful. Almost all, anyway. Just learn to see the beauty.

63. Hair color:
64. Hair length:
65. Eye color:
66. Measurements:
67. Cute or sexy:
68. Lips or Eyes:
69. Hugs or Kisses:
70. Short or Tall:
71. Easygoing or serious:
72. Romantic or Spontaneous:
73. Good or Bad: good
74. Sensitive or spontaneous:
75. Hook-up or Relationship:
77. Trouble Maker or Hesitant:

. : Have You Ever :
.78. Kissed a Stranger: Please I am a nerd. I am lucky to have kissed someone
79. Had surgery: Like 4 times.
80. Gone commando: qu'est-ce que c'est gone commando?
81. Ran Away From Home: No
82. Broken a bone: All fingers and both tibias.
83. Got an X-ray: yes
84. Been on a cruise: I have worked on a ship...like I was a sailor
86. Dumped someone: hehe I am a nerd, have you ever seen a nerd dump someone.
87. Cried When Someone Died: No, but when my grandma dies, I will. She is a mother to me.

Do You Believe In :
.89. God: I think people need to believe in something
90. Miracles: No that's ridiculus
91. Love at First Sight: It's just like other kinds of love but at first sight
92. Ghosts: What's a ghost?
93. Aliens: I don't know
94. Soul Mates: Definitely
95. Heaven: no
96. Hell: no (an ever burning flame, that's against the conservation of energy)
97. Answered prayers: YES
98. Kissing on The First Date: yes
99. Horoscopes: yes.

Answer Truthfully :
.100. Is there someone you wish you had? Huh..I guess not...not that I can think of

Sleepless night poem --As usual, there is a poem when I don't sleep....

I can not forget, for a single night,
The wind that clapped, the rain that danced
In the empty song, of the moonlight

ok wait I'll finish it tomorrow...or not. I don't like poetry anyway.

Hahahaha

2006-07-15T08:56:00.000-07:00

Hahahahaha....I feel like shouting but I laugh. hihihihi hahahaha hohohoo hehehehe....see you Monday for a new post. I can not post this weekend.

JL sent me an email that made me feel much better. I have posted this music and would not have been possible had she not sent me a link that allows you to make a website hosting music, videos a blog and pictures. JL you da best. The site is multiply.com and mine is http://steliano.multiply.com/

I couldn't sleep this night. This happens to me too often. I am usually doing something and I get all worked up and then it's impossible to sleep. As usual, when I have a white night I post a poem...let me think

potatoes are orange
apples are blue
I love me
you love you....yaaaayyyy

How do you like this music. My music will be quite different as of now, since I will be able to upload music, thanks to Multiplier.

James Brown

2006-07-13T13:19:00.000-07:00

-ZERAO-

In a few minutes you will be listening to James Brown. Numbers 6 to 10 are questions. A kind of informal tag.

-WAN-

A very cliche scene: I was walking after dinner. There were 4 people, 3 boys and 1 girl, speaking English with various accents. It was not raining but lightening was striking behind the mountains in very bright and constant blows. The 3 boys were discussing which is the biggest army in the world. One was saying Indonesia, another China and a third was listening. The girl, from time to time, would say "look how beautiful the lightening is". The three boys never listened to her and never changed subject.

-TEW-

I can not beleive this really was happening in front of me. It really seems like a scene from a bad novel. Some people say life is bad litterature.

-SRI-

Alexander the great snippet. For 3 centuries after his (Alexander's) death, Persian emperors added the title "helleniphile" or even "alexandrian" to their royal titles. Even though Alexander had defeated their empire. Their admiration for him was immense. In Persian art, he is painted with dark hair and oriental clothes. Like he was actually Persian.

-FO-

On the other hand. When he was alive, Alexander admired Persia so much he was jealouse of it. He often said how much he thought Persians, his enemies, were more sophisticated than greek people. He also was jealouse of their king Darius for being tall. Alexander himself was a shorty.

-FA-

The most humanist period in history is not the renaissance. It is the hellenic age. I have this wonderful poem that speaks about it. I will find it and post it soon. Maybe tomorrow.

-SEEX-

If your first child is a boy, what would you call him? And if it is a girl, what would you call her?

-SAVEN-

What is the sound you are hearing right now? (other from your computer)

-ATE-

Do you know anyone who has a mustache? Do you like that person?

-NAN-

Who is the school teacher you liked most? who is the one you likes least (hated most)?

-TONNE-

Who do you think is cooler, Bart simpson or Queen Elizabeth.

-E e e leven-

James Brown rocks. Ja oder Nein?

Spammity spam

2006-07-12T07:38:00.000-07:00

I received this most delightful spam in my email. I mean god bless those people the humour on them is so...so new. Do not miss the convos (conversations) we are having under the other posts. They are not over. I had always taken the word convo to mean convolution. I guess now it has another meaning. What is a convolution you might ask me. Well its when the future state of a system is affected by its state at all past and future times. A bit strange, I know. Now, the spam. I highlited the words that most made me laugh or made me laugh the most (to expostulate...remember this monologue?). Italic is the spammer and otherwise its me (how do you call otherwise):

Dearest,

Dear pls read this mail carefully why i will really like to have a good relationship with you, and i have a special reason why i decided to contact you.

I decided to contact you because of the urgency of my situation here and after reading your profile , I am Miss Joy, 25 years old girl from Liberia, the only daughter of Late yormie johnson the deputy minister of national security under the leadership of president Charles Taylor who is now in exile after many innocent soul were killed, My father was killed by government of Charles Taylor, he accuse my father of coup attempt.

My father'son and I are trapped in obnoxious custom traditional rites. We have suffered maltreatment and unto hardship in the hands of my late Father's family. They have taken all that I suffered with my Father to acquire including treasure, houses and his bank accounts closed by them. I wanted to escape to the United State of America[USA}* but again they conspired* and stole my international passport and other traveling documents to further frustrate me.

Thank God, two weeks ago, I received Key Text Code [KTC]* from my dearest brother that our father deposited U.S $5.2 Million [Five Million two Hundred Thousand United States Dollars*] in a box wih a security company with his name as the next of kin and he handed this key and documeent over to him, which the Security Company did not know the real content of the box, as our late Father made it clear to them as a family valuables.

It has therefore, become very necessary and urgent to contact someone, a foreigner like you* to help us receive/secure this funds overseas and to help us invest it on our behalf as well, while we find a way of getting out to meet with you in your country for the purpose of investmennt of this fund*.

Please be honest to us and keep it confidentail to avoid detection, seizure* or diversion. I have had several telephone discussions with the Security Company Director of the said consignment*, but he told me that unless my late father's foriegn partner overseas forward his application for withdrawal This is why I have contacted you to help save my brother and I, receive these funds on our behalf.

But, you would need to give us sufficient assurance that if you help us, you would not divert the funds. My brother and I have resolved to give you 10% of the total sum. This is all my brother and I have got to live on. Please, we have reposed our confidence in you and hope you will not disappoint us. We will forward to you the contact to the Director of this Security company to enable you contact him and ask him the possibility of receiving this box containing this funds on our behalf as the sole beneficiary, look ing forward to your urgent response,but note that the Security Company does not know the real content of this trunck box rather they know it as family valuables.

As soon as you show your interrest to assist us, then we will forward to you the Document being issue to my late Father at the day of deposit for the claim. Thanks and God be with you, awaiting for your immediate response.

Best Personal Regards. MISS. Joy johnson.

Picture Now

2006-07-11T23:17:00.000-07:00

I think this is the Tsar Nicolai or something Romanoff or something. The last one you know. He is arriving in a visit to Istanbul. Don't you wish you were a Tsar, or superman, or even Gauss.

Sleepless

2006-07-11T22:47:00.000-07:00

I couldn't sleep last night. Also, I composed some variations on a silly little theme. I wish we could listen to them, then we would all have a good laugh :D I mean they are quite bad I think. Now, off to campus for me. The whole day there....niahahah niahahaha

Me & My Blog

2006-07-10T10:41:00.000-07:00

-I-

I want to write about reasons that make me love or hate my blog. But not now. I really have to tell you about my trips. But not now.

-II-

Quote by Oscar Wilde : "To fall in love with oneself is the begenning of a life lasting romance."

-III-

Quote by S.Chandrasekhar : "Simplicity is the fabric of truth and beauty."

-III- and a half

Quote by Mozart : "Neither a lofty degree of intelligence nor imagination nor both together go to the making of genius. Love, love, love, that is the soul of genius."

-IV-

Quote by Einstein : "Things should be made as simple as possible, not simpler"

-V-

Quote by Olivia : "We shall have to remedy this"

-VI-

Quote by a famous politician : "Is our children learning?"

-VII-

Quote by Beethoven : "When I open my eyes a sigh involuntarily escapes me, for all that I see runs counter to my religion : perforce I despise the world which does not intuitively feel that music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy"

-VIII-

Debussey : "Eventually, they will get it right"

-IX-

Quote by Gauss : " The never-satisfied man is so strange. If he has completed a structure, then it is not in order to dwell in it peacefully, but in order to begin another. I imagine world conquerors must feel thus, who, after one kingdom is scarcely conquered, stretche out their arms for others"

-X-

Alexander the great : "A tomb now suffices him for whom the whole world was not sufficient. "

Italy Wins

2006-07-09T13:59:00.000-07:00

I think the man of the match was Jianluigi Buffon. This was one of the worst world cups ever. The best scorer of the world cup is German Miroslav Klose with only 5 goals. This says it all. Last time, in Korea, the best scorer was Ronaldo with 9! So this was a very defensive world cup.

It is a shame for a world cup final to end in a shootout. This is what happened. This sucks. Congratulations to Italy.

Title

2006-07-07T15:47:00.001-07:00

Title mitle really and whatever and random thoughts and slepy mind. Greetings.

I have just watched the film Amadeus. I think it is just great. It's about jealousy, passion, doubt and also talent. The story is told by Antonio Salieri, who was Mozart's rival and used his influence to discredit his work. I would like to say more, but that would spoil it if you watch it.

I once talked about Mozart's letters to his cousin and how they were totally silly and just compilations of jokes and puns on the silliest subjects. The film reflects this part of Mozart's personality very well.

There is another movie I watched this week. Volver. The new movie by Pedro Almodovar. Its very nice and one of the most easily watchable Almodovars. It stars Penelope Cruz who sings a beautiful song in it. I mean her voice is just wonderful and the song is very beautiful. I was very surprised to see she can sing so well.

Speaking of Spanish movies. The funniest movie in the world, I am sure, is The Ferpect Crime. I have said this before. Watch it!

Finally, I do not have to go to Parigge (Paris in Italian?). So I will be here and speak about my trips.

Gute nacht (thanks JLissima)

Late night pseudo-""rant""

2006-07-05T16:34:00.000-07:00

-Addendum-

Like Olive says. "Addendum". I added a dscussion I had with Michelle, the dream analyst, about music instruments. Since I was talking about the same thing.

-What-

I was thinking. Yes, I really was. What would make me go on a hunger strike? I mean I love food. I would never imagine myself not eating. Maybe if France wins the World cup, I will go on a hunger strike.
-This-
Don't get me wrong. I really like France. It's where I was born, etc and all the other things. But I can't stand it when they win in football. Every time, there are hundreds of people celebrating in the streets. The same people who usually, when I tell them I play football, tell me football fans are stupid and all the other stereotypes. They suddenly like football, because it is France, of course. This is very silly. I mean I would think this kind of attitude is for school children not grown-ups. It is like a child saying "my father is the strongest man in the world".

-On a different note-

Anyways. I was also thinking. I have bought a book about ear-training. It teaches musical dictation. This means knowing notes when you hear them. Of course this is very important in music. Playing music is mainly about showing off your skill (I am not saying talent). If you know musical dictation then when someone plays in front of you, you can guess the note and tell them, "but hah, I guessed it. It is simple" and then play it yourself. Imagine the moment of delicious narcissism you will be living then.

