New photoblog

I know that it's a bit of a cliché and something that a rather lazy person would do (which I am obviously not), but decided to do that anyway - I've started a new photoblog!

http://littlelessordinary.wordpress.com/

The main theme of my blog will be Dublin - but not the popular landmarks and events, but rather more-than-meets-the-eye photography. I love this city and would like others to see it the way I do. Also, since the art of photography makes me see the lovely little things everywhere I go, I shall post something from other cities as well, every Friday. That is the plan, at least. The plan is also to post daily.

For a change - decided to put it up on wordpress.com. Not the best blogging platform ever, but still worth to test.

New posts from the blog will be publicized on twitter, of course.

Love and horror

I've been going through a cinemaniac crisis lately, I simply couldn't enjoy any "diffcult" movie at all. And just when I was about to surrender and admit that brainwashink chick flicks are all that I can watch, my local cinema made me realize, that it wasn't a pathology, just a lack of the right stimulator. Yet another adaptation of one of my top favourite novels of all time, "Jane Eyre" by Charlotte Bronte, has made it to Dublin screens!

The film itself is a real masterpiece. I instantly fell for its raw beauty, darkness and mysterious atmosphere. It's been ages since I read the book (in Polish, sadly), so I might get vague about a detail or two, but it seems that the script is pretty close to the original story. At the time when I was reading the novel, I obviously paid more attention to the romantic thread, which is indeed beautiful, unusual and moving, but when watching the movie two days ago, something else has provided me with food for thoughts. Not the love of Jane and Edward, but Jane herself.

Even though she grew up in times when children had no rights whatsoever, nun's kane had to do for morality and the ultimate virtue of a woman was her constant ability to kneel in front of a priest and a rich master, she's always known better. She wasn't afraid of her mean aunt or the ruthless nuns, because she simply could tell right from wrong. She feared nothing, she didn't let anyone to mislead her, nor to terrorize her. She wasn't afraid of feeling love or hate, think for herself, decide on her own. Wise, unbreakable and passionate, she kept her inner world of dreams and beliefs, never losing even a bit of her dignity, in spite of the people around her, who tried very hard to kill the amazing personality she had.

I tend to say that the biggest inspiration in my adult life are Kurt Vonnegut's novels - indeed, thanks to this gentleman I keep looking at life a bit bitterly and not too serious, he was also the one to give me an idea of building my very own planet where I can go, when life on Earth is a bit too much to handle. But now, when I go back in time even further, I think it's Jane Eyre who made me keep my teeth and claws sharp over the years.


Ladies! When your daughters are grown up enough, make them read "Jane Eyre". They might not get it at first, but something will remain in the back of their heads for ever.




BTW, I did feel it before, but couldn't put my finger on it - "Twilight" was inspired big time by this story, don't you think?

Evil never dead

No matter how decent your life is, doesn't matter if you live by the book, do not get in others' way and pay your taxes, sooner or later you will meet the evil. You can deny it, turn your back on it, cover up your eyes - sooner or later the evil will become so evil that you won't help noticing it. You'll find yourself standing like a deer in car lights, frozen with fear, waiting for the bumper to hit you instead of running for your life.

All that thoughts came to me yesterday, as I had a chat with a friend about serial killers. We've exchanged some opinions, F words (OK, that was one-sided actually, and that side was me) and wikipedia links. I might sound like a little princess, but my everyday mask of cold-blooded cynicism was melting as I dug through the description of all those bastards' deeds.

I must admit, I'm no saint. I tend to (ab)use some harmful substances, think of some inappropriate stuff and in the moments of great anger I wish some people badly, but in fact I had had no clue what evil really was like. And now I kinda regret that I got a clue, because the amount of evil ran me over like that poor deer that was too stupid to run while there was still time.

Look at any rap/hh video nowadays. It's not even about the songs themselves, which are truly horrible and appear to me as an insult to the music as a whole. I'm not happy with the way women are shown in them either. But the amount of physical violence is just unacceptable. Woman is strangled. Someone gets smacked in a face. A guy is gesticulating with a gun towards the camera. A GUN. That thing that sends at a huge speed a hot, sharp piece of metal towards a human being in order to cause injure, pain or even death.  People die of it. Where's fun in that? OK, chains, hot girls, swimming pool, limo. But gun? Violence? Why do we allow it?

