Large Aquatic Mammal Jokes… NOT

What do you do when someone asks you a question which you can’t possibly answer? Not that you can’t answer it because it’s private, embarrassing or just plain perverted, but something you CANNOT answer because you do not KNOW. You do not know because you’ve never cared. If I came up to my jazz loving friends and asked them: ‘Do you prefer ‘Justify My Love’ to ‘Erotica’?', they would have no idea how to answer, so what do I do: I DO NOT ASK THEM. But some people, obviously think it’s funny to ask me questions I can’t answer.

It was some time ago, but Eric asked and I had this conversation:

Eric: ‘So, you must really like Family Guy?’

Me: ‘The Family … what?’

Eric: ‘It’s this TV show, I think you’d find it funny’

Eric giggles an leaves, leaving me confused.

Now, one and a half year later, after a lot of research (understand: watching TV), I understand the question and why he thought it was so funny.

No, Eric, I don’t like Family Guy that much, sure, it make me smile occasionally, but most of the times, it is just a stupid-ified version of the Simpsons, with jokes about celebrities that unlike in the Simpsons are not even a proper part of the story. I also know why Eric thought asking me the question was so funny. Obviously me liking the jokes in the Family Guy was referring to the then recent South Park Episode ‘Cartoon Wars’ in which the writers for the show are compared to manatees for their seemingly nonsensical, random, and strange humor.

And one more thing. No, I do not share that sense of humor (although sometimes, I unwillingly chuckle at them). My sense of humor might not be better, but it’s different. As long as the Family Guy writing staff think that what they do is funny, I’m cool with that, after all, no-one can force me to love the show. No-one can make me believe that I am like someone else, we’re all unique in our own way. And I do not make manatee jokes.

Peter S

Losing Contact With The Younger Generation

Chill instead of cool? What is wrong you people? Cool was always cool. But seriously, this sort of thing happens all the time, I suppose in 20 years, when we say cool, our kids, nieces and nephews will laugh, just like today we would laugh if someone said ‘far out’ or something equally quaint.

I suppose every generation uses different words to describe the same concept of ‘far out’/'cool’/'chill’ because they want to be different. The young ones look at us and see but shadows (yeah, and I’m just 18, imagine how I’ll be whining when I’m 20), empty words and the mess we’re making of it all. Our only comfort is that we know they will not do better than us and the generation after them will see them in the same way they view us today. So in the end, we’re never going to end up anywhere pleasant, or at least, that’s the way we perceive it. And if you say; ‘Let’s make the best of all of this, the wars, the pollution, the Paris Hilton ‘culture’, etc.’ I, being a cynic in these matters can tell you that nothing that you do will really matter to the young generation, they want to be misunderstood and despise us by default (although I don’t like them that much either).

What we should do is try to be selfless and helpful and all that noble stuff, but understanding is overrated and ignorance is bliss. Yeah.

Peter S

Peter’s Top 6

The Power of The Unfinished

A very lighthearted piece, I think one that we can all understand. I really like the end, even if I wrote it myself. The text quoted comes from this really obscure (not) club hit from the 90’s, The song itself is called ‘Erotica’, so the singer is not telling anyone to duck (if you still don’t get the joke, do your homework).

The Power of The Unfinished 19 March 2007

OK, so take a piece of texts like this…

I’ll give you love,
I’ll hit you like a truck,
I’ll give you love,
I’ll teach you how to…

Now that gets your imagination working, doesn’t it. The fact that this rhyme is not finished makes the whole effect mysterious, less offensive (in this case) and might make you feel like a pervert for filling in the right word. But that’s besides the point.

You see, whenever you leave something unfinished, you let your audience to figure out the rest. It’s like concealing a part of the story, in this case, the end of it. If you don’t finish something, people can only guess your true meaning and as a bonus, they can’t prove ANYTHING. Whatever you meant, even if they confront you with it, you can laugh them off and say ‘I did not say that’ or ‘That’s just your wild imagination.

So back to the piece of text, what does the speaker want to teach you? How to duck, you filthy pervert!

See you later.

Peter S

The Funny Story of Snob Mineral Water

Our perception of things makes them real. It basically almost always comes down to a nice wrapping around the concept you are trying to sell, be it a car, a new slutty one-hit wonder, or a bottle of snob mineral water. It just makes me wonder, can you substitute these things with others and still pull it off. I mean, can you turn a Volkswagen into a Rolls-Royce by simply adding the funky statue of the polished lady (it’s called ‘The Spirit of Ecstasy’, I believe),  a random chick from the street as Britney, or tap water for Evian?