-Honestly-

I mean I don't think music is difficult, nor that it has a very special value. It does have very neat (right spelling?) mathematical structure and sometimes is even very intriguing to understand. But that is also true about cross-words. The best thing in music is that in general people think musical skill is such a great thing. They do not think being good at cross-words is great. I mean as soon as I say "I play the piano", people start taking me seriously and finding me interesting. Compare to "I play football". It's a jungle out there really.

-Even more honestly-

But also, and to be fair. Playing music is a very interesting activity. In german they say "A piano brings friends and freud into your house". That is so true. In a strange combination of physical and emotional factors, your state of mind is always totally visible in the way you play. A musical instrument is like a lie-detector. And one that really works. If you are sad or mad or happy or euphoric or sleepy or anything, you play that way. I even find there is a "guilty" way of playing.

-Idea-

How about a tag. Wouldn't that be fun. The posts on my two trips are coming soon. I might have to go to Paris after tomorrow. So, I might be a bit late.

-Michelle's opinion-

Comparison between playing the piano and the violin : When you play the violin, you get your fingers in all these stretched positions and its uncomfortable. When playing the piano you think more about the music than about the technique. The violin is an extremely technical instrument. Playing the piano is more fulfulling. In Michelle's own words.

-Me-

I think I totally agree. We should thank whoever invented the piano. It was Bach. Bach hugely simplified music.

New Mu-zik

2006-07-04T13:02:00.000-07:00

By royal decree of his royal majesty king stelvis, we have chosen to indulge the request of our neighbor her emperial majesty empress Olive and to change the mu-zik.

Here is a samaai. This is a musical form you find around the medeterranean. It is a piece made of 4 sections and with a relatively fast rythm. The sections differ by the pattern defining their melody, but not in their modes and generally not in rythm. In plaine English, its a kind of song with 4 melodies.

The rythm used here is a kind of rumba. Am I right JL? This piece is quite special near the end, using something a bit like counterpoints. Well, this was my analysis. Tell me what you think of the music.

Back!

2006-07-02T17:28:00.000-07:00

I am back. I had an excellent time in Germany. Right now I am tired and a bit, how should I say, feeling blue. Like a bit sad. But it will pass, of course. Well, here I am.

Friday Night

2006-06-29T13:51:00.000-07:00

I will go buy some Tiramisu, and then I will come back and blog this. Tomorrow, first thing in the morning, I am going to Deutchland, is that how you write it? Will watch the Argentina-Germany match at the Berlin Olympiastadion. I will be sitting with the argentine fans, since I am travelling with friends from Argentina. I am for Argentina also and I hope no German fans cick our ass over this. Will be back.

Ok, I am having trouble writting this. Maybe I will try later. Right now, Its not coming together. See you soon, I should be back Monday.

The young king on his nike sneakers

2006-06-28T14:53:00.000-07:00

I apologise in advance for this awkward post. I have posted dream 31 below.

Yesterday, I was reading Oscar Wilde's short story, "The Young King". It is from his collection of short "children" stories, "A House of Pommegranates ". By the way, Pomme Granates are the Pommes = Apples of Grenada in Spain. So, the young king says this about his very expensive robe that was made by a poor child : "Take these things away and hide them from me. Though it be the day of my corronation, I will not wear them. For on the loom of sorrow and by the white hands of pain, has this my robe been woven. "

I was very moved by this. You know what I mean, I paused and looked at the cieling -I was in my bed- and thought "Merde, that is true". Of course we might think this is just how the world goes. But I did feel a bit sad about it. Well Voila. Probably the worst post I ever wrote. I promise not to do this again.

Dream no31

2006-06-28T14:45:00.000-07:00

I am in a room in a hotel. The phone rings : "There is someone here to see you", the receptionist says. "Send them up" I go. So an old lady, black hair and very bright eyes comes up. After a few minutes, phone rings. The same thing. A tall old man, speaks all the time and seems intelligent. For the rest of the dream, the phone goes on ringing and people coming up to my room. There are 5 children, a football team, two Russian scientists, a oud player, 3 girls..I can't remember all the people. But the room gets incredibly packed. Personally, and I imagine the other people too, I feel very uncomfortable. I want to scream, to be alone and releived from this pressure. After some time, I don't know exactly how long, it starts raining outside. Gentle drops of rain and then a big storm. The idea comes to me like lightning. I open the window and tell them all to jump.

Hmpf

2006-06-28T12:25:00.000-07:00

I am quite tired after an afternoon of football. Friday I will be off to Germany to watch a World Cup match. I have a dream to tell you and I must finish about my trip to Montpellier. I will do all that tomorroa afternoon and maybe a bit this evening. Now I am exhausted.

Flamenco

2006-06-27T04:04:00.000-07:00

Although I think I explaned this once before.

I should start by saying Flamenco is an interactive dance, it has three parts, the dancer who uses parts of his or her body to create counter rythm, the Music or the rythm and the Dance itself.

Since many believe Flamenco is one dance, they are wrong. There are many dances, a few Main Dances and many others that branch from the main. Every dance has its own rythm and movement.

The Main widely known Dance outside Spain is the Sevilians...it has a six count. In this dance the dancer uses their feet and hands as percussion with a sharp Gulpa or Foot Stomp with a sharp Palmas or hand clap with it. 1-2-3-G-5-G. The whole dance has the same count.

One of the Traditional or Folk Rumbas I dance from Granada has a quicker count. 1-2-3 -- 4. The fourth count is a foot sweep up off the floor like you are kicking something away. This is a group dance with 8 people or 4 couples. The 1-2-3 are G's. When you listen to the music the cords are the count, da da da DA.

Another Dance I do is a varation of the Tangos...called Tangelios. This dance is different in both the music and movement. Palmas is used at the opening for percussion along with the music. with a 1-2-3-4 5-6 7-8. Its a softer more romantic dance with promenade's at the begining and a slower count throughout. the 5-6 7-8 are more like small steps together.

There are more dances but these are the only ones I know.

Video Links

2006-06-27T02:36:00.000-07:00

England-Ecuador

Portugal-Netherlands

Italy-Australia

Switzerland-Ukraine

JL, can you explain to me the stuff you know about Flamenco please.

Footie update

2006-06-26T16:03:00.000-07:00

Ukraine just beat Switzerland after a shootout. Ukrainian fans can thank their goally Olexander Chovkovski for winning them the game. As I said, videos tomorrow. I really like the name Olexander.

Eureka?

2006-06-26T14:36:00.000-07:00

I have just made a mini discovery in music. Or maybe not. Anyways, I feel quite smart now so I will share it. The flamenco scale is the major scale inverted and played from the end to the beginning. Meaning :

Major scalre : 1-1-1/2-1-1-1-1/2
Flamenco: 1/2-1-1-1-1/2-1-1

Where the 1 and 1/2 mean a tone or a half tone. So I feel smart, yupi.

Foottie

2006-06-26T14:20:00.000-07:00

This afternoon the Australian soceroos played the squadra azzura. Australia is coached by dutch Guss Heddink, who can make any team in the world into a world class contender. This is again what he has done with Australia who competed with italy for the whole 90 minutes. Near the end of the match, a very imaginary penalty was given to itali which Francesco Totti scored. Italy wins 1-0.

Yesterday night the Netherlands played Portugal. A completely frustrating match where the referee gave 7 yellow cards and 2 read to each team. Portugal played in a very silly style. They used anti-play. All they did was waste time and stop the dutch from playing so they bored the death out of them and made them totally lose their concentration. Portugal wins 1-0. I am happy for portugal because I like this team which has been together for more than 10 years.

Videos tomorrow morning

Good Morning!

2006-06-26T00:19:00.000-07:00

I leave you with this picture.

Video Links

2006-06-25T08:02:00.000-07:00

Argentina-Mexico

Germany-Sweden

World Cup Coverage

2006-06-25T07:37:00.000-07:00

The second round has started. Here are the matches to come. I will post a link to Video resumes of the matches now...

----------------------
Germany-Sweden
Argentina-Mexico
-----------------------

-----------------------
England-Equador
Portugal-Netherlands
-----------------------

-----------------------
Italy-Australia
Switzerland-Ukraine
-----------------------

-----------------------
Brazil-Ghana
Spain-France
-----------------------

The winners in each of these groups will play each other in the 1/4 finals. Losers go home.

Yesterday was Germany-Sweden and Argentina-Mexico.

Germany-Sweden

Germany seemed unbeatable. Michael Balack is a great team leader. He is full of ideas and has great leadership of the team. Miroslav Close and Podolsky (I don't know his name) are a leathal attack duo. There is also great work by Philippe Lahm, the shortest player in the German team :D on the left side.

Weak points in Germany are defense and goally.

Germany dominated the whole match and won 2-0. Both scored by Podolsky. They scored very early at the 4th minute and never looked back.

On the swedish side, goally Isaksson played a great match. But he could not have won alone. This is a great disappointment for Sweden, Ibrahimovic, Larsson and other players had very high hopes for this world cup. But they met Germany.

What is so great about the German team is they play very un-German football. Like they are bad in defense and very creative in attack. This is a revolution in German football.

Argentina-Mexico

Argenitna was the most impressive team in the first round. Mexico are a huge defensive team and had beaten very good teams like Angola and Iran.

Against all expectations, Mexico scored after 30 seconds. It was a wonderful goal coming from a very quick combination.

Argentina repraised after 4 minutes. Pure argentine goal from a corner. They put so much pressure on the Mexican defense that they made them score against their own goal.

Then no one scored until the end, so there was extra time. Just a few minutes into the extra time the young Maxi Rodriguez took a very inspired initiative and tried a difficult shopt from 23 meters, Goaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaal. Argentina wins.

Fritag Morgen

2006-06-24T14:24:00.000-07:00

Ok, this is the third post today. Read the ones before, otherwise its not, how should I say, serious, or maybe, amphibian or some other adjective. No, please read them in order, I am asking you.

Friday Morning

Well, "morning". My mom went to work at 7 a.m. and I woke up at 2 p.m. I would have slept more, but the girl who cleans the rooms woke me up. I think I will remember this girl's face for a long time. She has the biggest smile I ever saw. Do you remember the Italian Girl by VL? Imagine her, in real life, right in front of you and giving you a giant cheerful smile "Bonjour". Bonjour meaning, you should leave now you lazy person you. Which I did.

I went out. The first thing I saw was a sign for an expo of paintings of Berthe Morisot at the museum. Berthe Morisot was Eugene Manet's wife. She wasn't an impressionist but was influenced by them and her favourite subject was her daughter, whome she painted over and over. She is really a huge talent as I saw later.

As I walked throught the city, I noticed something fabulous. All the center of the city was neoclassical. When I say neoclassical, I don't mean boring buildings with columns. For instance, there is this one building called the Ulysseum which is shaped as a Doric column. The building is actually a giant column, with windows in it and offices inside it.

I walked to the Comedie, there I met a friend of mine, Joy. We walked for some time and then she had to leave. Then I went to see my mom at the Esplanade.

With my mom, I met her "friend" Dr Gaga, from Greece. My mom insists they are friends, but I think they just work together. I should say, Dr G is a lady. We sat together in a cafe. Them talking about work and travelling and more travelling and me getting bored to death. I was saved by a trio of musicians who came to play in the cafe. A Clarinet, a Violin and an Accordeon. Dr G said she used to play the Clarinet when younger and I discovered my mom used to play the accordeon +)

Then we had lunch and went to the hotel, to prepare Friday night.

Thursday night

2006-06-24T13:24:00.000-07:00

This will come in 4 parts. Thursday night, Friday morning, Friday night, Saturday morning. Here is the first and not the best. The others are really way better.

I took the bus to Valence, then the Train to Montpellier. The trip was empty. No events, no people, no scenery to note, unless I want to give you a classical description of the French campagne (country-side).

