Monday, December 31, 2007

last post

of 2007.


song of the day: Radiohead - Videotape

happiness: the dried, sticky salt of tears on a glowing skin

sadness: nothing has changed, not in this year. maybe next year.

nice word: helix


that's it for now. the curtain falls. perhaps nothing will change. sometimes this is good, sometimes this is bad. let us just live, and live, and live. close eyes and think not; i embrace you.


love,

peter

Sunday, December 23, 2007

happiness # 23

this silvery, crystalline moonlight falling into my room right now. truly a great way to come home.

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

the stars like dust

the stars hang over our bare earth at night. we only see them from this perspective, and they are 'out there', while we are 'here'. it's all perception; nothing less, nothing more. they are small, like simple white, silvery dots on an endless, black sheet of paper. but in truth, they are not. the very ground we are standing on should be ashamed to be so small in comparison.

but we are really destroying that earth, that little lost globe for which there may not be any hope. and then it hit me: perhaps this doesn't even matter. yes, all life, or the quality of that life, may be lost. but then again, it's only this very small blueish ball in a corner of the universe, and if we cover it with ashes and bombs and pollution, then so be it. there still are so many other stars out there, and none of them will tremble only slightly when the last living thing on earth closes its eyes.

maybe none of this matters. maybe we can continue driving in our cars alone, waiting in line, in front of and behind other cars, all exhaling the dust which will bury itself in our fragile lungs - the trees of our bodies. maybe it's not for the worse (nor for the best) that we throw our garbage into our seas and oceans, for they are lost and gone already. maybe we can continue doing all those things which strike people who are not afraid to realize. maybe nothing of all of this matters, and i am a fool to try to hold on. or, to echo Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead: what good is a brick to a drowning man?

maybe we can pile dust on dust, destroy and create, live in the dark, not caring about being blind.

maybe i can go on writing these pathetic little texts while knowing that i sound like a troubled adolescent, and know that they do fuck all, really.

maybe it's time we crush all trees to have more space.

maybe it's time to stop thinking.

maybe we can just leave things at that and go on living like lemmings close to the shore.

maybe i should close my eyes now.

maybe.





i hope not.

Thursday, December 13, 2007

songs of the day (this rather cold Thursday on which it is dark so early)

1. Talvin Singh - Traveller

2. Talvin Singh - Butterfly

Sunday, December 09, 2007

the eyes of a writer

after i graduated this july in germanic languages, i realized that i had mainly been focussing on english/american literature, and that i had somewhat neglected dutch/flemish literature (the two languages i studied were english and dutch). so i decided to read more of the latter. due to circumstances, i started reading a novel by Herman Brusselmans, a flemish writer. though he is hated by many because of his sometimes arrogant writing, i noticed how he more often than not exposes his weaknesses, his fears, his insecurities. i also saw how he could be babbling on an entire chapter, being rude and hard and almost aggressive, only to end up with a single sentence which turned everything around -- something like "but actually, i can feel nothing but love for my fellow man".

anyway, either you love him or you don't, it doesn't really matter. what matters is that i soon read seven of his works during the summer holiday, and some poems and short prose as well. now what is specific to his oeuvre, is that he writes very personally, and discusses the problems and fears he has to deal with. in short, even though there is a considerable amount of fictionalization, you really are thinking along his thoughts, living along his emotions.

last month i went to the Boekenbeurs (literally: 'the book fair'), an annual fair here in Antwerp where authors come to sign, where new books or editions are presented, where a large number of publishing firms have their little booths. many, many people visit the 'boekenbeurs', and among those a large number of famous Belgian people can be found, including, of course, many writers, who are either sitting at the booths to sign or are strolling around themselves.

of course, there was the habitual flash of recognition every time you see someone you are used to seeing in a magazine or on tv. but i've never been such a 'celebrity-humper', so i didn't really care.

turning around a corner, however, i suddenly looked in the eyes of this Herman Brusselmans. i didn't care about anyone else any more, for the sensation was so strange. as i said, i am no celeb-humper, but suddenly seeing, in front of you, the very man whose thoughts you have been studying so closely for an extended period of time, is an intense experience indeed.

the materialization of those thoughts was something that genuinely perturbed me.

all of this to ponder on the contrast between written words and the origin of those words. for behind every one of those verbal configurations of mental processes lie the eyes of the writer, watching inwards and reaching out to us, perhaps afraid, perhaps filled with self-confidence and pride.

i would not call myself a writer on this blog, but these, too, are words, and yes, here i am, and there you are, inside my head, reading whatever i think right now; and what comes out of my mind will be out there somewhere, supsended in a digital nothingness, visible for everyone with a connection to the internet. it's a strange, strange world.

sorry if this text is structurally very poor. i guess i started with one thought and ended with another. but perhaps that is also part and parcel of this hiding of mental instances behind verbal ones, for the mind works in mysterious ways. and, just to end up with some associative thought, if the mind works in mysterious ways, just like god is supposed to do, then Emily Dickinson was quite right when she said that "The Brain is just the weight of God".

and yes, this is how i prove that this grey pudding blubbering in our skull is god: by wanting to read more dutch/flemish literature. tune in next time, when i prove that mathematics is the true fabric of the universe simply by providing a good recipe for spaghetti bolognaise. hmm.


dammit, now i'm hungry!

Sunday, December 02, 2007

song of the day (somewhere between saturday and sunday)

King Crimson - Epitaph

lovely, that, to wake up with, and to go to sleep with. which i will do now. after i finished listening.