Yes you can. I for once, can’t really taste the difference between Evian and Tap water (or perhaps, I never gave it much thought). But at an international school, where most kids do live in the hip parts of the center, and drink nothing but the hardest alcohol, one has to act a bit chic, even when you’re totally faking it. It comes as no surprise then, that I’ve  bought a six pack of little half-litre bottles, an basically, the first day I had the original water, and for about two weeks, I used it for tap water (which was just as refreshing).

So when will I get to the point? How about now. So one day after a PE lesson, one of my not-really-friends-but-more-like-a-person-I-talk-to-sometimes was in the locker room whining about how thirsty he was. Since I am pretty much like a camel (no, I DON”T have humps) and can spare some water at the end of the day, I said ‘Why, I have some water left over, you can have it.’ After examining the water bottle, with the Evian logo still attached to it (yes, I take good care of snob mineral water bottles), he drank it and said, pointed at the Evian label and said ‘Ah, the best water in the world’. I agreed and went home.

So as long as you have good packaging, people will buy any crap. This essentially proves something we’ve known all along, Hollywood is just cheap glitter-like entity, without all of the glamor, it would mean nothing (to some of us it is nothing anyways).

Peter S

Peter’s Top 7

March 2007 sure was a productive month. If I were to call my work from before early, and today’s pieces mature, March 2007 would probably be the adolescence of my writing. This article may seem a bit angry (which it is), very subjective, yet I find myself thinking: It was good. For something personal to be placed in a wider context, it deserves recognition.

Peter’s Top 7

Eastern Europeans Do It Better 21 March 2007

Couple of weeks ago, I heard something that made me very angry. Now, I knew that I was going to have to write about it, but I wanted my reasonable side to take over me, so that the anger will not leap at you from the page, as I felt it did in the entry about MTV’s reality shows (namely The Virgin Diaries and Super Sweet 16).

OK, so what did I hear? Some parents (Bridget Jones calls people like them ‘balding upper middle class twits- except for the ones who had hair’ in the movie) decided that their precious children’s English was being polluted by Eastern Europeans who ‘come to school, speaking bad English they picked up from underhand American programmes’. OK, I am Eastern European, and I might have watched low-level American, but look at my English, I don’t think it’s that bad (even though I say it myself). What these people don’t seem to realize that their children listen to low-level American music (not mentioning any genres) and might even watch British television starring Ali G. Tell me that what Ali G says is not slang. Of course it is! They could have picked up their bad language from there.

Furthermore, our school is not only composed of Brits and Eastern Europeans, although I imagine that to those parents, everything non-British is savage and therefore Eastern European. Perhaps if you want your kids to speak really good English, send them to the British school. I am sure that extra 15 000 Euro per year is a small price to pay if you want your kids ‘perfect’ (at this point, the intelligent reader should realize that grass looks greener, and that parents whose children haven’t been to British School should not idolize it).

So, Eastern Europeans do it better. Do what better? Hmmm…

Regards

Peter S

We Fear That Which We Don’t Understand

Really, this was my second choice of an article. The first choice was to write an original piece on unoriginality, which, I must say, couldn’t really be done, because a lot of people comment on the recycling of ideas within our culture anyways and secondly, something I considered an original turned out to be from 1975, the REAL original, which I always supposed was younger was from 1962. Since the core of the argument resided on this piece of ‘evidence’, it has all fallen apart and I am here writing my second choice, but as always a brilliant piece (note to self: who do I think I’m fooling?). And thirdly, I myself am a little bit unoriginal, taking parts of songs, lines from books, whatever, into the stuff I write (but I suppose that’s a clever way to reference pop culture).

Anyways, I have been thinking that people make judgments too quickly. You know, the whole ‘first impression’ thing. I, being one of the people, also suffer from this, even if I’m aware of it. How many of us have actually stopped to think about emos when we were laughing at the whole fringe&cut up one’s arms thing. I think none of us. Or how many of us see the true person behind that nerd’s glasses? That there’s so much more to fairy tales than the cliche of good winning over evil (and the amount of blood that Hollywood horror directors would die for)? Why do we tend to pass off so many things without giving them a second chance. I suppose one thing that has to do with it is peer-pressure, the other thing is fear linked to peer pressure.