I arrived at the gare (train station) of Montpellier Saint Roch at 11 p.m.. I met my mom there. Montpellier is where she lived from age 18 to 30, for 12 years +) . Now, she was there for two days, then she goes on to England.

First thing we saw was the Place de La Comedie. This is a big square with a 17th century opera house and theatre at one end and a long path covered by trees at the other end. The opera house is called La Comedie and the path the Esplanade. La comedie has the word "Comedie" on one side of its facade and the word "Tragedie" on the other. Beneath each word there is a face that goes with it. All in wonderful marble statues. At the center of the square, there is a Renaissance statue of three girls, called Les Trois Demoiselles. It stands on a rock from the sea.

We had dinner at "Wellcomedia", a cafe right under the Comedie. We ate outside in great weather and stayed there until 12:30, then went to the hotel.

At the hotel, we chatted until 3 a.m. and went to sleep. The next day would be great for me.

Montpellier, Montpellier

2006-06-24T10:05:00.000-07:00

I had a more than wonderful time, drank a lot and met a lot of different people and saw very beatiful things. I was in another country, the south of fronce (correct pronunciation ;D ). I think this will make a wonderful post. Sank yo fo' yo at-ten-shen an-en-jo yo tip. (The train driver said this when I was coming back. I suspect it means "thank you for your attention and enjoy your trip".)

Showtime

2006-06-21T11:54:00.000-07:00

More shameless phlogging

Tagaliscious or Tagalicioso

2006-06-21T11:13:00.000-07:00

I am 23 years old :). (the point is part of the smiley) (Blue you're tagged kaman) Some "d"s are surely missing. Sorry.

1) At my 23 birthday I thought I was 24, but it was my bad arithmetic. Or wasn't it.

2)There is a giant fly in my room and I didn't win a mobile phone. Why are the aliens angry at me??!

3)Every time I go on a plane I meet someone interesting and totally exciting. I mean, the best and most interesting conversations in my life took place on planes or in airports.

4)I wish I was 4. I totally need a haircut, but can't find the time. I look like a sheep.

5)This is haaaaaaaaaaard today. I have a shirt that I have had for 7 years and still wear. It's still good too.

6)There is no six element field, such a thing does not exist. But this doesn't count here. What would happen to a 60 year ol if they got tagged. Ok, ok,..my neighbors can see inside my room. Not very comfortable this way.

7)There is however a seven element field, it has only one generator. If I do this again, hit me please with something very heavy. Can I fnish later, my eyes hurt. Guess whose back! I had this very eminem period where I listened to eminem an rap. heh.

8)When I was in first year in uni I used to interrupt the teachers as they gave lectures an talk about something else, also I use to walk out of class like in front of them and all. Looking back, I find this very childish and silly.

9)Sometimes I feel lonely but that never lasts. (The instrospective entry here)

10)My father always says when you finish half of something, you can start looking forwars to the end. So in the same way, I think, when you finish the quarter you can look to end of the half and so to the end. If you continue this, you can look forward to the end from the beginning. Common sense is a cheesy thing.

11)I think there is no life after death. How about you?

12)Sometimes I think we can run out of memory. Like we can stop remembering things because its full in our brain.

13)I don't like children that much. I don't know if I would want to have any. Maybe not.

14)There is nothing as a 14 element field *get's smacked on the head really hard* thank you, whoever that was. But look the funniest movie in the world is Big Fish, even funnier than it is a Spanish movie called The Ferpect Crime, not the Perfect, the Ferpect. It is funniest than the funniest movie in the world.

15)So this week end in Monpellier we are invited to this cocktail party. It's supposed to be quite the thing. I hope it will wake me up (and hey, maybe I will get drunk there!)

16)Ran out of ideas. Will be back in 5 minutes. I am not wearing my glasses these days. I really need to wear them all the time but I am not. Not good. I am sure this summer when I get them checked they will have become weaker.

17)Also I don't hear very well. Well, that's an exagerration. But I don't hear very faint sounds.

18)The you-won-a-mobile-phone lady was so wiered, after I spoke to her I forgot three pages of music I ha learned. All gone.

19)My favourite T-shirt is a Simpsons T-shirt with Bart's anatomy on it. And there is another one with evolution leading from monkeys to Homer Simpson.

20)Allready at twenty. Good. My 20th birthday is not a very good memory. I was feeling down for many reasons especially I thought -back then- I was not doing much with my life. Now, I know I am not doing much with my life, lol. Also, around that time I got a very direct rejection from a girl I had a crush on. Very nice :D :D

21)I would really love to visit South America some time. And also Cuba.

22) 22 is the name of a restaurant my mom used to take us to when I was a kid.

23) Today, I think I am in a positive period of my life. Really.

Valentina Tereshkova

2006-06-21T11:01:00.000-07:00

Valentina Tereshkova. First woman in space. She didn't finishs school when she was a child and became an astronaut, or a cosmonaut as they say in russian, because she was a good parachute jumper. Later she married another astronaut, their daughter is the only child of two astronauts in the world. People thought she would be born different, because her parents had been in space.

Elvis with dog

2006-06-21T10:57:00.000-07:00

Trip to south

2006-06-21T10:02:00.000-07:00

From friday to monday, I will go to Montpellier to see my mom. For once, she is in France. I mean this year she was in Pakistan, the UAE, Spain and Italy. My mom travels so much, one day she will become omniperesent. Now, I need to leave you with enough stuff to read while I am away.

It appears I will go to Australia next year and not England. Too bad, I like England a lot. But hey, I will discover Australia. Have you ever been there? I could have went for Germany but I don't speak German.

So, Olive the other day watched a documentary about learning Arabic. I thought I might say something about this. Maybe Arabic words in English or other languages.

Spanish is filled with Arabic words. Like Almohada means pillow and Jabon means soap and Kamisa means shirt and Naranja means orange and and. In fact "el", like "the" in Spanish is an Arabic words.

In english maybe the best word is Sorbet. In europe, the word would not have been invented. Since the climate is more cool, you don't need to invent a cold drink to refresh yourself, and you don't need to invent ice-cream. So words meaning these things will not be invented. During the crusades, the crusaders discovered : Ice-cream. They brought it back with its name "Sorbet".

III

More often, people mention the word "Algebra", or "x" from maths. Honestly, I feel more grateful to the inventor of ice-cream than to the inventor of Algebra.

I just, incientally, finished a big Hagen Datz ice-cream. Summer Berries and Cream flavour.

Should I tell you about Galois now. Galois was the son on a revolutionary mayor of a town near Paris. He thought he was good at maths and he was very politically crazy. Like the people that shout on talk shows on TV, like on BBC Hardtalk. Then, then what...oh...he however faile every test he ever passed and especially the one to study at the Ecole Polytechnique, the very prestigious school founded by Napoleon - btw this school still educates the most unproductive people in France until now- so he failed and failed and faile. So later, he just became a loser and went to prison over some political fight or something. In prison, he became crazy, so they let him out in order to be treated.

In hospital, he fell in love with his Dr's daughter, Stephanie. Of course, she didn't know he exists. As soon as he got well he provoked her fiance into a duel. Of course Galois didn't know how to fence! He basically knew he was going to die.

During the last night before the Duel, which was set at dawn, he wrote a big mathematical theory. He invented Groups and Fields and Galois Theory. All of these are so hard you need like a couple of weeks to learn anyone of them, I mean just like to get to know it well. But he did them all in one night before going to a duel. Next morning he died, of course. As I said before, my high school is Lycee Evariste Galois. That a high school would be called after this guy is quite strange. I mean I could argue that I am a better person than him, at least I am not crazy. They should call a high school after me.

An annoying thing with classical music is you can't clap your hands and can't shout at a concert. This wasn't always the case. Back when classical music was popular people could stand up in the middle of Beethoven's 3rd symphony and shout whatever they wanted. Like there is a famous story about a soldier from Napoleon's army -a Grenadier- feeling so much greatness in the 3rd symphony that he stood up and started shouting, "The Emperor, The Emperor,..." Also in the 16th century in Italy people brought food to the Opera with them. You basically went on a picnic and you coul let your children run around the theatre while you ate and drank and listened, and even talked.

Buzzzzz

2006-06-19T17:06:00.000-07:00

First man on the moon. He must have been very disapointed. Buzz Aldrin from U.S.A.

Room Cleaned

2006-06-19T16:52:00.000-07:00

Today I cleaned my room. This was part of a five year plan, lol. Get the joke with Gagarin? It was very hard because I hadn't cleaned for weeks. But you must know that cleaning my room for me consists of the following steps

1)Throw away unwashed dishes. Indeed, they will not be washed. 2)There are amny objects on the floor. Get a big bag and put them in it. Throw the bag away. Indeed, they will never be picke up. Now my room looks wonderful. I mean It is so spacious just looking at it makes me feel good.

I am going with a calligraphy theme. I am hanging calligraphies especially those nice arabesques on the walls. I know a guy who once made a fall foliage theme. He put leaves on his walls. It was really really great and girls loved it.

Olive, when you say maybe it was a scam. Are you making fun of me? :D :D Just kidding.

So first I used romans and then ordinals and now letters. Where is this going?

Let me tell you the story of Evariste Galois. Next thing, ok.

Before I go. I saw my friend the singer who doesn't want to sing. A.N. (By this point are you convinced her name isn't Anne) She threw another major wisedome at me : What is the difference between greed and ambition? I like this girl, we are childhood friends. But this is even too silly for steli. We shall have to remedy this.

A lost VL

2006-06-19T15:13:00.000-07:00

I thought I had posted every known VL on my computer. There is this one I ha forgotten. WHy is it not on the VL blog you might ask? I forgot the password. The idea of me organizing something is a mirage.

Yuri Gagarin

2006-06-19T15:07:00.000-07:00

First man in space, ever ever. Yuri Gagarin from the CCCP.

Dream no30 and more

2006-06-19T10:06:00.000-07:00

Last night I had an action dream. I was driving my old Skoda car. I used to have one but it totally got smashed in an accident. A big truck turned it into an accordeon, while it was parked. So there was no one in it :D

So I was driving the car with my parents and sis. Then a truck, very much like the one that destroyed it in reality, came in front of me, in opposite direction. It was clear it wanted to run into me. So I stopped and drove en arriere, how do you call that, in rear drive?

There I was, driving to the back and a truck chasing me. Then I take the car into a field and we run away on foot and hide at these people's house.

Then I immediately woke up. It was 2 a.m. Something came to my mind. Street fighters. I hadn't played that game for 10 years. I opened my pc and google'd it. I found a site where I played street fighters online until 5 a.m. Then I got dressed.

Today was not a usual day. Today I had to do a final presentation in order to receive my Engineering diploma. So I guess I warmed up very well with an action-horror dream and 3 houres of Street Fighters. Everything went smooth. I am almost officially an engineer, nay, I belong to the brigade of engineers of the polytechnical whatever. I am really happy I am not really going to become an engineer.

Then I went to the lab -where I will study for next 3 years- and wrote something I had to write. Then I came home. Phone rings!

I have won a mobile phone! I hate mobile phones, but I can't say no! It's part of my lieing syndrome. I always say yes. So I said yes to something I totally didn't want. Then I felt horrible about it -typical really- I felt so bad that I was playing music and my hands were like out of controle, almost trembling. I feel like the "you won a mobile phone" lady is going to haunt me now.

Sigh.

Dream no29

2006-06-18T09:45:00.000-07:00

That dream. I hope it really in no29. Otherwise I will have lost count. Here it is. It is here.

4 people are at my grandma's table. Me, next to me to the left is my grandma and to the left is Olivia. Next to Olivia and facing me is a very annoying person. We don't know who it is. We are drinking tea, all four. Basically, everyone is behaving. Only the mystery guest is not. He does very stupid things. He speaks very loud, stupid and mean, he makes noise when he drinks. Etc.

