"There is something not right here - with the people. They are not even people. They - they - act strange..." Jia stood there, staring around at the multitude of people swarming around her and Bolin.

There was indeed something queer about each person- each had a pair of particoloured eyes, and there were big gashes across each person's skin. Some gashes were simply relics of old scars, but most seemed freshly cut, and were spilling sparkles of blood all over the streets.

"Well, you can't blame 'em!" chuckled Bolin, "what with the constant berating they get from the other city; you can't expec' 'em to be full of sunshine, now can you?"

Jia went deep into thought again. This city had indeed been plunging itself into conflict for the past few years, with a new 'war' situation arising every day.

It was at that exact moment, after she had left, that Jahn realised how profoundly alone he was. Even the characters in his head had abandoned him.

He stood there, feeling shiverish, waiting for the that bastardly vehicle he believed would drive him away from all of this. But he secretly knew that it was not that vehicle which was his tonic - no, it was this waiting itself. Time, being one of those rare medicines, which cures even the most reluctant of illnesses. 

For the first time, he saw the lies of it all: how he had spent most of his life quietly muttering to himself, in all situations, that "life only gets better", or one of it's other hollow invariants, involving ever-effervescent words like "hope" and "joy". 

But now, standing here, he could see nothing beyond the gulf of emptiness that his mother's departure had brought upon him. At this very moment, he realised that things would never get any better, and that they had never indeed been any better; and everything that he felt now would stay with him for the rest of his short eternity. 

Air Quotes: pay with their lives

People sometimes pay with their lives for saying aloud what they think.

- Anna Politkovskaya (Russian journalist)

image via link

Air Quotes: You don't give a damn what they suffer. All you care about is yourself.

This quote from George Orwell's novel always makes me cry.

Because it's that idea - that 'they' make 'you' suffer so much that you detest things. It's that thought of betraying someone you loved before, and knowing that you will never feel the same way about them again.

Oh god, how awful fear is. Fear of death, fear of life, fear of suffering, fear of discontinuation of this temporary happiness. Fear which hangs above us all to the point that we will do anything to make that fear go away.

There comes a point where you only care about yourself, and don't care what happens to others - all altruism forgotten and lying there, rotting under the recesses of your selfish mind.

'I betrayed you,' she said baldly.

'I betrayed you,' he said.

She gave him another quick look of dislike.

'Sometimes,' she said, 'they threaten you with something - something you can't stand up to, can't even think about. And then you say, "Don't do it to me, do it to somebody else, do it to So-and-so." And perhaps you might pretend, afterwards, that it was only a trick and that you just said it to make them stop and didn't really mean it. But that isn't true. At the time when it happens you do mean it. You think there's no other way of saving yourself, and you're quite ready to save yourself that way. You want it to happen to the other person. You don't give a damn what they suffer. All you care about is yourself.'

'All you care about is yourself,' he echoed.

'And after that, you don't feel the same towards the other person any longer.'

'No,' he said, 'you don't feel the same.'

George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, Part III, Chapter 6

Air Quotes: Soulless

There's a divide in the world's population. For every decent human being, there are three soulless, terrible human beings. That is a fact.


Daniel O’Brien, in Bridalplasty: The New Reality Show That Proves We’re Doomed, via Cracked.com

image via link

Only refuge

There is no end to human cruelty and greediness.
Your only refuge is in yourself and God.

The presence of God is the only thing which will bring about peace to your mind.
For humans are the ones who will ultimately drive you to insanity.

How much do you swear? F**k loads.

Warning: 
If you easily get offended by swear words then don't read this post. In fact, I have no idea why you read my blog if you easily get offended by swear words.


But, as a record for me, this post is not full of lewd humour. 



I don't know if you have noticed, but I do tend to swear a lot on this blog. I even have tags like "fucked up"; and I tend to have many instances of 'fuck" scattered around all over the place.

Recently I started adding asterisks whenever I swear, because I wondered if some readers found my content offensive. But then I thought to myself - this blog is my own personal form of expression, and if you are offended by the material, you are welcome to stave off and go read Vintage Butterfly Dresses or something.

via Natalie Dee

Anyways, this got me thinking more - how offended do people get with swearing? Swear words only carry the meaning that they are given.