All bad things that happened to me in the past are coming back to me now. Someone hit me hard with a rock at the back of my head (happened to me in a street once, like 15 years ago). My bike or my guitar stolen. An exhibitionist in a park showing me what he's got. Each time I felt pretty much the same way: confused, petrified, shocked, helpless. Why did they do that to me? What did I do to deserve this? How come that this fucked up person is let out loose? How can this person live with themselves?

Back to the serial killers, I was reading about Dahmer. The list of victims and details of his activity disgusted me, but what really made me think was the very ending of the article: inspirations. Books, graphic novels, songs, movies. How can one get inspired with something that horrible? What the hell is wrong with you, people? Why do you keep reviving that evil, what is it that fascinates you so much? Why do you want to show it to the world?

Please, stop doing it. Consider those who don't want to feel confused, petrified and helpless. There are so many funny, inspiring and lusciously nasty things around us: sex, booze (and things people do once they get enough of it in their systems :D), general absurd of corporate world, people's quirks, popculture... And yet some of you prefer relating to a guy who raped, killed, dismembered, ate the flesh and photographed the remnants of 17 boys and men? Seriously, WTF.

Play it again, VLC

My recent discovery in time management solutions is not the only brilliant idea I've had these days. At some point I realized that it's better to watch some good movie for zillionth time than watching something new that doesn't even seem good at first glance.

Seriously, how many times people throw themselves into watching a film even though they know it simply cannot be satisfying (because the story is a cliché, critics disapprove, cast sucks or whatever), only because it's newly released? Why bother and waste your time on some new, shiny crap, when you can go back to something good that you know that you've liked? I know that discovering and trying new things is exciting, but let's face it: if that freshly released film was really revolutionary, you would know it beforehand anyway.

I've got a few films that I like to go back to over and over again, and even though I've seen them several times, watching them again never feels like waste of time.

Here it goes:

Samotari (Loners)

A story of a bunch of young people living in Praha, whose paths cross in different, sometimes completely unexpected way. They love, cheat, fight, drink, seek for extra-terrestrials. Sometimes it gets funny, sometimes it gets ugly, but definitely not boring. Very 1990s movie, including the soundtrack.



film info @ IMDB

Cha no aji (The taste of tea)

Very weird and very cute movie, straight from Japan. The plot evolves around life of Haruno family residing in a village called Tochigi. Delightful sequence of images and sounds gives us an insight into the little world of each of the characters, not really telling us any story, yet a spectator has no idea when all that time disappeared when the movie's over. On top of that, ladies - Asano Tadanobu to drool on :) (and Shinji Takeda, but not much of him)



film info @ IMDB


Annie Hall

Couldn't miss Woody Allen's work in this list. Actually, when I feel like going back to some movie of my liking, then I could chose between few of his films, but this particular one would be, most of the time, my very first choice, because on top of classic Woody Allen "Neurosis and the City" theme, I adore Annie herself. She's crazy, complicated, a bit detached from reality, yet fun and very interesting. And that vision of LA - epic!

My favourite scene: Woody Allen approaches a random couple of beautiful, fashionable people in the street and demands to know the secret of their successful relationship. The answer pretty much says it all about relationships in general...



Les fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain

I love this picture for absolutely everything: Paris, humour, red colour, charming details, Mathieu Kassovitz, the cat, the dwarf...

I've seen this movie like 8-9 times and still counting. Lately I've been trying to watch the original version with no subtitles, discovering yet another aspect of the movie that I hadn't paid any attention to before. Quite nice language practice, may I say. I know this film so well that if all of its copies disappeared tomorrow, I'd be able to make this movie the way it was from scratch. True story.



"Harry Potter" saga

Cannot really say why exactly I like those films so much (the books were obviously much better), but the truth is Harry, Ron and Hermione have sort of moved in with me. My bf watches random scenes from random parts of the saga with his meals (like most of Internet addicts we eat in front of our PCs), I tend to watch HP when I have no energy to smile any more. Books aside, these pictures are just beautiful and charming. They are also incredibly good from technical point of view, take cast for instance - Rickman, Smith, Gleeson, Sutherland and many others, the fruit of the loom. My favourite part of the saga is "The Goblet of Fire", not only because it has Robert Pattinson in it, but also because of Malfoy turned into a ferret and the ship that Durmstrang gang came in. It cannot get any more awesome than that.