Me and tata are ignoring him, and very mad at him. O is being Diplomatic. Like trying to tell him to leave in a polite way. So there is quite some tension around the table. But then my gma falls asleep. So everyons shuts up. Silence.

I open the window behind her and start watching people in the street.

Last night

2006-06-15T14:30:00.000-07:00

In addvace, my "d" button is not working...use la tuya imaginacion

I stayed up reading a book about compared myth and religion. It had a very interesting chapter about how Adonis evolved into Jesus. The author argues that the character Adonis is the older version of Jesus an that the story of Adonis being sacrifices in order to allow the cycle of life to continue evolved into Jesus being sacrificed to forgive people. Very interesting.

I also read about creation myths in different cultures and about how Mesopotamian and Phoenecian gods evolved into the Greek gods. Like Mesopotamia had fertility gods, the phoenecians continued to have a Fertility god as the main god but he became god of rain and lightening Haddad and not the older agricultural gods like Enlil and his friends Fonzy and Ralph Malph. So Haddad allready threw lightening like Zeus, you see. It was one step closer to Zeus.

I want to choose one of these to talk about because as usual its very beautiful stories and poems.

So here is a babylonian text about the creation of the the universe. I wanted to write Adonis but the way he is sacrifices is so sad so maybe later.

When there was no heaven above

When there was no earth below

When only Apso their father

Tiama who gave birth to all of them

and memo existed

mixing the oceans together

before there were prairies

before there were rivers

..............................

This is the beginning of a Babylonian text called "When above". It tells how the old gods ruled over a chaotic universe, made of oceans. At one time they decided to create younger gods. So they created Ia and Murdoch. The young gods started making too much noise for the old ones. Indeed the ol gods were used to a completely eventless world. The new ones start acting consciously and they make their parents mad

Apso opened his mouth to speak:

Their conduct annoys me

I can not rest in the day

I can not sleep at night

I will destroy them and end their action.

When Tiama heard that, she became angry:

How can we destroy

the ones we have created

The third old God Memo intervenes and calls for the destruction of the young gods. So they all agree to that. They wanted calm to return to the universe....next they fight

Back?

2006-06-15T08:37:00.000-07:00

The fever is gone, but before it left it made burn marks under my eyes. Imagine that! It was so hot my face is burnt like when you go skiing or swimming. Well, Thanks again for coming back while I was away. Now I am feeling better, only my room stincks.

What would you like me to talk about

1.Galois.
2.Random Stuff.
3.Drinking story.

I haven't forgotten the dream where Olivia appears.

2006-06-14T14:34:00.000-07:00

A Card for You

2006-06-13T05:18:00.000-07:00

Get Well Soon, Steli-mou!

Bisous,

Olive +)

Fever

2006-06-11T18:49:00.000-07:00

I have a fever, its very bad. I am feeling very tired. Here is a poem insipred by my fever. It is not mine of course, I mean my fever reminded me of it.

My complaint or my song,
does the night hear?
My enemies or my friends,
what are the stars?
How long will my silence last?
like a mute rose
that never knew the gift of music

Day 2 of that thing

2006-06-10T12:57:00.000-07:00

ANACROUSE

I didn't go to watch the matches. I was playing music, I mean annoying my neighbors, while they watched. I did watch the resumes...here

England-Paraguay : As everyone thought England is a solid team. However, it was a surprise how helpless they are offensively. They olny manages a 1-0 win over Paraguay, goal by David Beckham. England, if they continue with this level, are not going to do very well. I think this world cup is going to be as full of surprises as the one before.

SWEDEN-TRINIDAD & TOBAGO : Sweden are now an experimented team with great players like Hendrick Larsson and Zlatan Ibrahimovic. I was especially waitting to see what Zlatan would do, I like him. Trinidad are playing their first world cup and were expected to be an easy prey for Sweden. Non of that happened. Although Ibrahimovic and Larsson put a 90 minute siege on the Trinidad goal, the goally Shaka Heslop stopped all their shots. He was the man of the match and earned his country a 0-0 with Sweden. Go Shaka.

FIRST

What does Anacrouse mean? It is a note that is played before the music starts. Like a James Brown orchestra hit, you know, lol. Not part of the music, but kicks the melody off. Like tam and then you play the song. Do you see what I mean?

SECOND

Later today Agentina beat Ivory Cost 2-1. This was the first really high level match in this world cup. Argentina is also the fist big team to put on a good show. Yupi. Tomorrow I will not comment on the matches in order not to make the posts too foottie.

THIRD

It is 5 a.m and I can not get any sleep. So what? Here is that egyptian music I promised. I could not find a version using the old instruments. This is ancient egyptian music as imagined based on reconstruction of old instruments. But played by an orchestra.

Day 1 of World Cup

2006-06-09T15:21:00.000-07:00

ONE

SO here I am. I have watched TV today for the first time in moths. This morning I handed my masters report and at the same time a report for work. As of now I only have more fun work to do. So, I wet to watch the world Cup. Two matches today. Germany vs Costa Rica and Ecuador vs Poland. Germany won 4-2 but didn't convince anyone and especially their goally Jens Lehman known as Crazy Jens was so bad. I am really happy about that because I DO NOT LIKE him. Ecuador was a wonderful surprise and beat Poland 2-0 after a nice match. Tomorrow England plays.

TWO

Now, let me think, I want to improvise a post here. I broke my chair today. Again. Remember I had broken an old one before, now I broke the new one. I will buy one tomorrow. Let's see how long it stays without breaking. In probability we would be speaking of a regeneration process. I like those.

THREE

Today I saw a crow attack a cat. Can you imagine that. The cat beat the crow's ass though. I always thought crows are very dangerous and wondered how they let them hang around towns.

FOUR

Tomorrow morning I will write the dreamwhere we were together.

FIVE

Is sneezing really that dangerous. I will never sneeze again man. I am afraid for myself.

ZIX

I read a sentence today . Actually I didn't read it. My friend the singer who doesn't want to sing -we will call her A.N. since she might recurr here- told me about it - Damn that lieing why do I always have to lie. She told me about it I didn't read it - so she read this quotation somewhere :

"Double standards are the most used aspect of our our conscience". I find this true, to some extent. Especially when it comes to letting go or having fun. People say it's irresponsible or whatever but they really would love a chance to do it. A.N. Is so wise by the way, I mean she keeps saying things like this. I told her she should have a wisedome blog.

ZEVEN

I was going to say something about a seven element field and an ipod. Blue didn't tell me if we won the ipod or not.

ATE

I think spelling is unimportant. As long as we understand each other. In South Africa, mine workers have a language that is a mix of almost all the languages of the old world. It was constructed from all the words they heard each other say. It developed from people "understanding each other" without any rules. So this is possible.

NyN

I never wrote abou the history of numerals. Actually I really always keep my promises. What happened this time? -- But on a different topic here is a poem..no no not a poem...I want to say

TEN

Oscar wilde says there are two tragedies in life, not getting what you want and getting what you want. I really like Oscar but this is just il rale he is whinning. I mean what tragedie and whatever, take it easy.

I WISH YOU A GOOD NIGHT

Poor girl

2006-06-07T17:59:00.000-07:00

I read in the paper today that an irani girl, mariam jabari, has a special condition. she sneezez 50 times a minute. she can't do anything, not go to school not even talk straight. The reason is this: she was once walking in a park and smelled a rose. the smell of that particular rose triggered this condition and ever since she has been sneezing. I really really feel bad for her. Imagine how frustrated she must be with everything.

olive's comment-post

2006-06-07T08:11:00.000-07:00

AT first the end of this post came out unordered, the lines were mixed up. Blogger trouble. Now I have fixed it, partially.

Steli steli, I have been away so much!

and we have missed you...

You are leaving your work so you won't join the footie team! What other group can you join?

yes i've stopped working for renault. i will prepare my phd starting next year

I've grown a little tummy too - since I stopped yoga - but it's like Mich says, small for other people. And I'm 100 pounds too.

well i'm the smae and that upsets me really

NOW about your MU-zek. Omigosh! These are the posts you do that blow me away!

efharisto, you'r the best

I saw a documentary once about a man who was recreating ancient Egyptian instruments. One of them was a sort of harp or lyre, and another a sort of whistle or flute. He was trying to translate what the music might have been from reading papyrii, though as you say there was no notation.

from what i understood the flute, made from reed or grass, is the most important instrument. its sound defined their music. the harp is actually very impressive. the
egyptian harp is probably the oldest harp ever. one of the best achievements of ancient egypt civilization, like the pyramids.

Another cool thing is a couple yrs ago at a music store I found a CD of ancient Greek music. Apparently the Greeks did have a sort of notation, but of course they would because they learned it, like many things, from the Phoenicians.

phythagoras is the most important music theorist before bach. actually i think you can still divide world music today into the phythagoras school -> world and the bach school -> western europe. phythagoras' theory is the most comprehensive. it is based more on the physics of instruments and so it helps improvisation while bach is more based on maths and helps composers.

There were just voices in a sort of slow polyphony, and I think there was a stringed instrument that they plucked, and a percussion that they beat. But really, there was NO melody - I found it very post-modern/surreal actually, like performance art, and even a little bit No (i.e. Japanese).

"NO melody" is very much the characteristic of old modal music. but polyphony is a very advanced form of singing really.

There's more! Two nights ago I was up till 3am watching a program called Tales from Greece. Two British reporters went around looking at Athens and Thessaloniki post-Olympics. The music and arts scene, etc.

Um...where do I start? She visited the man who popularised Rembetiko (I think! And i forget his name coz she said it with a Scottish accent, something ---ouannis?) and he played for her the first recording ever of it, made in the USA in 1929, which sort of took it out of the underground and made it acceptable in popular culture. She, being British, commented how difficult the rhythm is. He said Greeks probably listen to the most difficult rhythm in world music, and that it is in their blood.

I know. There is a greek beat consiting of 160 times. Like for instance waltz is 3 times, well this one is 160. It also appears in andalusian music, like ziriab's. The best CD dedicated to these complicated kid of beats can be bought here. The CD comes with a fascinating booklet that teaches so much about rythmes. It is also very fun to listen to. It was made by Adel Shams el Din, the percussionist with Julien Weiss and his ensemble. Remember Julien Weiss?

The end was lost, basically. I think neek is a better name and thessanoliki does make me mad.

coming up

2006-06-04T19:28:00.000-07:00

some very special music downloads for you...my artistic experience with a dish...and that dream...right now i will try to catch some sleep before going to work on a holiday...you have to love the nurd life :D I am making this joke too often. ok I will stop.

3 days to the world cup...i know france is not doing so good...england has high hopes and of course germany...i have no idea how brazil and argentina are doing...i think germany is going to win this world cup..i wish argentina would

µ-zek

This part of the post explains what I call music archeology

I will upload, tomorrow, a very special music. You can download it then. It was composed in the 50s by a great great egyptian composer, Abdelwahab. In this piece he tries to imagine what music was like 4000 years ago in Egypt. What did Ramses II or Nefer titi listen to. A "Death in Sakkara" theme. But he did that really seriously. He really wanted to know exactly what people used to play all the way back then.

Ancient egyptians had no musical notation. The oldest musical note known to us was found in Ugarit. So not egyptian but phoenecian. Or was it in ninawa, so it would be babylonian. I can't remember. So, no ancient notes. You have to imagine by yourself what people played 4000 years ago.

How to do that? First you have to know what instruments they played. So you can see paintings on the walls of temples and pyramides. You can also imagine what instruments people might have played most. What are the instrument the environment offered to them? The answer was reed or grass flutes for example, that could easily be made from plants that grow by the nile..as for chords, some kinds of harps are described in papyri, etc. So the first step is imagine the instruments.

The second step is make such instruments and study the music they make. What are the sounds they produce and what are the musical scales that might include these sounds? In fact he found that no modern musical scale corresponded to the music made by these instruments. So he invented a musical scale. called sikah, which means in persian the 4th level.