Words like "fuck" and "cunt" are completely banned when it comes to mainstream media, and others like "bullocks", "tosser", "shit", etc are vaguely dealt with. If a swear word somehow slips through the censors (via careless editing or a live broadcast) then there is an absolute bedlam to deal with, with the shows producers having to profusely apologise over and over again.

But surely, words only carry the meaning they are given? Personally, the word "fuck" has pretty much lost it's ideal as a swear word to me.

Of course, that is not to say that I would ever say it in front of my parents, or at a formal setting, but it still doesn't carry that sense of shock and awe that is used to. Nowadays, the word is thrown around so casually, from songs to movies, that I wonder how long it will hold it's position as the most offensive swear word (perhaps second only to "cunt").

via The Button Pushing Monkey

Perhaps what it takes for a swear word to 'settle' into the general colloquial language of a population is a sort of cultural desensitisation towards it - via incorporating it into as many cultural artifacts as possible, as if it was an acceptable part of the language.

I mean, I remember when I was around in 6th grade of school, and the word "fuck" was spreading around our school so fast, due to this large group of new kids that had just moved in. I used to get incredibly offended at seeing people using the word so casually.

via link

But soon, the usage started to sink into me, and after getting into all sorts of weird indie films *ahem* I was completely desensitised to the word, and even it's contemporaries like "cunt", etc.

To be honest, it was British television shows and movies that taught me a lot about the colloquial and casual use of swear words.

And soon I was using the words out loud all the time: swearing out at the slightest accident (like tripping on a wire), or to add an extra sprinkle of sourness on my sarcasm. Things got a bit ridiculous when once, in school, I got the results for a test back and I blurted out "fuck..." in front of the teacher. I am sure there were some teachers who didn't care (they were all Brits, after all), but this teacher looked quite shocked.

I once even swore out loud at the school nurse, because she wouldn't let me go to the doctor, even though I had a high fever, because of FUCKING PAPER WORK. I got into quite a lot of trouble for it, and had to apologise to the bitch, even though she was the evil one.

via link

Oh, and then there was the incident with the Math teacher in the final year of school...it is a very long story; but it involves me storming out of my Math class yelling "I don't want to be in this shit class anyways" at the top of my voice. How hilarious (for the record, he was a sexist bully).

The point is that at school I slowly got used to swearing a lot, and never thought it as any sort of devious behaviour. So you can imagine coming to college, and finding quite a few people who are a bit sensitive to the usual casual throwaway of the phrase "fucking stupid bitch". My old roommate once got very offended when I had sworn out loud and said "fuck". She asked me, shocked, how I could use such a dirty word. I was throughly taken aback, because I never really thought swearing would be offensive to anyone from the same age group as me.

via link

I think that certain people are more prone to being offended by swear words than others due to lack of exposure to such harsh language. This can especially be true if that person does not use English in a more colloquial sense.

If someone is used to using English in a formal setting only, then suddenly being exposed to swear words from English can be quite shocking. I mean, it's possible that a person is not shocked by swearing, or listening to swear words, in their own language, but in English it can be pretty shocking.

For me it's the opposite - in English I can swear until my mouth is filled with tar, but it is almost impossible for me to tolerate swearing in my own language (Urdu).

Whenever I hear someone swearing in my language, I tend to cringe a little bit. I think it's because I have never grown up in an environment where I have heard the slang version of my language. In fact, my mother-tongue is my 'formal' language, because I only exclusively use it to talk to my parents, and my whole family only uses the polite and pure version of Urdu.

Remember when Slumdog Millionaire came out? Yeh, it was filled with swear words in Hindi/Marathi, and this somehow was a cue for guys in my class to repeat those words as often as possible. That brief month of a stupid meme was a cringe-fest for me.

Also, it is another thing to incorporate swear words into your everyday use of language, but it is another thing to tolerate being sworn at.

To be honest, if someone called me a "fucking bitch" or something among those lines, then I would be offended. I also don't ever swear directly at a person (unless the situation is too dire), because I know that is something I don't like to be done to myself.

