dickcherryheadspace

the terrible judgement of Piotr

cherryunlimited@hotmail.com — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 17:31:00 +0000

Piotr snapped to alertness from a vaguely unpleasant daydream when someone jabbed his ass with a small garden fork.

It was a dwarfish, sour-looking woman in red pyjamas and yellow plastic horns on her head. "Next," she barked.

She, they, were standing on a cloudtop. There were clouds all around, and a pearly sky. Youngsters in long nightshirts slouched about with harps and cheap costume-store wings.

Piotr whirled to see a bald, bearded man approach in white robes. The man's stern, narrowed eyes tracked his index finger, which zigzagged the pages of a large leather-bound book with practiced speed.

The finger stopped. "Ah, you," said the man.

Piotr knew where he was, if not why. Bit his tongue for a moment.

"You're for downstairs," said the Robe Man, with a look of distaste; the pearlescent sky twinkling, tinkling behind.

"I am a blameless man," ejaculated Piotr.

The Man in the Robe looked up from his book. Brought a small device to his mouth. Said, simply, "Security."

At which two giant thugs appeared, in those samewise red pyjamas, and held Piotr by either arm.

"Take him to the mirror of truth," the Robed Man ordered, and Piotr was pushed roughly before a large sheet of glass. Looking in, he saw -

- an obese caricature of the self he knew. Hideous; but no, he perceived, this was the truth. This was reality. He saw every cigarette he'd ever smoked; he saw every lie he'd ever told. On one shoulder he saw not an eagle but a vulture; pecking tiredly at his scalp, his liver. On his other shoulder he saw a parrot, decrepit, horrifically outsized, grotesque.

Piotr fell to his knees, wept. "You are right," he said. "Take me now. Burn me."

And he was burned.
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holding pattern

cherryunlimited@hotmail.com — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 17:51:00 +0000

If, like me, you have a blog like this, and post something on it every day, you're looking for a world of pain; watching the comments dribble in maybe one-a-day. People don't come that often. But leave the blog to lie fallow for a week, and people get bored and drift off. People are so fickle. And why shouldn't they be? People have got lives.

But anyway, i'm checking in. Hello. i've been busy with a project or two. Normal service will be resumed presently, honest. Say hi. What's been happening with you? Give me your comments. Say what you're thinking. This is a democracy.
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someone is not gonna like this

cherryunlimited@hotmail.com — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 17:47:00 +0000

When you're a foreigner, people always ask, what do you think of our country?

You know how this works. Just say good things. Only say good things.

Here in Vietnam i can placate a curious local with some honest, if superficial comments. The food is really good. Vietnam has an amazing history. The girls are very pretty. Vietnamese people are friendly. Hanoi has lots of character. Riding a motorbike here is really fun. i get a laugh with: The weather is a bit too hot for me.

But, give me credit - i refuse to be 100% approving - i always say, but the music is diabolical.

You can listen to any style of music you want, as long as it's dreadful, anguished, kitsch, overblown, toothache-causing, sentimental karaoke (see video).

Now of course, i can't understand the finer points of the lyrics, and also my sheltered Western ears are unaccustomed to the subtle tonalities of Eastern music.

But, oh God, you know what i mean?
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definition

cherryunlimited@hotmail.com — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 15:10:00 +0000

civilisation
sɪvələ'zeɪʃən (n.)

a place where people let others get out of the elevator before they try to get in.

the nightmare reflex

cherryunlimited@hotmail.com — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 17:34:00 +0000

So there i was, on the edge of a huge park in a city that was most like Sydney but with a kind of béton brut edge to it. Plenty of people around. Minding my own business. When an old Western woman and kid, who i pegged as some kind of gypsies, started hassling me for money. i refused.

At which point they brought out broken bottles, and held shards of glass at my throat and wrists. Something about the looks from the crowd told me that i was very alone in some kind of - i don't know - gyspy enclave. i was brought before the neighbourhood Don, a well tanned man in jewellery, a t-shirt and with bouffant grey hair.

It was negotiated that if i were to go into that building on the corner, and hand over my cash, i would be allowed to leave peacefully, and even permitted to retain enough money for a bus fare home. i entered the corner building, which was a kind of cheap, disused casino, and resentfully emptied my wallet. Leaving, i made a show of checking the address; as if to say 'Screw you guys. i'll be back here with the law'.

Big mistake. Walking out, a cop on horseback followed me. In a lull in the pedestrian traffic, the horse darted into my path and kicked; but i dodged the deadly hooves. The cop dismounted and made for me. In panic i shouted to some passersby: "Help! He's not really a cop. He's one of the money people," knowing how deranged it sounded even as i said it. The not-cop advanced...

The mind has a reflex for waking us from nightmares that become too terrifying. It was at this point, this morning, that i was jolted awake. I literally moaned. In horror.
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tests

cherryunlimited@hotmail.com — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 16:09:00 +0000

People hate doing tests. What they don't realise is that giving tests is even suckier.

