We are all extras in someone else's story

“We live together, we act on, and react to, one another; but always and in all circumstances we are by ourselves. The martyrs go hand in hand into the arena; they are crucified alone. Embraced, the lovers desperately try to fuse their insulated ecstasies into a single self-transcendence; in vain. By its very nature every embodied spirit is doomed to suffer and enjoy in solitude. Sensations, feelings, insights, fancies—all these are private and, except through symbols and at second hand, incommunicable. We can pool information about experiences, but never the experiences themselves. From family to nation, every human group is a society of island universes.”
― Aldous Huxley, The Doors of Perception

All together now

Some art for the day.








I'm also playing Corsica Studios on Saturday. I'm excited.

Summer

Long summers, short dresses, cold drinks and hot bodies.

This is one of my favourite sets, ever. Any Paul Kalkbrenner set that starts with Dockyard and is followed by Since 77 does it for me. Sometimes you need to start with a couple of big tracks, to put yourself and your crowd in the mood. It all depends on the moment.

So, in two days, I'm leaving (on a jet plane) for a while. I haven't felt like this in ages. "Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall", according to Jordan from The Great Gatsby, but of course there's some irony in that (note the word 'fall'). But life for me? It starts all over again tomorrow.

And summer starts the day after that.

Five minutes in the morning

That's how long it takes to add some creativity to your everyday live. I had a debate with a friend yesterday, about 'losing' creativity. Creativity and inspiration are not the same thing. Inspiration comes and goes. Creativity is instilled within you. You can't 'lose' it, because it's always there. You just need to be a little patient and persistent until it surfaces.

After having read Oliver Burkeman's very interesting article in the Guardian called Rise and shine: the daily routines of history's most creative minds, I realised that most of the biggest creative minds in history had - wait for it - full time jobs. But instead of letting this get to them, they managed to somehow fit their creative sessions within their already very busy days. They did other activities (taking long walks was a popular one) to get inspired and ensured they devoted a proportion of their day to their art.

How hard can that be? If you clear your head, sit down in a self-imposed quarantine and face a blank computer screen, or a piano, or a canvas, or whatever medium you choose to use, something will come to you. And if it doesn't, it's ok. As long as you try. Don't let 'real life' get to you - let real life be your source of inspiration. Let it be what structures your day, and your week, so you can base your moments of creativity around it.

Five minutes in the morning. Every morning, before work. Or five minutes before you go to sleep. That's all you need.

Franz Kafka worked for an insurance office

Caves and Fires - an exercise in ongoing writing while working

I'm having a Nick Cave/Arcade Fire morning. No deep basslines for now, no repetitive rhythms, no pads... Just 'proper' music. Sometimes a girl needs lyrics.

This blog post will be an exercise in ongoing writing while working. I will take you through my mind. It will be like Being John Malkovich, but without going through tiny doors or meaningless repetition of words.

So, another Friday and plans for the weekend are - to say the least - exciting. I am tempted to say 'eggciting' because of an inside joke that has been going on in the office, but  I won't. I'm lucky enough to have a 2pm finish today, which means I get to enjoy being in the cold for a little bit more.

It's 09:48 and Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains) comes on:

Sometimes I wonder if the world's so small,
That we can never get away from the sprawl,
Living in the sprawl,
Dead shopping malls rise like mountains beyond mountains,
And there's no end in sight,
I need the darkness someone please cut the lights.



Moving on. There's something about Fridays. Like you can achieve something, your time is here. Although small achievements come on an everyday basis.

Achievements of the week:

- Made great cake as therapy for having broken my iPhone's screen (RIP)
- Reached 1,000 words in my book of short stories (est. publication date: 2041)
- Made great soup on Monday, and great soup on Wednesday
- Remained calm in times of challenge
- Went to the gym despite having the excuse of a swollen ankle (entirely my fault)

Anyway, Fridays. There's something special about Fridays. Going out on a Friday night means you wake up on Saturday morning with a feeling of fulfilment and without the pressure of needing to 'do something' for the weekend to make it meaningful. I acknowledge that a lot of people are not like that, but in the world of twenty-somethings, the weekend is that special little chunk of the week where your time is not being controlled by the hands of a clock but by how you would like to spread it out.