We NEVER use transfiguration as a punishment :D

Ame Agaru

You might think that I like only funny movies and treat watching them as a substitute for prozac. Most of the time I do, but there are some more serious pictures that I love as well. "Ame Agaru" is the last work of Akira Kurosawa, also claimed by himself as his most important one. It has all the features of samurai films, yet its message is far less obvious and one of a kind: what you do is less important than why you do it. The ending still remains open to guess and interpretation, to which I give my thoughts once in a while.




Tonari no Totoro (My neighbour Totoro)

One word: nekobasu :)

Dzień świra (Day of the wacko)

A day of life in Poland. Not sure if not too hermetic for non-Polish, but worth to mention. I still don't know who the real wacko here is: the main character or the people around him.




film info @ IMDB

Revolution in Time Management

Dear visitor!
If you made it to this page, you are most probably dealing with the same problem as many adult professionals - lack of spare time. But do not be afraid, my extremely simple and brilliant programme is exactly what you're looking for. Soon you will be able so stretch your spare time out, almost denying laws of physics.

I suppose that you, just like myself until only yesterday, were coping with the same pain every single day: you couldn't find a minute for your hobbies, little pleasures, housework etc. Time seems to be slipping through your fingers and before you know it, it's very late and you must go to sleep.

Some people are trying to torture themselves by neglecting their bodies and minds, buying more time with sleep deprivation or cutting down on housework. This is a very bad idea. Sleep deprivation causes lack of focus and motivation, so as a result we think slower and need even more time on anything, including work. Housework will not disappear by itself (there are of course some ways to make it faster, like a dishwasher, but I bet that soon buying tablets and putting crockery in and out of it would become overwhelming anyway).

You are getting more and more frustrated every day. You think that a day should have more than 24 hours, or that you work too much. You wish you could stop the time or become a robot and not being forced to sleep any more. Unfortunately, none of this would happen and you are like a fish in its last struggle for life when caught in a fisherman's net. You feel that time rules your life far too much.

It's still possible to change it! With my revolutionary tip all that feeling of frustration and unfulfilled life will be gone in no time. You shall become the master of your time again.

Listen to what my other clients have to say about Revolutionary Time Stretching Program:

Margaret, age 30
I work 40 hours a week excluding lunch, so about 45 hours a week in total. I cannot function well when I cut down on sleep or drink too much coffee. I could not find any time for studying French, housework, reading, yet at the end of each day I felt exhausted, because, as it seemed, I had been extremely busy. Thanks to this absolutely brilliant tip already on the very first day I was able to clean the bathroom, do my laundry, cook lunch for the following day, hoover my living room and write a brilliant blog entry, and even after completing that I was still full of energy.

Gryzelda, age 6
Mgrrrrr? Purr, purr, purr... Meooooow!
translation: Oh, you're finally home. Pet me and feed me. Now.

 Find out today what my amazing Revolutionary Time Stretching Program can do!

Here's where the PayPal link goes, but I give it all to you for free, because I'm a naive, sentimental idiot :D

This is my brilliant tip - use it and you'll soon experience more of a day in a day!

Here it goes:

DO NOT TURN YOUR GODDAMN PC ON FIRST THING YOU'RE HOME

I know, you might think that world will end if you don't check up on news and all friends will abandon you if you don't log in to facebook, but this is NOT TRUE. Just trust me on this - when you come home, do what you have to/want to do, and then turn your PC on. You will be surprised how much of spare time you've got.

Dublin tale

Some time ago, early in the morning, when I woke up and went to balcony door to let my kitty out, I spotted this lovely picture:

Cannot say what I like about this photo the most. Is it the very surreal touch of something-reflecting-in-something-else type, or that lovely shade of blue, or maybe the shape of that bizarre vessel, reminding me of sports cars. Enough said, I felt a great urge to take this photo, put it up on FB and deviantart, and then relish the moment.

Two days later, the wind changed its direction and then I saw it all in a completely new perspective. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you a new, undiscovered side of my little surreal visitor:

Awww, isn't it cute? <3

All that story made me think a bit (I think too much, that's my problem, one of many, may I say) and finally I reached some conclusion, pick whatever you like the most:

- not everything is what it seems
- do not seek for a new meaning of something that has none
- even the biggest cliché has its absurd, surreal charm that begins and ends in your very own mind

Go seek for the surreal!