This musical scale is supposed to be what egyptians used in antiquity, a few thousand years ago. We do not know that for sure, but it is a guess based on some research. Its like Musicoarcheology.

sikah is as follows - for example-

mi small bemol - fa - sol - la - si small bemol - do - re - mi small bemol

small bemol mean minus a quarter tone. so its a quart de tone. quart de tones are notes that Bach eliminated from Western music. So we do not know them here any more, but other countries still use them. One last musical remark, sikah is a bit like si bimol major, a bit.

So now we have everything. The last step is use the scale you have imagined or should I say guessed to be what was used in ancient egypt to compose music. The result is a piece called Karnak which I will upload 2-more-o.

This is fun. Its music archeology. Maybe someone else will do it for other countries. I heard a mamuth tusk flute was found in a cave in sweden. It would be so nice if someone studied it and composed stone age music. Flinstones, we're the flinstones, yabadabadooda yadabadooda

Taxes

2006-06-03T16:45:00.000-07:00

STORY

Although we had a wonderful comment thread going on on the last post, I will start a new post. I want to write a personal opinion and to tell you how I paid my taxes. How? Well a week ago, I opened my internet browser and the first thing I saw is a big title. You are late for your taxes. I was a day late and that meant big big trouble. Like fines and stuff like that. So, I thought of a strategy and then I went to sleep.

The next morning I woke up, which I don't do all the time, I put nice clothes on and chose the color white. I wear white all the time, I like to wear only white. But this time it was a very white kind of white.

I went to the taxes place, its called The Trésor Publique or the public treasury -not treasure. I stood very innocently in front of the secretary and gave her my most polite and childish smile. I am very very sorry madame but I am late can you please please help me....

It worked. I won her sympathy and she let me pay my taxes a day late. In fact, the files were not going to be posted for another week, so she just sliped my check into the ones she allready had. No one saw that. And she dated everything as having been done the day before. Voila. How many people did the same thing as me?

IDEA

So here is a twisted opinion, give it a chance....

We consider some things in our personality to be good and others bad. It is good to be patient, kind, polite, modest....and its not good to be mean, selfish, arrogant, etc But I think even the bad things can be very helpful and sometimes the good ones are not good for you. Like maybe selfishness makes you loyal and arrogance makes you ambitious and being hasty can make you look for creative ways of doing things instead of doing them patiently or on the other hand being indecisive can make you examine things from every side and even being mean can be useful if you use it to help yourself and people close to you. My dad, for instance, can get very angry and doesn't back down in front of anyone, that has served him and us in a great way. (Of course it has surely contributed to making me a bit shy or reserved) Also things that we usually consider good can be bad for us, if you are too kind you get bullied by mean people if you are modest that makes you trust yourself less, sometimes, if you are too loyal you will miss chances to move to better situations or to experience new things if you are intelligent you risk becoming a nerd, etc.

Of course, for some people, its your conscience that tells you what to do...but even that needs to be nuanced...

Do you think I am evil yet? :D :D :D

Everyone here

2006-06-01T19:04:00.000-07:00

ZERO

I do not want to steal the lights from Jia Li's post but I do want to celebrate O's arrival. Olivia, the Classy Blogeress is among us. What an honour.

I think I am on the verge of a nervous breakdown. I am working sooo much and finishing a lot of work at the same time is pretty frustrating. aaaaaaaaa

Ever notice how every country has a book or a writter that it overrates so much and for no obvious reason. I mean take France. Everyone thinks Victor Hugo is a genius, not only a genius but a mega one. Honestly, I tried to read Les Miserables and I couldn't get throught the first 50 pages. This novel is so glim. And when I watched the movie, I was happy I didn't read it. I mean the intrigue is built on one thing, coincidence. Its like telling a story full of "and then, all of a sudden..."

III

And for Spain that would be Cervantes. Have ever read Don Quijote. I hope you haven't. First of all, the book has an amazingly racist undertone. And how stupid is the idea really. This book reinds e of comic books like "The Adventures of ...". Every chapter is a new adventure supposed to be fun but just long and supposed to be a variation on the one before but more absurd than it.

The worst thing is how it ends. There is this moment where even Cervantes must have thought, this is getting too long. So he called back from the beginning of the book a character that had not appeared for 2 volumes and used it to end the story.

Would you like me to get started on Charles Dickens? JL says yes. JL, could you make fun of the Canadian writter? Please.

I have two experiences with Dickens. A few years ago, because of a course, I had to read a Tale of Two Cities. This novel is so depressing that at the end, when they are all guillotined, I felt that was a cheerful event. LIke they all really deserve it for being so boring. It's hard to decide what annoys you most about Dickens. Long descriptions, like 3 pages about an object in a scene that has nothing to do even with the story; a moral sens from the stone age, where if two people hold hands its considered like wooow; maybe his sense of pop psychology. Definitely that. Pop psychology accounted for by "common sense".

Finally, the world champions at this writter adoration are south american countries. With Garcia Marquez and Isabelle Allende...

1st post

2006-06-01T13:16:00.000-07:00

Gosh I am so scared that I will not make a Steli like blog

Did you know that I could post here? Well here it goes, I am posting.

Galois

2006-05-31T17:45:00.000-07:00

I

So this is evariste Galois on a French stamp, so that we might stamp things with it. Galois is a mysterious, becuase contradictory and original person.
II
Some people think he was a romantically dashing boy genius and others think he was talented but very erratic and arrogant. BTW, I use erratic as meaning unfaithfully moody. Is that its meaning. The second hypothesis is that he was a di**head in modern terms.
III
In general, most girls beleive the first hypothesis and most boys the second. Of course I am saying most and not all. And there is another clarification. Some people beleive the second hypothesis not because they are jealous of him but because they identify with him that way. (The talent part being exagerrated)
IV
Its like its a good justification for my, whoops, there arrogance to say "but that great person was also a Di**head."
V
I do not know that you want to know more about Evariste Galois. If you do I will write about him and I might just write about him anyway. The thingy is My high school is lycee Evariste Galois.
VI
Now I leave Galois for a while. Today I spent a long time. I mean like ten minutes. That's very long for an internet addict. Trying to analyse how leaves, on trees, oscillate in the wind. That time was not wasted as I was sitting across an old lady in the train. I wrote more about what I did today in the other post.
VII
I have a quote...and in my continual tradition of plagiarism it is very long. One day I might go to prison. Because of plagiarism or something else. Then my life would change. The quote,

"But it appeared to Dorian Gray that the true nature of the senses had never been understood, and that they have remained savage and animal merely because the world had sought to starve them into submission or kill them by pain, instead of aiming at making them elements of a new spirituality, of which a fine instinct for beauty [sic] would be characteristic. As he looked back upon man moving through history he was overcome by a feeling of loss. So much had been surrendered! And to such little purpose!....by the way this is going no where. I could copy the whole book.

VIII

I think I am speaking about Dorian Gray because I saw a picture of me in the dream. Like he has a picture of himself. Now, tonight, I will have compared myself to Dorian and Galois. Two big Di**heads. And it is a very precise comparison. Of course, there are many aspects to anything.

Dream no28

2006-05-31T07:29:00.000-07:00

Hello. First I have to say twinings chocolate and mint flavoured tea is absolutely delicious. It is like drinking tea, hot chocolate, and having a mint ice cream in one sensation. The dream comes tonight.

Dream 28 is a shorty

I saw a dream where I was walking on my hands. Walking normally on the street but on my hands. Some people in the street walked on hands and others just like we do. The street is full of people and shops on both sides. The shops have a very square architecture. They are like boxes. I walked to one of them and opened the door...

All I saw inside was a picture of me. Standing on my feet, and not on my hands. I looked at it more. It was just a picture, looking at me like a piece of paper. I walked out of the shop. Decided to tour the streets some more and see new things. But walking on my hands all I could see was really the ground. Still, in a while, the novelty of the situation got to me and I felt better.

I walked back to the shop, opened the door, and the picture was gone.

Today I had lunch with a professor visiting our uni. He is from an Australian university. It was I think the first time I had a "work" lunch. In as much as academic people work. How ever we had a great discussion. Also today, I finished a novel I was reading in Spanish which is ever worse or ever better, depending on my mood. There was a wonderful sentence "life always ends up acting like bad litterature". Of course I am not saying this is true or false. Like oscar wilde would say, there are no true and false things. Only fun and boring things. Ok, Oscar would say tedious not boring. This sentence was quite fun at the time. Like Oscar wilde would say, the things that have most charm in life are caprices. This sentence was a caprice, I liked it when I read it and maybe I will change my mind tomorrow. Also, I am thinking of a topic for my PhD. Do you have a topic. I mean the thing is to invent a resonating title. Suggestions are wellcome. Also about that ipod. I really might win it and if I do, I will ask an easy question and the winner will have the ipod I promise.

Tomorrow I have to say it is utterly unoriginal for me to put today and then tomorrow. But as Toni Soprano would say, what do you got to do. Maybe I am not getting enough iodine in my food lately and so I am less original. Now before I speak about tomorrow, I have a question. Do you feel that the way you look constantly changes? Like you look in the mirror in the morning and you look a certain way but after work you look different. And I do mean different face, note like more tired or something. Of course I would continue quoting Soprano but he is less of a consistent thinker that Oscar. So quoting him regularly is not good, I mean not fun.

How about tomorrow, well it is allready here. I mean 3 a.m. now. I forgot to pay my taxes so I am feeling a bit anxious. So I will go and pay them when its the morning and the birds have woken up.

Do you know who was Evariste Galois?

Existenial Question

2006-05-29T05:02:00.000-07:00

Who are you for?

I will be rooting for Brazil becuase they are my favourite team and Argentina is probably the country I like most so I am for them too. Argentina...Argentina...

Do you sometimes hate blogging because it makes you show too much of yourself. Sometimes I write the first thing that comes to my mind and then think "people will take me for an idiot". But we have allready been throught this, haven't we?

III

Just now. A few seconds ago I read this sentence. It is very nice. "Eating without restraint had always been her only way of crying." --GGM.

Bonus question: Construct a 4 element field. Use your imagination. Btw I have hust taken a sleeping pill so zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz now I have woken up. Look I know its a hard question but you can win a prize.

Ok, the last prize was only moral so noone would have won it anyway. Construct a 9 element field and you will win a color ipod. Courtesy of Lasto-Adri Blue.

Just bought: Twinings tea. Mint and Chocolate flavour? First time I try this one. Anyone going to win that ipod?

VII

I am going to sleep. Tomorrow, or net time, I will post dream no28. In this dream I was friends with an octopus. Yes yes. Also, I want to ask you something. What is you favourite fruit?

Whoops(Edited!)

2006-05-23T08:08:00.000-07:00

Gosh I loath work, I do. I mean right now. What do I want to write about. There was the history of numerals but I am not finding the good figures to illustrate. Ok, I remember, hinduism. Hinduism it will be. But not now. In fact, I don't have the energy to reach for my book. I don't want to get up nor to reach. waaaaaaaaaaah. I would like to sleep and wake up next month at the world cup and then sleep and wake up during my summer vacation.

The skinny on Hindu cosmology

The universe is made up of planets. These planets stand on the heads of a big -I suppose its big- snake. The snake is called ananta and it is an appearance of Sri Krisna the supreme being. Maya, the exterior power of Krisna is one of his other appearances. Krisna is also Visnu, who lives on a planet where there is an ocean of milk. Visnu exists swimming on the milk. Every planet has a deva-master. The deva of the earth in Bhumi. He sometimes takes the form of a cow. The deva-master of every planet can go see brahma, if there is great trouble on his planet. Brahma is himself a deva-master. He is the lord of the material world and his planet is the most advanced planet in the universe, Brahmaloka. The devas take their problems to Brahma who alone can approach visnu. He can not talk to him directly but rather stands on the shore of the milk ocean and has a telepathy session with visnu. He receives his messages by telepathy and transmits them to the devas who can transmit them to their planets. The devas are actually normal people or aliens who do very well during their life. Brahma is one. However, Visnu is a god.

