On April 15th

Atlas Shrugged, Part 1. I know the trailers sometimes are rather misleading, but this one promises. And if the movie is just a third of what the book is, then it will be extraordinary. Quite a shame that we're only getting into March yet.

A movie to define a generation?

I swear I don't get the hype around The Social Network. I grant it, the movie is rather well written, Jesse Eisenberg delivers a strong performance in the role of Mark Zuckerberg, the movie has good characters and good actors overall, a very nice soundtrack, etc etc. But come on: it ain't the movie. It has been hailed by the critics as "the movie that defines this generation", but that's not even exaggeration, that's just going bananas. A good movie? Oscar-material? Yeah, sure, why not. But a quintessential good movie? No. A movie to redefine anything? Please. Forgive me to say this, but the movie that defines the current generation was on the run last year: Avatar. And before you all bring the torches and the pitchforks to slay this ogre here, listen: I don't mean it because the film is awesome or something, because it isn't (story-wise I admit, it sucks balls). Just think about it for a moment: lush visuals, looking all pretty and all that, fast action cuts, with a so-called message underneath and barely no content holding the pieces together. An extraordinary visual experience, that ain't even real - it's all digital, rendered with a green screen and computer pyrothecnics. Which, ironically enough, is closer to the whole Facebook concept than The Social Network actually is. Want anything else to define the current generation?

A good movie this year? I've not seen the winner of this year, The King's Speech (yet), so I can't really say whether the award was fair or not. From what I've seen, Black Swan would be a good winner - Miss Portman got one of the most deserved Oscars of the last five years (hers, and the performances of Christoph Waltz in Inglourious Basterds in 2009 and maybe of Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler in 2008 were the closest thing I've seen to "perfect acting" in a long while). Although overall, I'd probably pick True Grit out the bunch to give it the golden statue. It's not just because I have a genetic soft spot for westerns, it's because everything just works out perfectly in True Grit: the sets are neat, the performances range from above average to brilliant - really, have you seen Jeff Bridges and the Hailee Steinfeld? Outstanding, that's what they both were -, the screenplay is witty, funny, with the sugar on top brought by the accents. The story is at the same time amusing, sad and heart-warming. Can't ask much more of a movie, really.

Meeting people is so incredibly hard.

Tick

Seldom are we given the chance of standing behind the looking glass to stare straight into our past, to see it clearly for what it was, with every detail. I was given such chance for a moment, and it made me remember just how much I miss it, and how much I liked it. Its passing was inevitable, but not without sorrow. There are those who claim not to know what would fulfill them, what would made them tick. By looking back I suddenly learned exactly what made me tick. But I had to let it go, had to abandon that path and find another one. Now they've crossed for a moment, in a weird way, my path and the one I forsook so long ago, And for some reason it just feels so wrong.

Underneath

She threads lightly over a surface of thin glass, unaware of the desolation that lies under it. She gives the impression of being untroubled by wind or rain, but those who watch her closely know better. Behind the apparent grace there is a conscious effort, intentional and self-aware. Underneath the head held high lies and abyss of weakness and fear. For a brief moment only, I held in my hands the right tool to shatter the glass, unveil the poise of grace and force her to look down, to the ground, to the hell that threatens to envelop her with every step she takes. I had that chance, and gave it up without a second thought, without regret. The day of reckoning will come, the day when she finally looks at herself in the mirror and sees herself for what she truly is, with all the beauty and ugliness and dark pits and fiery chasms. But I won't be the one holding the mirror up high.

Regina Spektor

If you find her eyes haunting, you should listen to her songs.

Chatting

During my "online life", which is not that long, I've seen people moving from the IRC chats to Instant Messaging (MSN Messenger / Windows Live), and now I've witnessing people slowly drifting from IM to the rudimentar (and absolutely shitty) Facebook chat. Again, it's a matter of convenience. But the truth is, no chat has ever been as fun as the good old IRC. Those were the days of internet chatting. And trolling. Ah, the fun, the fun.

And now they do it like this:

And it is weird and extraordinary.

Sometimes we can only wonder where have we already been without leaving

I walk downtown sometimes. There are always tourists there - whether it is raining or the sun is shining warmly, there are always some foreign people wandering around, taking pictures of the river, the square with the riding king, the arcades, the imposing arch, the geometrically designed streets. Sometimes I wonder if I'm accidentally caught on the picture as I walk by, unaware of the flash. Who knows where I have already been? Maybe my not-so-random walks downtown are an unintentional part of some stranger's photo album, somewhere in the world, passing as a shadow between the smiling faces and the monuments of old. It's a funny thought, to wonder where might I have been already, without never truly leaving.