The peer-pressure itself is a well-known phenomenon. The fear linked to it is the sort of thing ‘if I talk to that nerd my friends will think I’m uncool’. There is, however, another sort of fear. The fear of you actually liking that object, idea, person that you treated with indifference or maybe even contempt. Because to tell you the truth, everything is interesting if you dive into it properly. An author that you’d never read, after being forced to write an essay on him, you might find his stuff dead interesting. Of course not all of us are equally interesting; we do not show off our genitalia while stepping out of a car or shaving our heads bald. However this is on the tabloid-level interesting. I think that on an intellectual level, all the people who read this (about 2, myself included), are way more interesting than any of the ladies I was referring to (I do not really know, but I’m a pretty good guesser).

So next time you pass off something as bad, boring, uncool or stupid, stop to think about it for just a second. There might be a million people in the world who think that that which you just labelled as ‘lame’ is the coolest thing in the world. I’m not saying you should not make that choice to label something (if you actually really investigated everything, a million lifetimes would not suffice), just be aware that you’re SOO wrong (just as I am wrong about 50 Cent, Bob Geldof, etc).

Peter S

Kitsch This!

I suppose a very few things open your eyes like university. Spending only about 6 weeks there, I feel like I am gaining new insight, and learning to look at things in a different way. But university, or any other type of education, for that matter, can only mold you so much, and while some of our opinions will undergo revisions, some will gain new ground and remain unchanged, or even stronger,

So, I will be discussing kitsch this time. Although I could grab a dictionary and give you the precise definition of kitsch according to the oxford scholars, I prefer to do it my way. Of course, there are many different types of kitsch. The one I dislike the most is the ‘taste’ displayed by the rich Arab sheiks. There is nothing wrong with marble and gold, but please, everything has its borders. Fitting your penthouse in a glass skyscraper with baroque-style furniture, golden toilet seats and tons of marble is kitsch, even if it is not mass-produced, shoddy, plastic piece of decoration. The point is, these gentlemen, have so much money they might as well buy a chateau somewhere in France with original Louis XV furniture.

S o why don’t they? I suppose you’ll have to ask them, because I have no clue. The point I am trying to make is: everything has its own context. You cannot take something out of context, place it into a completely different time and environment and actually expect that people will applaud your taste. You cannot build a new Versailles in China. That is kitsch. It has no soul. It doesn’t belong there. The real Versailles is a masterpiece to commemorate human vanity. An exact copy would just take that further into bad, unoriginal taste. Just as much, you cannot build another Forbidden City in France (not that they want that). You should not have replicas of baroque furniture made to put them into your penthouse. Because no matter how expensive, it will still be kitsch.

That is why I admire modernism much more than post-modernism. The worst thing you can do with modernism is to create something ugly and impractical. With post modernism, the worst thing you’ll be left with is kitsch. I seem to prefer ugliness to the soulless ‘beauty’, so my views on this are settled. I never really liked kitsch, or as I would call it now, an out-of-context-reproduction-of-art. Isn’t it much more interesting and infinitely more satisfying to come up with something new, something original and something that is yours? If all the money that the sheiks and Chinese developers spend on kitsch, then more artists, architects and engineers would have challenging, creative and exciting work and we would all live in a more pleasant, increasingly unique and (hopefully) more sustainable environment.

Peter

Writer’s Blog on Writer’s Block

I have been meaning to write about writer’s block on my blog for ages. I never got to it, however, mainly because whenever I sat down without an idea and wrote that title, something just popped into my head, and however stupid that something was, I always tried to make the best of it. To be honest, I had one title in mind, but seeing as I know my readers (personally, both of them), I know they couldn’t care less about that.

I have always regarded the disability to come up with something interesting, funny and meaningful to write as a failure on my part. I might have even thought that after nearly two years of blogging I have the right to have less inspiration, to have less ideas and to miss out sometimes. The point is I don’t. I owe it to myself, I owe it to both of you. I will always try to deliver articles to thye best of my ability, I promise I will keep improving and writing about all sorts of weird and wonderful stuff.

But let us discuss why it is sometimes difficult to write and why ideas do not present themselves so easily.

