Welcome to my blog, Too Young to Drink, but Not Too Young to Fuck! First, a little bit about me and my new avatar…
This is my first blog, of any kind, anywhere. Normally on a cellphone or the Web, I would write in my dumb noob version of teenage, i/m ‘shthnd’ (shorthand), but for clarity’s sake, I will dispense with that because… well, for one thing, I’m not a teenager anymore (and I’m not dumb and do know how to write better), and after what I’ve experienced this summer, maybe I’m not such a noob anymore either. I’ll let you decide that for yourselves, but for now if (when) I slip up and revert to incomprehensible slang, or write something that’s not completely clear, please, let me know, and I’ll try to correct it. Feedback, that’s what I want.
Now, I’d like to make some acknowledgements and a not-so-standard disclaimer, as follows: Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, is entirely intentional.
Stuff you read here I’ve already told select people in emails and p/ms (that’s private msgs, btw, not anything to do with pre-menstrual syndrome… fuck, I’m starting already!), and those people (to whom I owe a lasting debt of gratitude) all know precisely what I’m doing. Furthermore, they’ve all given me explicit permission to describe them inasmuch as I do, so if you’re so wrong-headed as to think at any point in my blog I’m writing about you… well, you’d just be plain wrong. Word!
I just changed my avatar to a pic of one of my idols. I’ve got a whole lot of idols (some even on this site), but for various, tedious reasons, most related to the fact I use a WEBTV (MSNTV) browser/receiver to access the site, especially in the summer, I’m not able to put any of their pics on my profile page, or for that matter to upload any of my own.
Moreover, since ‘avatar’ is a Sanskrit word literally meaning ‘descent’ (but also translated as ‘teacher’) and primarily refers to the incarnations, personifications and manifestations (‘descents to earth' in other words) of the Hindu deity Vishnu, for the longest time I was looking for a copyright-free, 100x100 pixel pic of Vishnu, or one of the more popular of his ten ‘avatars’ (Krishna, or Buddha, for example), to use, but since I don’t practice Hinduism and really only know a very little about it (om, George Harrison, Alan Watts) finally decided that would be extremely pretentious if not downright misleading.
Therefore, I’ve decided on a pic of one of the greatest filmmakers who ever lived, Sergei Paradzhanov (also spelled Parajanov). If he were still alive today, he would be 85. I study filmmaking, and I’m going to be a filmmaker myself one day (no matter what anyone thinks!), and in Paradzhanov’s tempestuous, creative life (censored, censured, jailed and persecuted repeatedly by the Soviet authorities, for his homosexuality and, perhaps, his 'Jewishness' as much as for his anti-authoritarian political views), he still managed to make two of the most extraordinary films in cinema history, Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors and Sayat Nova AKA The Color of Pomegranates.
Now, slog with me onward to the blog; watch your step, it’s slippery…
Word! Wort! (auf Deutsch). Mot! (en Français). Words are Truth! (Wahrheit! La Vérité!) ‘En archain estin o logos,’ says the Gospel According to John (in Greek), ‘In the beginning was the Word.’ Logo! Aleithea! Veritas! (Truth! in Greek and Latin). Slovo! Pravda! (Word! Truth! in Russian).
Words mean a lot to me. Truth is, I love words. I certainly love to read. Once I find a writer I like, I try to read everything he ever wrote.
My LPSG ‘signature’ already has featured two quotations from this summer’s reading list, all the books of Edward St Aubyn. There aren’t that many really, but they’re each singular (though interconnected in subtle ways) and incredible: harrowing, funny and ultimately devastating. He writes incredibly well and, most importantly, truthfully. Scathingly so. Check them out if you don’t know him. He’s a genius. Word Up!
A teacher once told me, after I handed in a 3,000 word essay, I was an ‘entomologist.’ It was a joke: he explained that I was someone who was ‘bugged’ by the meaning of words (not ‘etymologist,’ in other words, ha-ha). Well, Word! That fits me to a T (a tight one, like by Armour-all).
Words are important to me. My Word is important to me. I’m old fashioned that way, I suppose, or so I’ve been told. If I give my Word to someone, I keep it because I consider my Word to be my Bond. In other words, I swear to tell the Truth! Not the least because it’s a whole lot easier than lying. But it’s also a lot more fun, too. I just love to see the expression on people’s faces when I (unexpectedly, to them, the fools) tell the Truth. Word Up! Nothing can beat it.
I need to wrap up this first installment soon, but before I do so, I want everyone to know something else about me, I love the music (and, no surprise, the Words) of the Stranglers. I’m not just your ordinary fanboy though (I’m not ordinary in any sense of the Word!).
I came by my appreciation of the Stranglers' words and music by inheriting the record, tape and CD collection of my late brother (and late uncle, the real Stranglers’ fan, who predeceased my brother and originally left his collection to him).
I’ll ‘introduce you to the family’ (arcane reference to another Stranglers’ song) in my next blog entry, but to close this inaugural episode, let me just set the scene for where I am at the moment with only a few lines from Peaches. (Unfortunately, all I've got space left for today.)
Au revoir! À toutes à l’heures! À bientôt! À la prochaine! Auf Wiedersehen! Bis bald! Tschüss! Do svendanya! Do vstrechi! Uvydimsya! Poka! Spokoynoy nochi e udachi! (as Edward R Murrow used to say, albeit in English) Tseluyu! Cheers! TTFN! Later, Alligators! Hasta Luego!