My Friend --a personal note.

Some people are talented but not ambitious. Or maybe they do not want to work. My friend has an amazing voice, she also knows enough about music to teach it in a university. But, she doesn't care. She doesn't excercise and lives a normal life. She does all the things that harm a singer's voice, staying up late, smoking,.... Of course, when someone is talented, that doesn't mean they have the duty towards the rest of the world to fulfuill their talent. They don't choose to be talented, they are born this way. If they don't think they will be happy pursuing a career in that domain -for her, singing- then even if it will be a waste, that is their right. We can't make her. On the other hand, its very strange. Its like wanting to destroy something very special that you have. Or even yourself. Probably the main thing is to not make a big deal out of things.

Remember this?

2006-05-22T09:41:00.000-07:00

Do you remember the palmyra lion that protects the oryx? I had wondered what does the lion eat if he protects animals. I think I know the answer. See, lions don't hunt. Its the lionesses that hunt, normally. So its perfectly logical for the lion to protect the oryx. But if it were a lioness she might have not protected it.

I wanted to say something...there is a french word, une planque. Literally it means a hideout. The word means a job where you do nothing and never get fired. For instance many school teachers have a planque for a job. I had thought an office job was a planque. I had in the past thought that at my job I would just sit at my office and read a book or blog. But my dreams did not come true. They keep giving me assignements and I have to do them. I mean why? Can't you just sit in your office and I will sit in mine and we'll phone home and e-mail our friends and things like that. Why work. Anyways, holidays are nearrrrr.

Me(final version now)

2006-05-20T21:44:00.000-07:00

It is impossible to beleive how fat I have become. I mean I have a two-layer belly. Not a one layer one, a two layer one. It actually folds. Like 3 years ago I was just about to become an international level football player. Now I am phat. Do I look cooler, maybe. And I am still good at foottie. Very good. Also, I might have a very nice job now. Research is easier than training everyday. But. But, It is so tiring to carry a big belly around with you everywhere. I wish I could leave it home sometimes.

Do you notice there are some people whose only reaction to anything is laughter. Especially girls. If they are happy they laugh, if they are supised they laugh, if they are angry they laugh. I mean didn't they learn any other facial expressions. And what is more annoying, the laugh is like either a short giggle or a shrieking laugh. Yes you have either the hyena or the eagle. Some things seem elementary but sometimes people can drive you mad.

III

I am very intrigued by the "next blog" button. What happens if you keep pressing it again and again. How are the blogs chained together. All these are questions I will never try to answer. I will never be that bored. I am only bored enough to start imagining myself so bored that I would do that. Boredome does stimulate you imagination, but only towards more boredome. No, strike this last one. It was not thought.

A famous blog once wrote 10 reasons why people don't read your blog. Now I don't want to imagine the extent of his/her intelligence. However one of the reasons was good, or at least well said; "your 8th grade teacher convinced you that truth and beauty are important. That's wong people want powe and money". I guess he is saying don't be too intellectual, be like me.

People are romantic (I mean lofty about things in general) when they are tired. Have ever been romantic when you were feeling like, euphoria? Today I was very very tired and had many romantic thoughts.

Today I met a girl, named like a canadian singer, I really liked her. It's a shame we will never meet again.

VII

How does a flash memory work? If its electric, where is the battery and if it is magnetic then how? And did you know our brain can be described using the ising model which describes magnetic materials.

VIII

Now I can officially confirm to you. Senegalese food is so hot, you need to go on drinking water 4 days after your meal.

But now I am drinking tea. Upcoming post:A short history of numerals. I have to do something about my r key. I sound like the cartoon character whatsisname who wants to hunt buggs bunny. I mean before I corrected it this was a shot histoy of numeals. Elmer something? Elmer fudge? Fudge, lol...

Olivia is writting her dreams and they are amazing. Now we are two dream writters. This is the re-birth of the surrealist movement by the way. We are the neo-surrealists. Who are you?

Obsolete.com

2006-05-20T10:40:00.000-07:00

I don't mean to show off the presents I got for my birthday, but. But there is something quite strange I found out. One of my presents is the 12 cds containing the 1956 Bayreuth festival. Every year, at Bayreuth, the works of Wagner are played and that year it was the 3 day long ring tetralogy. You might remember this is the opera that goes very much like the lord of the rings. It has a ring of power and people fight over it and the heroes succeed in destroying it at the end.

The ring is not an opera, it is more. Lik Wagner said, it is total art. But this is not my subject. What I want to say is that I read that that year the ochestra used an instrument called a trautonium. I googled that and fell on the site www.obsolete.com . Obsolete indeed. The trautonium, called after its inventor the crazy Dr Trautwein, is the first electronic instrument. It was used to make sound effects in the play. Like the hammers of the nibelung. What are the hammers of the nibelung. Its like when Saruman is making all the weapons and stuff like that. So, the trautonium, now you know what it is and to quote another famous blogger, I am not going to be googled about this.

The trautonium still exists in some way. The mixers used in house music are its descendants. I mean they are kinds of trautoniums and people know that. Well, now I am enjoying cd1. Other presents include clothes, books, music scores, sports equipment and heartfelt congratulations. There are also some not heartfelt congratulations.

Now, I want to sleep. Ahhhhh.

Dream no27

2006-05-19T18:22:00.000-07:00

Random picture because I couldn't wait to post anything. I am so happy and thank you Olive and JL du fond du coeur. The best way to come back is a dream. New music too, please listen to the whole piece. As I said before, I am choosing very old recordings, from the 30s and 40s, beacuse old taste is simply different and so, to us now, new.

I dreamed this a week ago. I was with my class from last year in a skyscraper. There was water on the ground everywhere. A very small pond on the floor that kept getting bigger, expanding in all directions. To avoid getting wet, I took the elevato to the 123 floor. That was the exact number in the dream. There the water had even climbed the starts, very slowly, still looking like a shadow creeping on the floor.

My friend Clement waned me. The water has electricity in it. If you touch it, you will be shocked and it will soon fill the building. Very calmly, like Sherlock holmes calmly, I opened a window and started scaling the wall down to the ground. Must have been a really really long rope I used, it went down 123 floors. I arrived at the ground and 2 of my friends followed me, Clement still begin one.

We wee in the middle of nowhere outside the building. Like in the middle of the french countryside, very deep in the french countryside. What should we do? Where should we go. I looked back at the skyscraper and it was still standing there, its glass walls shining in the sun. But where should we go? Nowhere, we just waited....

Quote On The Run

2006-05-11T12:02:00.000-07:00

Hello, I am back. At least technically. On the menu is a dream I had tonight, very nice. And the post I had been thinking about. This will be dream no27, I think. Hey, today I am going to play foottie. My work has a team :) so here we go. Do you remember who Lev Yashin was?

Does anyone know what is the origin of the question mark "?" ? Please tell me. Now bye.

Just a quick quote...

People do not admit that their opinions about the world are confessions about their own character

But Where Is Steli?

2006-05-09T13:45:00.000-07:00

ME

I am here. I have to finish a thousand things together at work this week. I might not blog a lot. During work, to rest, I am reading a novel. In fact when I bought "A Year In The Merde" I bought another book with it, "Cronicas De Una Muerte Anunciada" = "Tales Of An Announced Death". It is my Columbian Nobel winner Gabriel Garcia Marquez, or as his fans know him GGM.

STRANGE
The cover said this was "the least surrealist" book by GGM but it is about the last day of the life of Santiago Nasar who doesn't know he is going to die but everybody does. People know he is going to die but they all think its so evident they forget to tell him -everyone thinks the others told him- to not go to where he is going to be killed. And this is "the least" surrealist book. Don't ask me about the others.

RANT
Although I like GGM, there is something I really hate about him. People are so flatly admiring of him, it is crazy to read the praises the critics write of him, you would think he is their god or something. I mean look at this "the dialectic between reality and myth is intense and powerful, and once more, a prose so charged with fascination that it elevates us to the frontiers of legend".

I mean it does not "take us" it "elevates us" and what the heck are "the frontiers of legend"?! And what's the difference between intense and powerful writting. And people only speak of him as "The Ginius".................I think they should take it easy.

MUSIC
I want to play a lot of music from the 30s and 40s, to see how taste has changed. Tomorrow I will put a new one.

APOLOGY
I am very very busy but I promise that next week will be better. THis doesn't mean I will not blog this week. But I will not post. As of tomorrow I will come and visit your blogs everyday. Kisses and bye.

A Year In The Merde

2006-05-07T16:45:00.000-07:00

The Truth About France

2006-05-07T15:42:00.000-07:00

I have just read Stephen Clarke's "A Year In The Merde". It is a nice little novel with a silly little intrigue that makes you want to read it in one day. It is also full of truths about France. When I first bought this book it was out of boredome. Let us not debate the concept of buying books out of boredome now. It was out of boredome and I thought I would go slumming, in a litterary way. No dense experimental novel, just a bestseller diary book about an Englishman discovering - what is to him - the perversion on Parisian life.

I told myself, sure it would be full with clichés about France and French people, like how bad they smell -supposedly- and how they are bad losers and hypocritical about politics. To my positive surprise -to use a French expression "positive"- there was none of that. In addition to being a fun story this book reflects in a very vivid and lifelike way the quirkyness of Paris life.

I think there are some quotes that are just so incredibly true. This is the very best one...

"I saw that I was witnessing an important lesson in Parisian life. I musn't try to make people like me. That's much too English. You've got to show them you don't give a shit what they think. Only then will you get what you want...."

If you don't know this, you don't know anything about France. I certify.

Foottie Fact

2006-05-06T15:12:00.000-07:00

When you think of Socrates its a greek philosopher or maybe your dog, if you've called it Socrates. Also Socrates was the most famous number 8 in the history of football. Socrates' legs were bent in opposite directions; one to the inside and one to the outside. This made it almost impossible to take the ball from him. This foottie fact was brought to you by the union of fottie fools.

Dream no26

2006-05-05T06:17:00.000-07:00

Now I've changed the music to this tango. I like the melody a lot, but the recording is very old. Its from the 40s I think, so its not so clear. Dream no26 is tonight. A dream about pizza. Wait, before I start, this music is one of blue's most favouritest tunes ever.

In this dream I am a waiter at a bar-restaurant. People are speaking french at most tables. There is one table, however, where its Spanish. There is a 30ish woman with a baby on that table. She calls me and I am like "madame.". She says, with no accent at all, "I want a sunny pizza". I look at her like what the hell and aske her "What is a sunny pizza?". She goes "Oh, I am sorry, I mean a hot pizza".

That seems to have a meaning in th dream. I go into the kitchen and tell the chef, who is a girl, that I want a hot pizza. She opens the oven and a pizza comes flying out of it. It's very dangerous actually, since the pizza flys very fast. Everyone scrambles to get out of its way. Happily, nobody is hurt. But pizzas start flying out of the oven like crazy, like a pizza bombardment.

At that time, I start feeling very very thirsty and the Spanish woamn is shouting at me for being late with her pizza. So I decide to wake up....

And I woke up and drank a glass of water.

How about this one(Re-Edited)

2006-05-01T21:31:00.000-07:00

I feel like saying crazy crazy things. I want to be crazier than ever. Starting very soon, ok. Here is tonight's poem. I really love it, it is very representative of me

I will leave my house, naked
I will go back to the forest
***********************
It is impossible...impossible
That I would imagine myself
As anything else than a river in a desert
Or a ship in a sea
Or a monkey in a forest
***********************
I have no identity in my pocket
I have no appointment in my memory
***********************
I am a shoe.
Where is the road?