1. I decided long ago not to comment too much on recent world events. Not only am I too lazy (or time-deprived?) to do the necessary research, but writing and reading about wars, genocide and such will NOT your or my day any nicer.
2. Celebrities. Anyone can do that. Watch: (insert name) has recently been arrested/seen leaving a club totally drunk/arguing with their partner/ passing out at their concert/seen leaving a hospital for plastic surgery. What a (old) bitch/bastard. I cannot believe they want to disappoint their fans, bla bla bla, rant, etc… I only write about those people if they really do something that angers me.
3. Politics. Tough subject. Commenting on Dutch politics which I don’t understand too much would be stupid; commenting on Slovakian politics, which I do know a tiny bit about, but which no-one understands is also stupid. And don’t get me started on the US, UK, etc…
4. Lifestyle. I have such a unique lifestyle, that could I write on that. Plus, I don’t need to spill my soul on the internet (anymore).
5. Music. My taste in music is less than interesting, so really, you would not want to know

And I can go on. So as you can see, most of the time, I am my own writer’s block most of the times, only allowing myself to write on things that happen around me, or things that strike me as strange about our society. So maybe I should loosen up, but I won’t. I know what I want, and that’s all there is to it. I will only write what I want and can write about, not what I can write about, but feel uncomfortable with putting it down.

Next time, I will actually post a real entry.

Peter S

Peter’s Top 8

This is also quite an early piece and perhaps it exaggerates some of my friends’ qualities. It also deals with something interesting although the topic itself is very broad indeed, but the piece itself is not all that relevant to the reader. But still quite good considering it’s one of the earlier pieces.

Upon the Sophistication of Man 30 September 2006

Before somebody says: But what about women? I need to warn you that this is all about mankind, but that would sound bad in the title.

Yes, I find the time to write these meaningless and soulless articles mainly because there is nothing worth seeing on TV. But that’s really not the point…

Well, I just found out I am one of the less sophisticate of our beloved species. This is a sad truth. When I thought I was original, I was just taking the unpopular mainstream option. I will never be able to rise above my commonness, just because I was born a normal, average person. I have an absolutely conventional first name (no second name), I warm up my food in the microwave if it’s cold, I do not live in a huge townhouse in the hip parts of the centre – I live in the suburbs. My pets are not pedigree; I only have one kind of milk and sugar. And yes, even for special occasions I would cook pasta from the supermarket. My music taste is (as already stated) unpopular mainstream, my film knowledge limited, I cannot sing, I cannot read notes or play an instrument. I cannot ride a horse and I’ve never been to Antarctica.

To people who know they did all this (and that I witnessed it) do not take this as an offense. It is rather a celebration of how plainness and sophistication thrive alongside each other. I am sure that we have even more ideas to share.

Have a good time, embrace who you are and learn from all the people that differ from you.

Form Study 1.2

Hey there. Here is another creation of mine for Form Study. We had to ‘hollow out’ bits of cube, looking for ideal forms and colour/tone contrast. I worked with black, white, and grey colour.

Here’s the description

The structure consists of one complicated space, only when the core is inside (the core can be taken out and positioned differently). Due to the mobility of the core, many different possibilities of dividing the space, therefore, the core is the most important element of the whole. The space(s) inside are never completely open or completely closed to the outside. The structure seems to be ‘hollowed’ out from the inside, similar to what a mole would do, with winding corridors.

The cube itself is 15cm x 15cm. From this we deduce an important proportion in the cube, that of 2.5cm, 5cm, etc.. However, 15 can also be divided by 3. This is not ignored, but rather introduced into the structure to bring variation to the otherwise strict proportions. Such cut is place on one surface of the cube and continues to the another surface. This cut is placed in such a way that its deviation from the other proportion is visible, but is integrated into the bigger structure by adapting it to the other proportion.

For this piece, I picked three colours, grey, white and black. While black and white are very contrasting, gray is excellent in softening this down and forms excellent medium for transition between the two colours. The colouring is made up of rectangular areas stuck onto the surface of the cube. This underlines the regular nature of the original shape, as well as achieving a very playful effect. If we look closer, we can see that what on the outside white is, is black inside, and vice versa. This is to bring in balance between the total of black and white areas. The planes originationg from the core are all neutral gray, because we cannot predict how the core will be placed, it is most practical to leave all options open, as not to ruin spacially brilliant position by mismatched colour scheme.

Peter

P.S. If you want the cube, or more pictures, just tell me (the one picture does not tell you much, it’s meant to be seen from all the different views).