A taster of tonight (in a large scale version). Ellen Allien doing her thang at Fly Bermuda Festival: http://www.be-at.tv/brands/bermuda-berlin-music-days/fly-bermuda-festival/ellen-allien.go?0

So. Excited. This is what Fridays should be like.

And, tomorrow I've got my first 'solo' gig in London. 5 hours of playing the music I like (you gotta be selfish sometimes) to my friends and hopefully other people with a taste similar to mine.



Midday. Usual lunch time, but as I leave work in a while I'm going to have late lunch. For now, it's CAKE TIME! With the amazing aforementioned therapy cake.

12:37 - Armed with tea and a sugar high, it's time for that final push towards the end of the working week.

Malkovich Malkovich.

I think I know you from somewhere

Soooo. SUN. Finally.

Of course it's still absolutely freezing, but at least we got a little bit of a vitamin D boost. I went out for a walk and cigarette on my lunch break, and I stopped at traffic lights on purpose, although I had the chance to cross the road (twice, at a leisurely pace), so I could stand in a sunny spot for a few more seconds.



In other news, Pinterest and tumblr have proven to be great methods of procrastination, although I've been cheating somewhat with the latter, as I've only been uploading my favourite photos I took using instagram.

In O' Level Geography, back in my glorious high school days (I'm sure I'm showing my age now, which isn't that tragic, but still), we were taught about the term 'conurbation', which basically happens once two or more urban areas start developing and growing to such an extent that they start merging with each other and turning into one. I feel the same is happening with the online and social media landscape.

The big question that keeps revolving in my head is when these will stop working together and start working against each other. It may become a case of the big fish eating the small ones, or people will simply fall back into their own networks of choice.

On honesty to ourselves and to others

How honest are we?

Do we write things because we want someone to read them? Why post something online if you want to keep it personal? How private can you be in the world of facebook, twitter, instagram and smartphones?

Constantly connected, our lives are always on display to people we have merely brushed shoulders with on dimly lit Saturday night.

Things we have to admit to ourselves, things we have to admit to others. In that order? Not necessarily.

Writing in a diary or a blog is like an exercise in honesty. The more the readers, the more difficult honesty becomes. Honesty is perceived as a weakness, when it can really be a weapon. A game-changer. The most important and judgemental reader should, after all, be ourselves.

I told a friend I was bored, and she said I should write a blog post

The truth is, a lot of side projects, big and small, have prevented me from finding the time to sit down and write stuff that other people would like to read (or maybe not).

In the months leading up to the new year, I have been mostly preoccupied with:

a) Working (because I am a human being who is slowly finding her place in the world)
b) DJing
c) Planning events for said DJing
d) Relaxing
e) Reflecting

I have also been really bad at keeping my online presence updated. I renewed my flickr subscription, but I never posted any photos. My photo a day self-assigned project on tumblr turned to a photo a month, or old batches of photos being uploaded sporadically in an attempt to keep it alive. In the meantime, I went on instagram (shame on me) and started tweeting - all acts of time-saving and simultaneously holding on to the concept of being online, being social and being discoverable (and a little bit narcissistic).

It's a free world. We all do what we can, as Cat Power poignantly sings in her husky voice. 2013 will be a year of doing what I can. It's good to try and find out how far you can reach, but it's also important to do what you do because you want to do it. No stepping over dead bodies should be involved, obviously. But writing is not lethal (though the tongue may be an unruly evil, full of deadly poison etc), and trying to keep a blog won't kill me. So I'll try. No pressure.

Point is, it's ok to let go sometimes, enjoy the ride and just do things you enjoy (within the responsible human being boundaries mentioned above), because this is a forward-moving train and there's no going back.

Exhibit A: Me, pigging out on new year's morning, at 8am, after 6 hours of djing.

Somebody stop me

I keep thinking it's Friday. This is a problem because:

a) I tend to be unproductive on Fridays

and

b) It's Thursday.

The problematic nature of point b) is self explanatory. Point a), on the other hand, means that I tend to do a lot of browsing when I'm being unproductive. Having recently joined Pinterest, I thought I'd start using it. What's better to 'pin' on your board than a bunch of wonderful(ly expensive) things you'd like to own?

I've already ordered 3 pairs of Knockarounds (I hope they arrive before my trip to Marrakech) and I'm having epic handbag cravings. Must. Resist.

Knockaround Chocolate / Amber Premium Sunglasses, $14

On their way!

Prada Tote, €1,330

Definitely not on its way.