Children and grown-ups

This week, on Jun 1st, we celebrated International Children's Day in Poland. Funny enough, I got wishes and little gifts from my parents (mind that I'm 30). This made me a think a bit of adulthood and childhood.

Very often I get to hear from the adults that they'd like to be children again. Teenagers claim themselves proudly not being children any more. There seems to be a lot of myths and longings regarding childhood and I cannot understand why.

My childhood was not that much careless and happy (mostly because of frequent injuries, I've always been living on the edge), but wasn't miserable either, because I had a chance to grow up in a lovely house with a big garden, having lots of pets, family folks and children around me. Did not like school, but did not agonize over it either. Absolutely ordinary child living ordinary life.

But why would I miss it, anyway? Getting up at 7 every day to make it to school at 8? Spending vast amount of time on learning needless stuff? Listening to others telling me what to do? Carrying all that heavy books? Hell no!

Sure, it was great to have 2 months off. But anyway, my parents could not send me anywhere to any longer than 2-3 weeks for some summer camp, and for the rest of time I was just playing in the backyard or bothering my relatives, which was even more boring than my usual routine. Now it's pretty much the same - I take 2 weeks off and take off! And my possibilities are plenty, I can go anywhere I want, book a hotel and flight by myself and - luckily - not to worry about the budget too much.

My parents indeed provided for me. But does that mean that my life was careless and free of responsibility? Not really. I had to help my mom with cleaning, shopping and cooking, on top of that had to go to school, to a lot of homework and taking some extra classes (music, English) after school. Also, I started doing part-time job at the age of 15. Looking at the bigger picture, I think that the proportion of work and pleasure in my life was pretty much the same as it is now, and this is definitely a good thing. If your childhood was any more careless or care-loaded, then sorry to break this to you, but the happy period you miss so much does not look very happy to me.

I do miss some activities I did as a kid, like trees climbing, cycling or skipping rope, but who says I cannot go back to it? Sure, I'm much heavier, have a huge, fat ass and am a bit of lazy when it comes to physical activities, but it's not something I cannot cope with, that is, if I really wanted to.

Maybe that's really the thing you're all longing for - when you were kids, you wanted to do more. You miss it? Just get yourself together and want it again. Yes, it's that simple.

Kid up!

Summer sucks

I know that this statement is against popular beliefs and maybe even common sense (a bit), but I cannot help it:

I HATE SUMMER

That's right. When all of you dream of giving your tired stinky feet some fresh air in sandals, eating ice cream, sunbathing and girls sundressing up, I dream of hibernation, just like bears do in winter.


Why do I think summer sucks?


1. The heat
I hate the heat. When the temperature goes above 20 C, I sweat like a racing horse, suffer from constant dehydration, cannot think straight and get depressed. Whenever I hear of someone spending their summer holidays in Greece, Egypt or Turkey, I ask myself, where a human being's self-destruction mechanism is going to stop. Thus, despite of  throwing away umbrellas broken by wind and getting soaking wet few times a month, I do not regret living in Ireland. I'm freezing and loving it! 

Note to HR: I believe my office requires some rearrangement.

2. Children let out loose
Children are alwais a pain in the arse, but it gets even worse during summer. They yell, call each other names, beg for a cigarette, spill soda on each other etc. I kinda feel for them - they're just bored, being our of school for the whole 2 months. If you let an animal bred in captivity into the wild, it cannot adapt either. 
Don't even get me started on Spanish school trips in Dublin, ugh.

It takes actual magic to put the little bastards in order during summer.

3. Staphylococcus aureus waiting just round the corner
Ice cream anyone? Come on, this poor Staphylococcus has a bunch of itteh bitteh bacteria to feed!

Just wait until it melts all over your fingers and lick it. Get sugar rush and nasty comments, if you're a woman.
BTW, did you know that "making ice cream" in Polish slang means "make me a bj"? ;)

4. Killing sunrays
You never know when it's this one-minute-too-much of staying out of shadow. Before you know it, your skin is red like on a roast pig, sunstroke makes drink you a river and a skin on your nose makes you sing "The falling leaves". If that sneaky prick the sun hides behind the clouds in the morning, you might find yourself forgetting your sunglasses and shedding tears for the rest of the day. Or week. In my case rather the latter.

