The Saddest Thing aboutLife

Perhaps the saddest thing about life is that certain moments only happen once. There you are suddenly radiant with life, aglow with blessings and everything in the world is phosphorescent with accessible energy. And then, in the skip of a heart, that time is past, is a letter in a shoebox, a stain on a sheet. But then again you also realise that the concept of once is a primary source of the sustaining beauty life has. Of all the arts it’s dance that probably expresses most eloquently and poignantly the transient nature of life’s moments of grace. And this is why everyone should go and see Wim Wenders’ film about Pina Bausch. Twice I was lucky to see her dance company perform and both times it was like being stripped naked and daubed in mud and pollen by the girl with the most beautiful hands. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxgsKVM-6HI&feature=related

Authonomy

My first impression upon stepping over the virtual threshold of Authonomy was of a halfway house for writers. Cheerful and hygienic it might appear but there's also a furtive sense of dispossession, even seediness; a feeling one has now slipped down a social pecking order. One's most treasured possession – one's ambition - is already looking a bit more ragged here, a bit more moth-eaten. One looks around a little warily at one's fellow inmates. One is immediately suspicious of so much overt friendliness, daunted by the ubiquitous flourishes of self-belief. These clearly are people who have tasted the acrimony of rejection on a regular basis. What the hell have they all got to be so cheerful about? Slowly though one settles in. One lowers one's expectations. One begins to enjoy and look forward to the meals on offer. One finds a chair to one's liking and is content to ignore the world outside for longer and longer periods. One realises one might never get out but there's always that one chance in a million that someone will recognise one's truly unique talent.... 

What happens when your wife betrays you for a civil servant?

“Do you know what I do now? my old teacher asked, giving me a kind of self-pleasuring wink. “I watch MTV. Does that shock you? Do you ever watch MTV?”

     “Now and again,” I said.

     “My daughter watched MTV. It was her religion. That’s where she got all her ideas from. I realise now it formed her far more than I did. MTV is all about images. The music is incidental. Once upon a time images were created for churches, now they’re created for MTV. So why go on painting? Images are marketing tools now. Is that why I paint? So that some marketing executive can use my pictures to sell hair products or car insurance?  I saw an ad that used the Mona Lisa to advertise a sanitary towel. In Italy of all places. Because even Italy can’t bear to think of itself as old fashioned. Do you know I sometimes imagine Bin Laden sitting in his cave watching MTV. And then I feel like I understand him. I sympathise with his anger and his hatred of the West. I feel like he and I could be friends. Except he doesn’t drink. Do you know what I think? And I’m going to get into trouble for saying this.” He beckoned to me to lean forward over the table and when I had done so spoke through theatrically cupped hands in a hoarse whisper. “The emancipation of women has led to a world that’s interested in nothing but a narcissistic notion of pleasure.” He sat back with some satisfaction in his chair “Is that what women wanted all along? More pleasure?” He lifted his glass. “I propose a toast. To the Taliban and Bin Laden,” he said loudly, monitoring out of the corner of his eye the response elicited by his words in the bar.  

The Big Bang

     Is it a new phenomenon this mania on the part of people to impart erroneously piecemeal information they have read up on or heard on TV? I have heard a host of so-called facts lately – that asthma is on the increase because we’ve become too hygienic, that every year the earth accumulates 30,000 tonnes of space dust, that one percent of the dancing static on the TV when you zap onto a non-existent channel are residue particles from the big bang, that.21 billion  pieces of junk mail are delivered to Britain’s homes each year requiring 3.3 million trees to make. All things someone will misquote to someone else on a bus or in a pub today. Did you know that 21 billion fucking people suffer from asthma and it’s caused by residue particles from the Big Bang? 

FIFA Barcelona 3 Arsenal 1

Sure Barcelona utterly outplayed Arsenal and sure the statistics suggest only one team was ever going to win this game. But, let’s be honest, Barca were struggling in the final third until the officials started to lend them a hand. Two years ago Chelsea were denied four penalties against Barca all of which were more clear cut than the one given against Arsenal last night. As for the red card, it wasn’t a bad decision or a joke: it was just moronic. One silly little man gratuitously ruining an entertainment being enjoyed by millions of worldwide viewers.  Fact is twice now in the past three years Barca have benefited from hugely dodgy decisions in their favour The truly great teams of the past – Van Basten’s AC Milan, Ronaldo’s Real Madrid – didn’t need large favours from FIFA officials to progress in the Champions League. So, no, Barcelona are not the greatest team to ever play football. If Iniesta and Messi personify the grace and dazzle of Barcelona, there’s Dani Alves to remind us of their playacting and cheaper tricks. If there's a more obnoxious footballer currently playing the game who is he? You’ve got to feel a bit sorry for whoever FIFA Barcelona draw in the next round – because even if they manage to hold off the blaugrana they’ll no doubt have FIFA officials eventually intervening on behalf of their opponents. 

Getting Dumped

    Why do we men always want women to see the pain they cause us? We always want women to feel on our behalf. Because when we feel they don’t give a shit our world caves in. We can’t just go away and weep in private though. First of all we have to make a song and dance of our hurt. We have to pour forth our pleas of please and sorry. We might start off by standing under our jilter’s window in the rain (we like it that it’s raining, the rain gives every entreaty we call up a more impassioned touch of theatre.) And, despite the hurt, the churning hollow wretchedness, we’re also secretly pleased with ourselves beneath the window. We have a soft spot for this emotion. The if-only-you’d-come-back-to-me-life-would-be-beautiful feeling. It’s the stuff that gets poetry written, religions underway. When we’re standing in the rain with our heartbreak it’s as if we’re alone under the spotlights on stage at Wembley Stadium with a guitar around our neck. We’re about to perform and we may well give the performance of our life. This one is for Katherine (or Maggie or Medusa), we say into the microphone. And we hear the crowd cheer and see an ocean of little bobbing flames. We thrash out some elegiac chords, make all our favourite words rhyme and we sing our poor heart out for the departed Katherine (or Maggie or Medusa). And if she’s not in the audience we hope someone who knows her is, someone who will tell her how much pain we’re in because she has decided to go back to her old boyfriend.

Why do women become so vicious when you catch them out in a lie? (part three)

A week later we split up.