But I think that may be due more to not wanting to hear someone insulting you, rather than the choice of words. I mean, if someone calls me a "bitch", whether it is "fucking bitch" or "mean bitch", I think I would tend to be equally offended.

via link 

I still cannot quite figure out how much swearing is appropriate. In a sad sort of way, swearing has replaced a lot of more clever uses of language to express feelings. Perhaps this is why swear words are so often used - the baggage of shock that they carry is many times seen as the most efficient way to express a whole hoard of strong feelings without making much effort.

I remember a teacher once telling our class that those who swear a lot are ones with little knowledge and vocabulary of a language, and that they are crude in general. Hmn...and interesting point of view for this.

I had to make a conscious effort to cut down on my swearing habit, and now I think that I only really swear in front of close friends. And I am trying to replace all the f-words with "bullocks" instead - since I can pretend that I am simply using it as a funny Brit expression.

I won't preach anyone on whether they should swear or not, but in general, I am personally trying to cut out my swearing habits. I think there should be better ways to express yourself, and I don't really want to strife to randomly offend people. At least in real life I think I have made some process, but then I usually have outbursts in my blog, which is why many people who know me personally and read my blogs tell me that I sound like two completely different people.

But then again, a good day of swearing in my head never hurt me too much. Especially when I am on a rampage and pissed off at people.

So you tell me: how much do you swear? Are you happy with yourself about that, or is swearing a problem? What do you think: should we care about people who get offended by swear words, or not give a fuck?

To finish off, I shall leave you with a quote from Ralph Fiennes, which makes absolutely, perfectly, applies to me:

James Lipton: And now for the favourite bit. What is your favourite curse word?

Ralph Fiennes: On a good day fuck, on a bad day cunt.

Inside The Actor’s Studio, with Ralph Fiennes 

Franz Ferdinand - Jacqueline

YAY YAY YAYYY!

I love this song - such a wonderful mixture of Brit pop and random elements of 60s rock.

So much energy. Really livens me up. I wish I could play the guitar so that I could perform this song myself.




Aaaah, look at them perform it live, so much fun! I wish I could go to live music concerts like this:

Hey, aren't you that emo kid?

Aaargh, I need to cheer up, I dunno what's the matter with me, I'm so miserable nowadays.

Today, we had a discussion on Hobbes in a philosophy class, and all I could think of in my head was misanthropic thoughts. I just sat there throughout the whole class, seething at the thought of altruism.

Personally, I don't think such a thing like altruism even exists (but I will argue about that another day; or if you know me, corner me in a corridor and demand to have a discussion with me. If I'm not pissed off, I will resist the urge to smack you, and actually talk to you).

I think I'm also going a bit paranoid. I keep feeling like someone is following me. And I keep thinking that there is someone in the peripheral of my vision.

Paper Flowers

It’s funny how detached we are from each other. Within each mind is nothing but a sea of detachment.

There is a cleaning lady at my university. Every time I see her, she is scrubbing the sinks in the toilets. But last semester, me and my friend noticed the most gorgeous plumage of origami flowers on her cleaning trolley.
Bright paper intricately folded and pushed into colourful plastic straws; and fifteen of these inserted into a paper coffee cup.

I’ve seen her sitting on the floor, after her shift is done, carefully folding the paper. There is a soft loving embrace with which she delicately folds the paper. With each fold, there is a sparkle in her eyes.

I heard her crying once too. I was in one of the cubicles in the toilet, feeling quite overwhelmed and anxious, because everything was falling apart, and I couldn’t feel anything anymore. And I thought it was ironic that here I was, sitting in this cubicle, listening to someone else crying outside. I realised that it was the sound of the cleaning lady and her paper covered trolley.

I had half a mind to go outside and comfort her. Or be sarcastic to her. I don’t know which. But I stayed in until she left for the best.

Many times when I see her, I feel like talking to her and asking her about her origami hobby. Tell her how lovely I think it is, or how those bright paper flowers shower warmth on my day. But I feel too detached to do that. I feel like I cannot communicate what I feel, or how I think.

So I never talk to her. I leave her to her own devices, her own flowers, her own misery, her own tears. And she will leave me to mine.

Air Quotes: it is a most elusive fish

[Very disorientating camerawork. The "audience" is yelling out where they think the fish is]

Strange Man: I wonder where that fish has gone?

Transvestite: You did love it so, you treated it like a son.