Falling asleep in the sun: quite a dork indeed. BTW, thanks to that movie I've learned my very first English offensive word (dork). I was less than 8.

5. Cultural desert
Shitty movies coming out, museums and libraries closing early, nothing interesting on TV (not that I have any, call me a hipster or whatever). And everything filled with tourists anyway.

Summer repertoir in the biggest multiplex cinema in Dublin. Usually that list is twice long, at least. What should I watch: "Pirates of No Brain", "Apocalypse Now - Well, 40 fucking years ago, actually", some crappy animation for retards and children, or maybe American clone of "Azumi"? Wow, tough choice!

Which leads to the next point...


6. Crowd everywhere
How about visiting some interesting place? Awesome! - said roughly half of the population of Europe. I'm not even talking of Notre Dame, Eiffel tower, Colosseum, Temple Bar and all those places you'd take a photo of (with you in a foreground) to pimp your facebook profile - these spots are crowded all year long and summer is no different from the middle of December (true story). During summer crowd is EVERY-FUCKING-WHERE. Planes, buses, trains, pubs, clubs, restaurants, museums, cafes, parks, beaches, even bloody pavements on my way to work. All the places you think of going - that hateful crowd is already there, violating your private space and making you want to accuse them of sexual harassment. I'm not exactly the most sociable person on Earth and each time I manage to improve my attitude, any summer day ruins it.

Let's meet at the beach and swim in somebody's pee!

7. Dreadful fashion
I hate sandals, bright colours and light fabrics. I love tall, steelcap boots, wool, turtlenecks - and all that in black, gray or purple. When summer comes, I have to place all my favourite cloths in a storage. As if it wasn't complicated enough, during summer it takes more time and effort to look, if not hot, then at least half-decent. All that cleavages and short pants require more shaving, pedicure and maybe even getting tanned (eww at the very idea of holding still for such a trivial idea like looking better, what a waste of time - believe it or not, but I am actually writing all this while waiting for my nail polish to dry up). You cannot simply cover everything up with geisha style make-up and thick thights. I hate that whole hassle about being feminine. 

Not only looks stylish but also feels nicer to touch, because it's always way more smooth than a skin. Yes, gentlemen ;)

8. Life exploding straight to my face
Mosquitos lusting for my blood like Edward Cullen himself (3 bites this year, so far, round my ankles of course, which could probably get me to the top of Ministry of Silly Walks). 
Fat, bold flies that piss my cat off (2 permanent residents in my place so far, they would not pay the rent, which is just unfair).
Water stinking of rotten eggs. 
Gardens smell nice indeed, but still I prefer their smell during springtime.


Sure, I do like when it's not raining and it's awesome instead. But isn't it the case during any other season as well? In Ireland it's like a lottery anyway. Personally I prefer sunlight in autumn, it's mild, warm, harmless and makes my photos look swell.

Summer, GTFO!

Probably the only good thing about summer are the songs about it.

Flapping me gums 'bout recent tales

The title of the following note is inspired by absolutely fantastic facebook feature that I have recently discovered: interface in English (pirate). With one click my friends changed into me hearties, my hour was divided into 60 shots o' rum and if I do not attend an event, I'm supposed to be swabbing th' deck instead. Whoever did that, was a freaking genius.

Those who know me better can see that I'm upset about something very often. Be it films, politics, coffee machine, Dublin Bus or my own failures, it takes very little for me to start shooting words of disapproval towards everyone and everything as fast as a machine gun. Yes, I am a judgmental, opinion-making, elitist bitch. However, usually I'm not like that in my blogs. Sure, sometimes my point of view on this or that will sneak into a post about baking a chocolate cake, but in general I am trying to keep it hate-free.

Well, this time I cannot hold it any more.  I feel that my opinion on this must be heard. OK, maybe blogging is just an illusion of being actually heard, but it's worth to try.

I've looked at this year's Oscar nominees and I thought (not for the first time, obviously): "Quo vadis, Hollywood?". I haven't seen all those pictures yet, but seeing "Inception" amongst them seriously pissed me off.

Yes, I have seen that crap. Of course I didn't like it! Do you want to know why?