As usual I don't say the name of the writter. I am the king of plagiarism, I would add to the poem. God save the internet.

Signed,

Steli the monkey

Or the shoe, for the matter. Today I slept all afternoon. Now I am invited to dinner and at night I will work. I love this life style where all I do is geek on my computer, go out with people, and sleep.

We are writting this article with my collaboraters. They think its wonderful but I think its nonsense, I don't know how to tell them. Should I just say: Your idea is stupid. Usually I would do that but maybe not now.

Did I ever tell you I think the Dalai Lama is a total idiot. The other day he gave the profound analysis that all the problems of our world today are because poor people see rich people on TV and are jealous! I was like, whatever you're smoking dude. But honestly this is interesting, it tells you something. It tells you the Dalai Lama watches a lot of TV. I wonder if he likes LOST or The Sopranos. Maybe he closes the door and watched TV and when his friends call on him he says "wait, I'm meditating". He's in fact meditating a new episode of LOST.

Sorry Mr Dalai Lama but I totally didn't get that one.

As I said, I was finally able to sleep normally yesterday and the day before. I saw a dream. I will write it tomorrow. The day after I will post about "El Lapiz Del Carpintero". But now....

As you probably know, Newton and Voltaire were friends. Voltaire was once visiting Newton and Newton told him that his dog -Diamond- can solve equations. So Voltaire said to Newton "So, your dog is a genius" to which Newton answered "No, he has shown me two of his theorems and they are both wrong".

At what stage do you consider someone crazy based on something strange they said? What if someone told you that about their dog?

Difference

2006-05-01T21:19:00.000-07:00

I know, I know, I am talking about that movie and now writting this while I am supposed to speak about El Lapiz Del Carpintero. Look, I will. Today I thought, what is the difference between playing music and listening to music.

I think when you listen to music its like you are watching a magic trick. Something very special happens and you don't know exactly how it did, although you can guess. Now playing is like being the magician and watching your own tricks. It is much less spectacular when you know how it happened, when you know the trick.

If you know what are the different elements that came together to create the harmony and what are the little tricks you do to interpret the music then its less stunning and less magical to you. It like you hear something special but go naah, that's a trick.

So its better to listen, be surprised and intrigued and try to guess and understand than play tricks on yourself and pretend to beleive them.

However, when you know exactly the music you appreciate more than the beauty of the sound. You appreciate the beauty of the construction which is a wonderful thing. Now wish me luck in finding a picture for this post.

C.R.A.Z.Y

2006-05-01T19:08:00.000-07:00

Today I went to the movie theatre. I watched the film C.R.A.Z.Y. I didn't mean to. I was going to watch another movie but mistakenly entered the "salle" -what's that in english?- where this one was playing. In fact, I was going to watch a film called TransAmerica, I bought the ticket for it but then walked into another one without paying attention.

Now, since I didn't know what any of the two movies was about. I couldn't tell I was in the wrong movie and watched this one to the end. I don't regret it the least bit. This film is wonderful.

C.R.A.Z.Y is a film from quebec. Its very very funny. I mean its allready funny to listen to quebecois accent, but the film itself is hillarious. I really recommend it. Also it has a great soundtrack with many legendary songs. There is "Crazy" by Patsy Clein and many other songs.

Question & Other Things

2006-04-30T16:02:00.000-07:00

This post is not very well written. The main thing here is still The Carpenter's Pencil. I will blog about it soon.

I have a question. If you read someone's blog and think they are a total asshole -I'm sorry- and there are so many mistakes on their blog it makes you want to tell them how stupid they are. Do you

a)Ignore, because you can't change the world
b)Ignore, because he's stupid and you can't change that
c)Argue in the hope of convoncing him.
d)Non of the above.

I decided to press "next blog" on my blog and continue pressing "next blog" until I am bored with that. I saw like 10 different blogs. Many of them were in portuguese and spanish. Its easy to read portuguese, if you read spanish.

I had an Italian friend and I could speak with him (!) I would speak spanish and he italian and we understood each other perfectly. In general, many people say that. They say that you can speak in italian and spanish at the same time. How strange?

Something "very funny" is happening when I type. I am making the same mistake over and over. That is, I am typing instead of every letter te one next to it on the keyboard. (I'm correcting as you can see) Why?

In fact yesterday I was playing some music. Its in C major. Today I am playing "the same thing" in C minor. So my finger positions are slightly to the side. I am stuck like this.

Here is some uncorrected writting

hrllp, hpw are yoi

Tonight's poem
Io! pagan! Io! sing,
To the finny people's king.
Not a mightier whale than this,
In the whole atlantic is.
Not a fatter fish than he,
Flounders round the polar sea.

--whaling song.

I am loving the singer's voice. It's so expressive. Some people say that the voice is an instrument and the singer a musician != other people who say singing should above all create a "sound map" of the meaning of the words.

As you have noticed, I used the symbol "!=" in C language this means "diffenret".

24 Houre blogger

As you know, I am not sleeping. I have blogged for 24 houres. I have spoken to people from England, Canada, Egypt, France, Japan, and the US. I spanned the globe today.

Galician Fable

2006-04-30T06:22:00.000-07:00

I like to write fables. This is all the more important now, sicne I am not sleeping and not seeing dreams.

This story comes from Galicia in Spain. Its about life and death.

Vida Y Muerte

In a big house on the ocean, lived two sisters. Vida (life) and Muerte (death). The sisters had inherited the house from their parents. They were rich and both very beautiful. They had a very nice life together and had a lot of suitors.

The two sisters decided to take an oath. They were allowed to have as much adventures with men as they wanted but never to marry and leave home. They wanted to live together forever, since their life was so beautiful.

Vida and Muerte would go dancing in a ballroom in their village. The ballroom was separated from the village by marshes. Vida and Muerte, like all the girls, would wear boots to cross the marshes. They would hold their dancing shoes in their hands - Muetre's shoes were white and Vida's black - so that they would stay clean. And they would change in front of the ballroom. Thus, there would be a pile of boots in front of the ballroom.

The men, on the other hand, came on horses. So they didn't have to worry about the shoes and things like that. They came on horses and tried to impress the girls with their riding.

Vida and Muerte had as much fun as they wanted dancing and meeting their boyfriends. Then, they always went back home. That was their oath.

One day, a ship drowned in the ocean by their house. There was nothing strange about that. That part of the ocean is very very hard to navigate and many hsips failed to pass it. So ok, just a ship that drowned. But this ship was special. It was transporting accordeons. Thousands and thousands of accordeons. The accordeons floated on the ocean and the waves and the winde played on them all night.

During that night. The whole village stayed up, listening to the music of the ocean, playing the accordeons.

Vida fell in love with that music. She woke up and went down to the beatch, stood facing the ocean and listened to the music in transe.

The next day all the accordeons ended up on the beatch, all broken. All broken but one. A shepherd boy found that accordeon in a cave and decided he would learn to play. He did and after a while started playing it.

Vida heard the music again and she could not resist it. She followed in and found the shepherd. She decided to give up her oath. She could never find anything better in life, she thought. And she ran away with th shepherd.

Muerte was furious. She looked for Vida everywhere. She swore she would find her and punish her for leaving her alone. Ever since that day, Muerte roams every street of every village or town, she asks the people she sees "have you seen a young man and that bitch Vida". If they don't know, she takes them with her.

El Lapiz Del Carpintero

2006-04-29T15:55:00.000-07:00

My post is going to be a bit Spanish. El Lapiz Del Carpintero == The Carpenter's Pencil is one of my best books. Whenever I finish it, I read it over. The picture is from the movie version.

In the pic, Doctor Da Barka is being transported to a jail on the ocean and his fiancée Marisa has come to see him in the train.

I want to write about it....

Tonight's poem is translated from Spanish

In the trunck of a tree, a girl
carved her name, filled with pleasure
the tree, feeling her pleasure in his heart
let a flower fall for her

Buenas noches.

The Nibelung Ring

2006-04-28T14:29:00.000-07:00

Finally found a nice Valkyrie drawing. The Nibelung ring is Wagner's trilogy of operas. It is about a ring that gives the power to rule the world and how people fight over it. The king of gods Wotan develops a plot to make the hero Siegfrid capture the ring, Siegfrid does but he dies and Brunhilde the Valkyrie in love with him throws the ring back in the rhine causing the destruction of the gods. Does that remind you of a movie you have seen recently. The Nibelung ring is inspired from German and Icelandic pagan myth.

Ok I added a few things to my last post, also May's answer to the tag is ready

Rambilngs of another sleepless night

I studied a bit today. I haven't been able to do much during the last few days. I was feeling too irritable. So, I guess this is allready better. Another good sign is I played music, I hadn't done that in like a week. This also means I am feeling more calm and concentrated. Role on Ponticos!

What to say, its 4 a.m. . The music I played is by Bach. Its amazing how long it takes to learn music. I mean how long it takes ME. I have just spent 10 minutes learning a line (and Bach is easy). The thing is, at first you have to read it carefully and synchronise your two hands, etc...that takes some time. Then you start playing a tune well but then you want to interpret it in other ways and you spend even more time. This is a great subject for a Haiku, which I refrain from writting. So I am feeling requoting another poem.

Many dreams we have built around ourselves

Many roads we have walked in the moon lighte

With joy jumping ahead of us

And laughed like two children together

And ran faster than our shadows

Flight Of The Valkyries(Edited)

2006-04-27T20:15:00.000-07:00

The Music has changed. I mean I changed it, into Richard Wagner's Most Famous Flight Of The Valkyries. You probably know this opening from Apocalypse Now. Maybe I will write more about Wagner, he was interesting. Anways, if you like your Wagner served lyrical, here is some music for you.

Well I have also edited "Hardy". Nothing, just free associations from a sleepless night. I want to write about Wagner too, ok. I mean Wagner The Tolkein Of Classical Music -looooooooooooool, rotlf how funny is that

In German, Flight Of The Valkyries is called Valkurenritt (ritt meaning ride), I know I made a msitake. My german is really bad.

I wanted to find a drawing or picture about Wagner. I thought of some art representing Valkyries, but all I could find were drawings where the Valkyries looked like Sailor moon. Then I looked for a picture of helicopters like in the movie Apocalypse Now, but didn' find. The painting you are seeing is Thought-form of the music of Richard Wagner.

Oh yes I tagged May...who has answered and answered with vigour

Maybe something Wagner now...

Wagner's contribution to opera and music is seminal. In opera, he is the inventor of the idea of Musical Drama. Thanks to him an opera is not just a set of songs but a dramatic work where the singing and the music are also acting. I mean they are at the service of highliting the story and the drama. He wrote the words for his operas too. Mostly he used folk stories from northern europe. He realllly liked them.

Also Wagner is one of the first composers to experiment away from classical harmony. He invented a chord which is somewhat different from usual tonal music, called the Tristan Chord. And in a way he is the founder of the music of Anton Webern which I spoke about.

nothing

2006-04-27T12:34:00.000-07:00

Hardy(Edited)

2006-04-26T11:55:00.000-07:00

I like Hardy's pictures. Hardy was a mathematician from like the 20s in England.

I'm back, I want to write more. Hardy was a special kind of nerd. I will not talk about him. Do you know that some times I write things and then I am so worried about what you will think of them. Its like I tell myself "what are they going to say, what are they going to say" all the time. That's strange.

I feel like drifting a little bit. The past three days have been horrible. With the weather changing and a lot of boredome at work I had this kind of nervous breakdown, like extremely bad mood for 3 days and feeling tired and very very tense. I'm sure its the weather. Right now I can't sleep. I am going to have yet another sleepless night. I sleep very little, half of the time I don't sleep at all at night and catch a bit of sleep during the day. Maybe I should check and see if I can enter the guiness book for greatest number of houres without sleep.

This reminds me of Gelgamesh. Like there is this place in the story where he crosses the water of death and goes to meet an immportal hero. He asks him to help him become an immortal and one of the things Gelgi has to do is stay without sleep for 12 days and nights. He does that but things still go wrong.