Strange Man: And it went... wherever I... did go.
[Bends perplexingly long arms]

Transvestite: Is it in the cupboard? Wouldn't you like to know! It is a most elusive fish.

[Strange Man twiddles some brass taps sown to the breasts of the Transvestite's corset]

Strange Man: That went where-ever I did go.

Transvestite: Oh, fishy, fishy, fishy fish!

Strange Man: A fish, a fish, a fishy OOOOH!

Transvestite: Oh, fishy, fishy, fishy fish!

Strange Man: That went wherever I... did go!

[a strange, half-elephant/half-man waiter wanders up out of nowhere holding a drinks tray]



Monty Python, The Meaning of Life

image via link

Air Quotes: consequently when I dream, I dream half-a-dream

an when I sleep at night
I close half-a-eye
consequently when I dream
I dream half-a-dream
an when moon begin to glow
I half-caste human being
cast half-a-shadow
but yu must come back tomorrow
wid de whole of yu eye
an de whole of yu ear
an de whole of yu mind.

an I will tell yu
de other half
of my story.

Half Caste, by John Agard

image: original painting by George Bissell

Air Quotes: you are not myself

‘How delightfully
the fishes
are enjoying themselves’,
exclaimed Soshi.


‘You are not a fish’,
commented his friend,
‘how do you know
that the fishes
are enjoying themselves?’


‘You are not myself’,
answered Soshi;
‘how do you know,
that I do not know,
that the fishes
are enjoying themselves?’


Taoist dialogue 

image via  life.com

Air Quotes: I felt only night within me

I felt only night within me and it was then that I conceived the new art, which I called Suprematism.

Kazimir Malevich, Russian artist, in his book The Non-Objective World, 1927.
Malevich described the inspiration which brought about the powerful image of the black square on a white background.

image: Kazimir Malevich, Black Square, 1915, Oil on Canvas

Air Quotes: Salome by Carol Ann Duffy

I’d done it before

(and doubtless I’ll do it again,

sooner or later)

woke up with a head on the pillow beside me – whose? –

what did it matter?

Good-looking, of course, dark hair, rather matted;

the reddish beard several shades lighter;

with very deep lines around the eyes,

from pain, I’d guess, maybe laughter;

and a beautiful crimson mouth that obviously knew

how to flatter…

which I kissed…

Colder than pewter.

Strange. What was his name? Peter?

Simon? Andrew? John? I knew I’d feel better

for tea, dry toast, no butter,

so rang for the maid.

And, indeed, her innocent clatter

of cups and plates,

her clearing of clutter,

her regional patter,

were just what I needed –

hungover and wrecked as I was from a night on the batter.

Never again!

I needed to clean up my act,

get fitter,

cut out the booze and the fags and the sex.

Yes. And as for the latter,

it was time to turf out the blighter,

the beater or biter,

who’d come like a lamb to the slaughter

to Salome’s bed.

In the mirror, I saw my eyes glitter.

I flung back the sticky red sheets,

and there, like I said – and ain’t life a bitch –

was his head on a platter.

Salome, by Carol Ann Duffy

image: Salome with the Head of John the Baptist,
by Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio

Air Quotes: a vagabond in the backwoods of rationality

Although fantasy and make-believe flourish in childhood they rapidly atrophy as one is moulded to fit the adult’s grey consensus of reality. A child, out on a walk with its mother, suddenly points and cries out, ‘Look, a purple cow.’ The mother, perhaps rather tired and domestically harassed, snaps, ‘Don’t be silly.’ And then delivers the crunch line: ‘There’s no such thing as purple cows.’

So the child, a vagabond in the backwoods of rationality, is brought up to see the world in the prosaic terms of grown-ups and eventually forgets it ever saw a purple cow. Now purple cows walk around unseen by anyone.


Alan Fletcher, The Art of Looking Sideways

image via link

Air Quotes: morale

The masses are foolish. If we tell them the facts, morale will collapse.

-Prime Minister Tojo of Japan (during WWII)

image via link

Air Quotes: corpse littered fields

Sure, we disagree. But we’re doing it in meeting rooms in Switzerland, 
not across some corpse-littered field

Time, August 11th 2008, “The Moment, 7/29/08: WTO Breakdown”, Simon Robinson

image via Greg Inda's Flickr 

Air Quotes: bitterness

Don’t allow yourself to turn bitter from the inside.