Let's go back in time to late 1990s for a moment.
I suppose you might not be a SF fan and therefore not hearing of the following two films:
Dark City
The Thirteenth Floor
First picture is a dark story of a weird city, in which expression "night life" gets far too literal. Always sunk in a nightfall, mysterious urban jungle is in fact sort of RPG for a bunch of aliens, who "tune" this little world by changing inhabitants' lives, their roles in the society, circumstances, families, houses... (the story by Alex Proyas, the director, seems to be strongly based on one of short stories by Philip K. Dick, only I cannot remember which one). Personally I did not find the film that brilliant (mostly because I don't like Jennifer Connelly, her acting is getting on my nerves), but I liked the atmosphere and that slight steampunk touch.
The latter film is about, well, sinking into dreams and virtual reality. Plot is a bit complicated and I would rather not reveal its details not to spoil the surprise to those who might be willing to watch it, but it's all there: parallel world, tampering sense of reality, intrigue, mystery. Again, I do not find this film the best picture ever, but appreciate the story and atmosphere.

Truth be told, both of these movies lose a lot because of the female leads. Both Gretchen Mol and Jennifer Connelly are too busy looking beautiful to take care of their acting properly. You might call me ugly, jealous or whatever, I don't care. I think the producers could have chosen better, period.

So, mingle these 2 pictures, add more dough, cast popular actors and you get "Inception".

Few people recommended that movie to me, so I went to see it in a cinema (good that I got an early bird price instead of paying 10 euro for that bullshit). I just cannot get over how disappointed I am. This picture is nothing new or interesting to anyone who has read/seen even a little bit of science fiction. It's a long, tedious, tacky show of special effects and pseudo intellectual dialogues taken straight from soap operas. Marion Cotillard, whom I truly adore, speaks English so badly that I can barely understand her, same goes for Ken Watanabe. WTF? Watch "Memoirs of a geisha" or "Big fish", their English is really good. Why on Earth they have decided to fake bad accents now? To make it more international? To make it more politically correct by praising the diversity? In that case, why Cillian Murphy would not speak with his Cork accent? That would be fun!
To be perfectly clear: I do appreciate all actors casted in this movie. I love Di Caprio, Page, Cotillard, Watanabe and Murphy. I simply think that "Inception" is not the best of their performances. Maybe they thought "oh, what the hell, people will go see this  anyway, because the poster is so fancy, probably they will be admiring special effects more than anything else, so what's the point of trying to act". Feels like a slap in the face to me.

Once again, I find myself a complete rebel, or someone living in a different reality than others, because I cannot understand why this film got so much appreciation from the public. Oh, how much they enjoy discussing this picture, trying to figure out which dream was where, who was in the limbo and who wasn't, did Di Caprio wake up or not. You know what? I don't give a damn!

I think the only thing I really liked about "Inception" was the vision of Paris folded in half like a crêpe. Don't ask me, why.

OK, but I guess I drifted away from the main point of my rant. Hollywood is all about being tacky, this movie is just following this logic. Fair enough.

What I really hate is the fact that "Inception" is the rip-off and it gets rewarded, while the other 2 pictures hardly got any recognition. Only proves my point about Oscars: it doesn't take to be original in your filmmaking any more, it just takes money and popular name. Same story with "The Departed", which is a remake of great action drama from Hong Kong, titled "Internal affairs", and got an award for the best picture in 2006.

I know that copying is not a theft, but it does not deserve recognition either. I understand that you might not have an idea of your own, but in that case why should you be an artist? You can try to do something else for a living. For example, I like singing and playing guitar sometimes, but I cannot write any good lyrics and I'm not creative enough to compose any good melody. Thus, I test software to pay my rent and post my recordings on 4shared.com just for my own satisfaction, and I do not expect to be rewarded for that.

Getting rewarded for a film remake is like stating that you invented anal sex just because you have performed in few porn videos. You are only making yourself look ridiculous.

Just sayin'

To get things back on affirmative track, last weekend I watched "The social network" and absolutely loved it. Jesse Eisenberg looks even more nerdy than Zuckerberg himself, plot is fascinating, the style of telling the story keeps a spectator tense and awaiting impatiently for what's next. Totally "like" it!
Or, keeping it pirate: "Arr!"

Zuckerberg did not enjoy it, though :D