Breaking rackets

A great article was sent to me by a friend on Friday:

Of Baghdatis, the pain of losing, triumphalism and destruction

You need to watch this first, if you haven't already. In case you weren't aware of what happened last week in the 2nd round of the Australian Open, fellow Cypriot and mildly crazy person Marcos Baghdatis broke four tennis rackets in less than a minute, in a manic frenzy of anger venting.

What I would disagree with is that Binoo K John, the writer of the article above, overlooks another key point - that it's not just about winning and not losing. It's about not knowing what is going wrong, not knowing how to fix it, not wanting to take the blame and putting the blame elsewhere. Being lost in a particular moment where resignation is not yet an option but it can very soon be the only possibility.

Resignation, according to British philosopher Bertrand Russell, is not to admit defeat, but to recognise that your personal efforts can have no impact on certain events whose development and conclusion lie beyond your control and powers. No matter how much he has been criticized for this, it has been overlooked that he finishes everything off with a smile. After escaping the Bacchic frame of mind that he temporarily entered, Marcos returned to his normal disposition which is what made him one of the most likeable tennis personalities of recent years. He wins the next set but goes on to lose the match. He does what is within his powers, and then he resigns.

What's Up Your Ash?

The chaos theory states that something as small as the flutter of a butterfly's wings can cause a tornado halfway around the world. I don't know what kind of a butterfly caused the volcano to erupt in Iceland (this is a manner of speech, I am not that horrible at Science), but the Eyjafjallajokull volcano seems to have become a butterfly of its own, spreading a very modern species of chaos around the world. The flutter of a butterfly's wings 'cut off' thousands of metallic wings which have remained grounded in various airports around Europe, patiently awaiting further instructions. The crisis seems to have slowly hit Asia, and other continents that are linked to Europe by air:

In a sign of the crisis' impact on Asia's export-driven economies, the Japanese car giant, Nissan, says it is suspending several production lines due to the shortage of parts from Ireland. Honda will also partly halt production. (BBC Website)

Until today, I was only familiar with Iceland due to some of its excellent music exports, but from now on I shall forever remember it as the little country that screwed up the whole world and the vast majority of European airlines. Not that it's really Iceland's fault, but still.

There is still a question that stubbornly refuses to leave my mind, and it is about whether this chaos has not been caused by its source, the 'butterfly' itself, but by the intermediary - humans. Exaggeration, as everyone haply discovered last summer with the oh so morbid (not) spread of swine flu, seems to be embedded in human DNA, as is risk aversion (or else the world would be a mental place). Is Europe exaggerating in insisting that planes are unable to fly? Weren't the test flights enough? Aren't the clear blue skies enough? Aren't the airlines' complaints enough? I am confident they wouldn't be begging to fly if a big bad cloud of ash and debris was up there waiting to swallow their entire fleet and overall existence. I am no expert, but pure logic is telling me that it is not the airport the planes depart from that determines whether they are actually able to fly once they are up in the air. Are those who took the 'lockdown' decision afraid to admit they were not quite right, especially with the impending lawsuits they would be bombarded with by the airlines?

And while the EU remains mainly unresponsive, thousands of travelers remain stranded in foreign countries, or worse, airports, looking for ways to get home. Including my dad.

Has everyone overreacted to a mere flutter of some wings?

Cultural dose of the day #1

YouTube does it again. I am a big fan of technology's ability to break down boundaries and eradicate distances, and this is a great example why. A YouTube user took photographs of every single piece of art in MoMA (The Museum of Modern Art) and assembled them into a neat slide show. Spotted in there are the works of Dali, Bacon, Pollock, Van Gogh and Lichtenstein, to name a few.

Wonder what John Berger and people who read him would have to say about this. The Internet has provided the viewers with new ways of seeing, more distanced, less spatially reliant and much less time-consuming. Perspective changes, and so does the spectator. Has the spectator really witnessed and seen the object, if they were separated by a laptop screen? 'Digital Spectators: The LCD Canvas'. I could write an essay on this. Some day.

Late Nights 1.0

The day of the crucifixion. Another night of procrastination, the night after the night before (//this morning) and I'm in a massive (uni imposed) typing mood. Feeling strangely at peace. Rediscovering music is one of the biggest blessings of forgetfulness.

Ouch.

((Wisdom teeth extraction.))