Did you know Alexander also didn't like to sleep much. He used to say that sex and sleeping are for mortal people, so a god like him should not have sex nor sleep.

Let me reassure you, my reasons for not sleeping are not in anyway close to those of my two colleagues I have mentioned. I don't sleep because I do nothing all day long so I'm not tired.

By the way, Hardy -from the picture- was gay.

Its 5 a.m. . The thing is, when you don't sleep all night you should drink a lot of tea and have a very big breakfast at like 6 or 7 a.m. then you can go on with your day naturally.

I end with this poem -which I freely translate from Arabic

If I had known the road was so long I would not have travelled
If I had known the sea was so deep I would not have sailed
If I had known my ending I would not have started

But look! I am breathing underwater!
No, I'm drowning.
Drowning,
Drowning....

Proud to be Wiered

2006-04-25T17:13:00.000-07:00

Olivia, The Classy Blogeress, tagged me to write the 6 wierdest things about me...let me get the numbers in place and write this tomorrow :D

Now I'm going to buy a chair instead of the one that broke the other day.

1. Let me start with the origins thing. My grandfather traveled from Greece to Syria. There he worked with Austrian associates mainly in commerce. Remember Prussia and the Ottoman empire were allies. So my father was born there; and my mom is Armenian from there. They lived in Syria and Egypt and then France. As for captains, my cousin is a captain -now.

-not wiered. But I hope you appreciate the fact that I used a ";"-

2. I eat with chopsticks all the time. I just like it better this way.

3. When I was a baby I had an incredible number of accidents. All very dangrous -like a library fell on me or my chariot fell down the stairs- but I was never harmed, not the least bit. For instance, I hapened to be right where an empty shelf of the library fell and just went through it. Like in cartoons.

4. I broke my right leg 4 times at the same place, back when I played footie. Back then, I only wore sports clothes. Very very different from my current look. Also all my 10 fingers are broken.

5. I was a sailor for a whole summer. Working on a ship is the best job in the world. You work for 4 houres a day and play ping pong or watch TV for the rest. Also they pay you well. Another time, I was a diver for the summer.

6. Finally, I once stayed for 10 days without talking.

French Cancan

2006-04-24T05:06:00.000-07:00

Today's music is the French Cancan. Originally this melody is from a fantastic opera : Orpheus in the underworld by Jaques Offenbach. I think this part is called La Descente Aux Enfers = The Descent To The Inferno. Although I am probably way wrong. Jaques Offenbach is a German composer who became French and marked French classical music in a special way (personal opinion).

Anyways, this theme from an opera about greek myth became the French Cancan..which is probably better.

My Strange Day

2006-04-21T14:45:00.000-07:00

Here's a small post. Emmm. I can't blog during the week end so see you on monday.

So I wake up. As usual, I go to my desk and do some work on my computer. I started doing that, I sat on the chair bhind the desk and turned the computer on. 5 minutes later the chair collapsed under me. It was broken in 3 pieces and I ended up on the floor. Great, I got up and went to work. At least there they have chairs.

I worked a little bit. I had a presentation to do, so I dooed it. Then I went back to my now seatless place*. Now I'm sitting on the floor. On the way back I met one of my friends, M.K. M.K studied engineering with me. He is also an actor in his free time. He is in this theatre troop. He told me they were playing tonight. I can't remember what but some contemporarty theatre de l'absurde playwrite. We took the tramway together.

While we were talking -in the tramway- this girl sat next to me. She had a Japanese sword with her. I mean what the...imagine a person gets on the tram with you, sits there very calmly, with her big sharp japanese sword. Very normal!

I was very curious about the sword so I started asking her where she got it and if she knew how to use it and and...It turns out she is a professional! She has been learning to use the Japanese sword for a long time and she participates in competitions. Anways we got of the tram before her, so I said goodbye to the Sword girl.

So first I have the chair accident, then I meet a girl who is a professional Japanese swordsman. That was just by 7 p.m.

After that, I came home and found a message from my mom. She is back from Pakistan. This on the other hand is not strange. She travels all the time and she had some work there. The rest of the day was just routine.

*I still have a sofa but there are so many clothes on it that I can't use it. Maybe I will throw them on the bed.

Horrible(Edited)

2006-04-20T13:39:00.000-07:00

Olivia mentioned that she didn't like 19th century orientalist themes. I also really hate this a la Delacroix atmosphere. So I thought I would treat us both to a painting we should find horrible. Which brings us to the word of the day.

Also, I want to choose an example to illustrate my post about Verdi. Its a bit hard to link to classical music. A link to an houre-long symphony is way too big and I don't know how to edit audio files and just put an interesting part. Anyway, I chose this serenade.

Its very interesting for its very complete but also very whispered and etheric harmony. It shifts very nicely between using an orchestra and using only solists, which is interesting -as I mentioned about Verdui's influence. Its made up of subtle and extensive variations on a simple and very romantic basic melody.

Its 6 minutes long. My best part is kythera/violin duett at 3 minutes.

Finally I am sorry there is singing. All the musicians I know say that the human voice is the best musical instrument. I really don't think so. Often I prefer music alone. I mean unless I really like the words.

Try to enjoy

I saw this nice blog too, its fun

Adventurous Verdi

2006-04-16T12:00:00.000-07:00

I am writting about Verdi's Visit to Egypt and its effect on Oriental music. It was really very important...see the post below which is just a beginning.

Verdi In Egypt

2006-04-16T11:50:00.000-07:00

Introduction

I want to talk about one of the major events in the modern history of music. Verdi's visit to Egypt. Verdi visited Egypt in 1871 to present Aida at the Cairo Opera House. This was in celebration of the opening of the Suez canal. This visit and presentation had an everlasting effect on oriental music. Classical oriental composers came in direct contact with western classical music. Since then they increasingly worked to combine their music with western music.

This single event was a main element in the Golden Age of classical oriental music from the 40s to the 70s of the 20th century (what other century could it be ;D )

Situation of 19th Century Oriental Music
When Aida was presented in Egypt, oriental music had been under development in a new and academic way for some 30 years or more. As you can see, there was an Opera House already. The main concern at that time was returning to a strong theoretical formulation of oriental music.

In the middle ages and under the influence of great musicians, like Ziriab and Isaac al-Moselli, who studied greek music theory and developed it, oriental music became governed by a set of precise rules. In other words there was musical theory and musicology as independant studies. This is of course the basis of classical music. But in the late 19th century most of that work had been completely lost and Oriental music existed as folklore only. No Rules and no notation at all.

When Verdi arrived, a new generation of musician was working hard on recovering the old music theory. Their work was to study the folklore and find the general musical rules behind it and generalize them. In This way they created a musical theory and the possibility of notation and so of making new and independant compositions.

What was the music like
Their works were not very long. They were characterized by the presence of many ideas and difficulties in a short composition. You can think of 6-15 minute compositions with as much different rythmic sections and an amazing variety of new idea and melodies. So the work was very condensed.

Another characteristic was using small ensembles. There were no orchestras, but small troops known as Takhts. These were made of 5 solists playing the main instruments. Oud, Violin, Kythera, Flute and percussions. One of each instrument was enough. And there was one singer.

The fact that there was only one of each instrument meant that there was no possibility of using harmony or arrangement. It was on the other hand more adapted to technically very difficult music.

Aida

The king of Egypt invited all the kings and queens of europe and all the best musicians in the middle east to watch Aida in celebration of the opening of the Suez Canal. To oriental musicians there were many many surprises.

1)The music was not played by a solist for each instrument but by a BIG ORCHESTRA. This was very well received and the sound of the orchestra was thought to be much nicer than the sound of only one violin for instance. Gradually, they started using orchestras and thinking of using elaborate arangements. This became the genral rule by the 40s (of the 20th century :P )

2)Also it was THEATRE. This means there were many singers and composing for different voices. This was totally new and people liked it a lot.

These two ideas changed many things. There was a real row on using orchestra and on writting operas not just monologues like Arias and stuff like that -which were generally the norm.

3)Probably the most important thing was reinforcing the idea of classical music. Just exploration of musical forms and not "making songs" in this or that style.

What is important to understand is that these two changes. 1)Using an orchestra and 2)Making musical theatre meant an immense change. Music made for a group of 5 musicians and a singer can not in any way be the same as music made for 60 musicians and 10 singers. So this very short event can be said to have made a radical change in oriental music. It is so strange to think that all this change was probably part unintentional.

1900-1935

So in this part I will speak about how this developed in the next 30 years. And examples of music will be given. Which is probably the better than reading all this...and oh at the end I will give references if you want to read more.

Cover Of Vanity Fair Magazine

2006-04-14T16:46:00.000-07:00

Cover of Vantiy Fair magazine of the Ottoman Statesman Midhat Pasha, dated June 30 1877 and tiled "The Turkish Constitution". "A man of charming manners, of much dignity, and with a fine sense of the real meaning of things" Vanity Fair 1877.

I will write something about old magazines, if I get enough info. But I wish to make a very small rant. TOmorrow I am invited for lunch with people I really don't like. THey keep inviting me and I can not refuse their invitations but I don't like them that much. So I always end up wasting half a day on their silly lunches. Thank you and Happy Easter my little friends.

Percussions

2006-04-12T14:20:00.000-07:00

My new music is percussions. I really like percussions and think they can be music all by themselves. They don't have to be subordinate to a melody. I know many people would disagree. This reminds me of once I was I was on a plane and had this discussion with a man that was sitting next to me. He asked me what music I liked and I said percussions. So he was percussions are not music and all that. ..

But....rythm is a universal phenomenon. First its everywhere in our lives. Our heartbeat, our movement, like walking are all very regular rythms. Also, when you ride a horse, a ship a car, you experience new rythms.

In poetry, the metric defines a sort of rythm and when we read a poem, this rythm is very important to the way we interpret it. And THEATRE, theatre completely depends on the timing and rythm of repliques....that's everything.

So percussions are not just the metronome next to the "real" music. They can be meaningful. Also, they are very nuanced, since they are never exact. This small change from cycle to cycle can introduce very enjoyable surprises...its the difference between a machine and an artist.

Look, its simple, percussions are good.

Dream no25

2006-04-11T03:16:00.000-07:00

I wanted to find a Happy Birthday music, since today is international birthday day. The one that's all over the internet is Marylin Monroe singing for JFK. I had allready used that for my birthday, so I have another version now. Now I want to tell you about this dream I have had 4 times recently....when I come back

See when you've worked all day and you just want to shout, that's me...aaaaaaaaaaaaah

How about that dream....its very complicated, I can't yet find a way of telling it. I mean I've seen it four times but its not like something you tell in real language, its very abstract. I will take a shot at it tonight. OK.

Let me try. I am at my grandma's. My two youngest counsins S and her brother R are there. Everyone, not only us, but everyone is so afraid. A war might start you see. But, it is possible to stop it, we just have to solve a riddle. Its not really a riddle like in the usual sense but a "problem" in general.

So I start thinking about it. The first time I solve it, I do that not using a pen and paper but using "myself". I know this is very strange, this is why I said the dream is hard to explain. I use myself like I am a computer and I use myself to solve the problem.

This is very hard, I mean using myself. Becuase I go through strange phases. I don't remember them all, but one of them is screaming very loud. Anyway, everything works finally. THe problem is solved and the war is stopped.

Then I solve the problem another time, using a pen and paper. This time its just easy, I write it.

3 very recurrent things in my dreams are war, robberys and riddles or problems I have to solve. So that's natural. In this sense its a normal dream. But maybe the middle part makes no sense. The thing is, the dream is very strong. Its very strong sensations and ideas, so its a dream that I remembered very well, becuase it felt very true. However, these sensation and ideas are not from our life, and I don't think I can explain better. Lame dream, forget about it.