Memory hole #7: In Rainbows, 2007 - Weird Fishes/Arpeggi

Memory hole #6: Hail to the Thief, 2003 - There There

Memory hole #5: Amnesiac, 2001 - Life in a Glass House

Memory hole #4: Kid A, 2000 - Idioteque

The perfect blue

If I could explain it, I would. And please do not misunderstand me: it's not that I don't tell you about it because you can't help me; it's more like, I don't tell you about it because it - talking about it - doesn't help me. Sometimes I do feel it's the other way around, with it causing more harm than good. But the truth is, what is there to say? That I feel sad? That I sometimes feel so blue it seems that every positive feeling is simply impossible under the laws of nature? Sure. I could say that, with more or less drama, and it would be more or less true. But I would remain silence when you'd inevitably ask why. Because I don't know why I do sometimes feel the way I do. I have no clue where it comes from, what triggers it, what sustains as it sends me into one of my sulking and more anti-social than usual moods. I don't have those answers, and worse - I don't even know what questions to ask. So you see: I only know half the story, the obvious half. I can only answer what happens, as that's just what I feel every other day. But I can't answer how it happens, nor can I provide much clues. And I can really do without interpretations or half-delusional theories about how I should change my life and my routines and all that mumbo-jumbo. I can figure that out all by myself. That's also the easy part. What I can't figure out is how to change what. And even if by some chance you - anyone - were able to tell me that, it would be pointless as long as I couldn't see it myself.

If that's just it, then it ain't all bad

I've just came to the conclusion that, after more than five years, this blog might as well serve, if for nothing else, as an obituary of past relationships and disillusionments.

Lies. It is also useful for me to post Radiohead videos.

Memory hole #3: OK Computer, 1997 - Exit Music (For a Film)

Memory hole #2: The Bends, 1995 - Street Spirit (Fade Out)

The payback

I do expect the payback. It would be logical, it would make perfect sense, and it would fit. I keep forgetting that I'm most likely an exception when it comes to hold and feed on resentment, or rather not to hold and not to feed on resentment. It's an emotion almost alien to me, but maybe not for others. So it might come one day, if I stop being wary. Or paranoid. Thin is the line between both, especially when it lies between us and the world immediately around us.

Memory hole #1: Pablo Honey, 1993 - Creep

Crowd dynamics

It is said that Jack White, frontman of the recentely broken duo The White Stripes, reacted to the band's gig in Portugal in 2007 by saying that it was the first time he'd seen a crowd singing a guitar riff. Quoted for truth: the crowd at that gig sang the entire guitar riffs of Seven Nation Army, something that was borderline epic. One of the interesting things about this country, besides the best coffee in the world, the extraordinary food and the wine (and a few more things that we tend to forget), is the music crowds. Many were the artists and bands saying that they loved coming here for gigs, because the people were amazing - Nickelback would disagree, but Nickelback suck anyway. And the more I see videos of gigs in other countries, the more I am convinced that we are, in fact, the best crowd in the world. Take the video below, from one of the five best songs of the last decade: the crowd bounces around on their feet, which seem to have grown roots on the ground. They applaud in the end, and that's it. We'll confirm next July anyway, but I'm absolutely sure that, were it here, the crowd would sing the entire song loudly, they would sing the end choirs too, they'd jump, they'd wave their arms frantically, and they'd give them one hell of a hand in the end. I don't know why that happens - maybe we just enjoy music and aren't afraid to show it, or perhaps we just need it for some sort of sublimation process. Whatever. All I know is, watching a gig in Portugal is more often than not an extraordinary experience, and that's due not only to the musicians, but also to the crowd.

Burn! Burn!

It kinda reminds me of the whole danish cartoon affair: to prove that one ain't violent by starting a riot and setting a building on fire is quite a contradiction in terms.

The standing ovation

And then I see them giving a standing ovation to a song that, in the end, means only that they are all fools. They hold on to it as if it was the revelation of the greatest truth, when the truth - that truth - has not even been hiding all this time. It has been out in the open, roaming free, doing it's damage to us all. That the people of my generation need an obvious, somewhat sarcastic (although not bad) song to think about their reality is not really a compliment. But the fact that they heed such a statement and yet do nothing but cheer it - now that's the saddest thing of all. It's just what makes me think that, in a way, we kinda deserve it.

It's that time of the year again

The most dreaded day of the year (even more than Christmas) is upon us. For once, I'm glad not to have TV right now - it kinda saves me from the shitload of fluffy commercials. Thank God.

The predictable unpredictability

Before every weekend, I usually make a sort of a mental list of things I will want to do in those two days of free time. Could pick up some regular stuff that everyone has to do (laundry and shit alike), or other things like going shopping before lunch, to have lunch at a "normal" time (and consequentely, dinner at a decent time too), go to a certain place in order to do something, and so on - the list could as well be endless. However, as soon as I'm out of the office on friday evening, everything starts slowly going bananas, up to the point when the mental list is thrown into the mental trash bin because, well, the whole idea of doing any of those tasks has become sheer nonsense. I mean, not even simple things like shaving - yes, shaving - gets done. And so, invariably, weekends in the city turn out to be a simultaneously slow and fast trip through pointless things that I know to actually have a point, even if I have no clue on what that could be. It's just as if everything would get so distracting as soon as the imposed routines wear by the end of friday. I don't really know what I'm after - escapism, freedom, whatever. I know it just happens that way, and it seems incredibly hard to change.

Reality is a bitch

To see them walk the exact same path that I once walked, and in the exact same way for the exact same reasons, strikes me both as ironic and sad. Ironic because in all my cynicism I was right after all. Sad because I didn't really want to be right - actually I'd have preferred to be wrong all along, and see things turn out all right.

The end of the night

There's a pattern always repeated by the end of those nights. It's an old one, so old that the feelings towards it have drifted from frustration to a little anger, to indifference and, finally, to one of those sad, unconfessed pleasures. It's not that it stopped being frustrating, as it still is at times. But if I was given the chance to change it, I would probably not.