- Dad

Illustration by Kathe Kollwitz.

Air Quotes: a blaze of glory

I'm going to die very soon. Before my 21st birthday. I won't live to be 21. I'm never going to be old. I don't ever want to be ugly and old. I'm an old lady now anyhow. I'm 80. There’s nothing left. I've already lived a whole lifetime. I'm going out. In a blaze of glory.

Deborah Spungen quoted her daughter Nancy in her book And I Don’t Want To Live This Life


image via link

Air Quotes: the unalterable law of life

Only old Benjamin professed to remember every detail of his long life and to know that things never had been, nor ever could be much better or much worse – hunger, hardship, and disappointment being, so he said, the unalterable law of life.

Animal Farm by George Orwell, Chapter 10



image via link. Original illustration by Kathe Kollwitz.

Air Quotes: a ghost war

This is the first post in the series of posts featuring a quote that I particularly like.

Occasionally there will be a news report that 30 insurgents were killed in this place, 20 Taliban defeated in that place, but this is a surreal conflict, a narrative without clear beginnings and endings, without substantiation. High explosive is zooming back and forwards, so the enemy is certainly there, but go to the position from where they have been firing and there is usually nothing to be seen. Once, we arrived at a compound from where there had been firing and found four glasses and a teapot set out on a tray; the tea in the pot was still hot enough to drink. But you don't see anything, not a thing. I never even saw a blood trail. It's like a ghost war.

Sean Smith in The Guardian, "Three months on the frontline with troops in Afghanistan", Monday 17 August 2009

image via link

If.... Movie Posters

If.... is a 1968 British film by Lindsay Anderson starring Malcolm McDowell. It takes a satirical look at English public school life.

I really liked the posters of this film, so decided to post them here. My particular favourite is the third one down.

They are a lovely mix of avant-garde, pop art and punk.

Bed

There are dead things crawling all around me. Dead hands, old scabbing skin - pressing against my face. Eyes, protruding with dry veins, pierce their thoughts into my mind. 

They don't stop. Here I am, lying in peace, on my comfortable bed, with grace on my mind; yet these rotting beings won't let go of me. Hands, legs, blood, flesh; all dragging themselves against my skin.

I squirm and wither desperately, yet they clamp themselves even more tightly onto me. Pressing my throat down into the pillow. Blood pours in all directions as their flesh bursts open from the pressure. It's falling onto my face, into my mouth. Metallic taste over my tongue. I am drenched in filth and ruin.

Fingernails, grown in the grave, shred through my hair, pull back my head. And with one final cut, here I lie - dead. 

In my distorted eyes

Mrs Evalyn Walsh McLean, one of the owners of the famous Hope Diamond, a 44.5 carat stone which, legend has it, was stolen from an eye of a sculpted statue of the goddess Sita, the wife of Rama; and is supposed to bring bad luck to anyone who owns it. 

The Hope Diamond's most eccentric owner, Mrs. Mclean had the stone mounted as a headpiece and later as a pendant from which she would suspend the McLean Diamond, 31.26 carats, and the Star of the East, 94.8 carats.

Mrs. McLean's sense of humor resulted in the stone being worn by her Great Dane, Mike. Soldiers in the hospital played catch with it and she loaned it to friends on several occasions. Mrs. McLean never considered the stone unlucky even though her own life was full of tragedy. 

Her nine year old son was struck by a car and killed. Her husband divorced her and died insane and her daughter committed suicide. Mrs. McLean herself became a morphine addict. Two years after her death in 1947 the Hope Diamond, along with her entire jewelry collection, was purchased by Harry Winston.

text via Antique Jewelery University

The madcap laughed at the man on the border

Please leave us here

close our eyes to the octopus ride!

Isn't it good to be lost in the wood

isn't it bad so quiet there, in the wood

meant even less to me than I thought

with a honey plough of yellow prickly seeds

clover honey pots and mystic shining feed...

well, the madcap laughed at the man on the border

hey ho, huff the Talbot

"Cheat" he cried shouting kangaroo

it's true in their tree they cried

Please leave us here

close our eyes to the octopus ride!

- Syd Barrett, Octopus

Feeling grey...