Strolling along
Minding my own business
Well, there goes a girl and a half
She’s got me going up and down
She’s got me going up and down
Walking on the beaches
Looking at the Peaches
This is my first blog, of any kind, anywhere. Normally on a cellphone or the Web, I would write in my dumb noob version of teenage, i/m ‘shthnd’ (shorthand), but for clarity’s sake, I will dispense with that because… well, for one thing, I’m not a teenager anymore (and I’m not dumb and do know how to write better), and after what I’ve experienced this summer, maybe I’m not such a noob anymore either. I’ll let you decide that for yourselves, but for now if (when) I slip up and revert to incomprehensible slang, or write something that’s not completely clear, please, let me know, and I’ll try to correct it. Feedback, that’s what I want.
Now, I’d like to make some acknowledgements and a not-so-standard disclaimer, as follows: Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, is entirely intentional.
Stuff you read here I’ve already told select people in emails and p/ms (that’s private msgs, btw, not anything to do with pre-menstrual syndrome… fuck, I’m starting already!), and those people (to whom I owe a lasting debt of gratitude) all know precisely what I’m doing. Furthermore, they’ve all given me explicit permission to describe them inasmuch as I do, so if you’re so wrong-headed as to think at any point in my blog I’m writing about you… well, you’d just be plain wrong. Word!
I just changed my avatar to a pic of one of my idols. I’ve got a whole lot of idols (some even on this site), but for various, tedious reasons, most related to the fact I use a WEBTV (MSNTV) browser/receiver to access the site, especially in the summer, I’m not able to put any of their pics on my profile page, or for that matter to upload any of my own.
Moreover, since ‘avatar’ is a Sanskrit word literally meaning ‘descent’ (but also translated as ‘teacher’) and primarily refers to the incarnations, personifications and manifestations (‘descents to earth' in other words) of the Hindu deity Vishnu, for the longest time I was looking for a copyright-free, 100x100 pixel pic of Vishnu, or one of the more popular of his ten ‘avatars’ (Krishna, or Buddha, for example), to use, but since I don’t practice Hinduism and really only know a very little about it (om, George Harrison, Alan Watts) finally decided that would be extremely pretentious if not downright misleading.
Therefore, I’ve decided on a pic of one of the greatest filmmakers who ever lived, Sergei Paradzhanov (also spelled Parajanov). If he were still alive today, he would be 85. I study filmmaking, and I’m going to be a filmmaker myself one day (no matter what anyone thinks!), and in Paradzhanov’s tempestuous, creative life (censored, censured, jailed and persecuted repeatedly by the Soviet authorities, for his homosexuality and, perhaps, his 'Jewishness' as much as for his anti-authoritarian political views), he still managed to make two of the most extraordinary films in cinema history, Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors and Sayat Nova AKA The Color of Pomegranates.
Now, slog with me onward to the blog; watch your step, it’s slippery…
Word! Wort! (auf Deutsch). Mot! (en Français). Words are Truth! (Wahrheit! La Vérité!) ‘En archain estin o logos,’ says the Gospel According to John (in Greek), ‘In the beginning was the Word.’ Logo! Aleithea! Veritas! (Truth! in Greek and Latin). Slovo! Pravda! (Word! Truth! in Russian).
Words mean a lot to me. Truth is, I love words. I certainly love to read. Once I find a writer I like, I try to read everything he ever wrote.
My LPSG ‘signature’ already has featured two quotations from this summer’s reading list, all the books of Edward St Aubyn. There aren’t that many really, but they’re each singular (though interconnected in subtle ways) and incredible: harrowing, funny and ultimately devastating. He writes incredibly well and, most importantly, truthfully. Scathingly so. Check them out if you don’t know him. He’s a genius. Word Up!
A teacher once told me, after I handed in a 3,000 word essay, I was an ‘entomologist.’ It was a joke: he explained that I was someone who was ‘bugged’ by the meaning of words (not ‘etymologist,’ in other words, ha-ha). Well, Word! That fits me to a T (a tight one, like by Armour-all).
Words are important to me. My Word is important to me. I’m old fashioned that way, I suppose, or so I’ve been told. If I give my Word to someone, I keep it because I consider my Word to be my Bond. In other words, I swear to tell the Truth! Not the least because it’s a whole lot easier than lying. But it’s also a lot more fun, too. I just love to see the expression on people’s faces when I (unexpectedly, to them, the fools) tell the Truth. Word Up! Nothing can beat it.
I need to wrap up this first installment soon, but before I do so, I want everyone to know something else about me, I love the music (and, no surprise, the Words) of the Stranglers. I’m not just your ordinary fanboy though (I’m not ordinary in any sense of the Word!).
I came by my appreciation of the Stranglers' words and music by inheriting the record, tape and CD collection of my late brother (and late uncle, the real Stranglers’ fan, who predeceased my brother and originally left his collection to him).
I’ll ‘introduce you to the family’ (arcane reference to another Stranglers’ song) in my next blog entry, but to close this inaugural episode, let me just set the scene for where I am at the moment with only a few lines from Peaches. (Unfortunately, all I've got space left for today.)
Au revoir! À toutes à l’heures! À bientôt! À la prochaine! Auf Wiedersehen! Bis bald! Tschüss! Do svendanya! Do vstrechi! Uvydimsya! Poka! Spokoynoy nochi e udachi! (as Edward R Murrow used to say, albeit in English) Tseluyu! Cheers! TTFN! Later, Alligators! Hasta Luego!
Strolling along
Minding my own business
Well, there goes a girl and a half
She’s got me going up and down
She’s got me going up and down
Walking on the beaches
Looking at the Peaches