Pain is a strange sensation, almost as strange as empathy. I usually find it hard to feel others' pain, but mine seems to be currently overtaking me. Typical Leo, always exaggerating and being self-centered. I read an essay by Helene Foley during my third year in Cambridge. I can't remember its exact title, but it was regarding the pain of others and the difficulty of describing your own pain to someone else, and understanding someone else's pain. She listed a number of adjectives commonly used to identify the causes of pain in medical contexts - piercing, throbbing, burning. The problem with these is subjectivity. If we are all individual beings that experience the world differently, surely we will experience emotions and sensations of the same thing differently as well? Even if that means tasting the same dish in a different manner from our partner at the dinner table. Of course, taste comes into play here as well, but what I am trying to say is the fact that things are relative and emotions are not tangible entities that we can easily pinpoint and share with others.

At the end of the day, no one can describe or feel your own pain but yourself. And this is not just physical pain I'm talking about. Emotional pain can be the hardest to heal and the one that lasts the longest. There are no chemicals to heal it, no specific timespan it should take place in, no particular point in time where it should simply stop and disappear. It could linger there, it could come and go, it could be with you forever and overshadow other less powerful emotions. How do you describe that to someone else? Doesn't everyone's pain feel much stronger to their own selves than to others? Is this feeling of unique isolation and sense of individuality an ironic reminder that deep inside we are all the same and think the same?

The good thing about pain is that it reminds you you're human, and it tells you to be grateful you have someone to look after you. The day you wake up and you don't feel pain is the day your life feels a little bit better. Nonetheless, this still doesn't mean that you shouldn't try to deal with it and just let it fade on its own.

Take me, for example. I've taken about 2 grams of painkillers since midday.

And the Oscar goes to

...the people and movies that didn't necessarily deserve one for the specific performance or contribution in the specific year, but because the Academy decided it was time. On Monday morning, I yawned my way through the most predictable ceremony in recent years, as one award after the other predictably went to the same people that had, in a way, already won in their categories before they even took their seats in the Kodak theatre. While regretting not gambling on what seemed to be a surer bet than Roger Federer beating Andy Murray at the Australian Open final, I sadly realized that the Oscars have lost their glamour and the audience its interest. Yes, it's hard to be surprised by anything anymore, but a couple of shockers in any of the categories (the only shocking thing about Bigelow winning Best Director was James Cameron's sincere demonstration of joy at the moment of revelation) would have definitely made the night more interesting, and would have given us something else to talk about apart from dresses and awkward moments (yes, Mariah Carey, I'm talking to you).

Mi Theory

There are some things that come under your possession that you never use. A toy from the time you were five. A book you never really wanted to read. A DVD you watched once and left on your shelf. Furby.

Some other things can be really useful, like the smartphone, keyrings, external hard drives. Things you don't really need but that nonetheless make life just a little bit better.

And then there are the things that make life what it is. One of the things I always loved when going to Disneyland was the fact that, finally, someone found out what was missing from life and added it to the recipe. A soundtrack. Everywhere you walked in Disneyland, you'd hear happy instrumental music playing discreetly in the background. It's still like this, I think. People watch movies and dream about being in them. Not just about acting, but about actually living the life of the characters. I guess Freud would call it wish-fulfillment. Everytime I walk down the long corridor of a tube station and I hear a musician play, I smile. They are the providers of short daily doses of the soundtrack of people's lives. Then a product came along that gave people the right to transform their reality into a cinematic one, just for the price tag of approximately £200. The mp3 player. Of course, what changed everything was the iPod. But I have to take this opportunity to show off my clairvoyant skills here, by saying that about 10 years ago, before the iPod even came into existence, I bought something called the Creative Jukebox. It was fantastic. I couldn't (still can't) live without music, and this little gimmick, about the size of a normal discman, could fit my entire music collection and allowed me to take it anywhere with me. If I felt happy, I could play a happy song to go with my mood. If I was sad, I'd play a sad one. Anything I wanted to play to accompany my life, I could, just as long as I had it.

Fast forward to 2010. People everywhere have white earphones hanging from the sides of their head. Walking down the street, on the bus, the tube, the airplane... anywhere that is outside, you see people listening to their own customised soundtrack. Something to give us a sense of escape from reality, both in forming our private soundtracks but also our private world in which to live in, be it just for a few minutes.

Nice way to start your week 1.0