You spend weeks, even months, building a relationship with a class. Then you give 'em a test, and bam, they all cheat their arses off. Often, quite openly. And,

You feel all the effort you've put into trying to teach well has been wasted;

The test is rendered meaningless as an evaluative or diagnostic tool;

You irretrievably lose respect for the students, because of their flagrant lack of integrity.

And then you have to mark them. Ugh.

Children have far less opportunity to cheat than adults, because the 'smart' kids jealously hide their work under a folded arm or a book. Kids are much more inclined to say 'screw you' to their classmates.
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machine therapy

cherryunlimited@hotmail.com — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 18:19:00 +0000

How much time do you waste each day, at work, waiting for a PC to start up, to 'Apply Your Personal Settings', waiting for individual applications to load, waiting for Internet Explorer to perform such difficult tasks as finding the internet, waiting for the whole frickin machine to restart after it froze on you for the fifteenth time today? How much time do you waste running around the building looking for the so-called 'IT expert', et cetera, et cetera, et cetera?

Computer problems cost me (much) more than an hour each day. But not everyone works for Majesty Zone (English) Incorporated, like me, where the available technology is only suitable for landfill purposes. Your office system might be more 1995 than 1982. Even so, i bet you lose the best part of 20 minutes a day.

Doesn't sound like much. But it adds up. i did some mental arithmetic today. Across a large-sized office, every day, that adds up to 75 lost hours of productivity per day.

Across a multinational company, this adds up to 15,000 years of productivity lost in a single calendar month.

If you factor in every company in the world over a 12 month period, the amount of useful time lost comes to a staggering 3000 billion years, or more than two hundred times the age of the Universe.

One day, i will buy an old desktop PC running Windows XP, purely for the pleasure of ritually smashing it to pieces with a baseball bat.
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The Statue

cherryunlimited@hotmail.com — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 14:45:00 +0000

There was a man who lived in a house with a large garden. The garden was grassy but lacked trees; the soil was too clayey.

One day the man started spending time with a woman who, he soon realised, was his soulmate. For the first time, the meaning of his life was clear; he existed only to cherish, protect, and love this woman.

The man's luck in finding this woman was so difficult for him to conceive, in fact, that he began to wonder whether a supernatural agency had not intervened on his behalf, by depositing this woman along the road to his destiny.

And though hitherto an irreligious man, he decided to offer his thanks to God for his good fortune. He walked purposefully to the nearest house of worship and for the first time in his life, entered; within, in prayer, he promised solemnly to mend all of his sins and excesses if only he could be permitted to keep this one, this woman, this love.

The man proceeded to live the single happiest year of his life, but then discovered that he shared his lover with several others; she had betrayed him, lied to him. He had never really known her at all. She disappeared, never to be seen again.

The man retreated inside his house for a very, very long time. And within those walls, he renounced God utterly, and allowed death and madness to become his friends.

He emerged one day, changed. Disheveled. Shrunken, somehow. His reddened eyes glittering with an eldritch intensity, which perturbed not the moist, mute earth of his garden.

Where he picked up a rusted shovel, and dug. He dug for clay. A lot of clay. A small mountain of clay.

He worked. By day he sifted the impurities from the clay, working until darkness drove him indoors, filthy. By night he raged futilely at his growing collection of emptied whiskey bottles.

Weeks or perhaps months passed by, until finally he was ready to sculpt.

He began to sculpt his deceitful lover. Tirelessly he toiled, and as one week followed another, he grew in skill; finally teasing from the clay the perfect likeness, in her entirety, of the woman he had adored.

The man did not rest. Now he prepared the pit in which his creation, kissed by fire, would become immortal. Delicately he lowered his sculpture into the pit and placed combustible materials around her. Wood shavings. Dry leaves. Her treacherous love letters. Igniting the filled and covered pit, he retired indoors to wait, with his demons.

In a little over a week the man was satisfied that the smouldering pit was spent. And so he lifted his statue from the ashes, and finally there she stood, in the garden, in stone. Pale, but blackened down one side, it seemed the fire itself had illustrated the terrible duality of her nature.

That night he slept without benefit of whiskey for the first time, and the last, in his memory.

In the morning, he went out to stand before the statue with a heavy timber in his hands, which he thrust high and brought down with all his remaining strength, smashing the effigy into many pieces. He gathered the pieces and meticulously pummeled them into dust, finally to scatter the dust over the garden from which it had come.

He turned his back on his garden, and after closing his door for the last time, shuttered all the windows; the better to be consumed by the darkness within.
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Eohippus

cherryunlimited@hotmail.com — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 17:52:00 +0000

A forgettable orator dismounts the podium to scant applause. Around the the forum the citizens laze on grass, chat, pick at olives, swat flies. Yawn.

Another speaker prepares to take the stage. Women make hushing gestures: here's entertainment. Here comes Eohippus, the fool.

People whisper and wink as the ancient man attains the stage. Mirthful lips are bitten to silence as the man clears his throat to speak.

"For an eternity I have wondered at this melancholy, this malaise, that has fettered my heart and my mind, that has made me a stranger in my own skin, that has kept me exiled, locked away from the lightness of spirit I have always craved. And now I understand why happiness will always be denied me."

Hands clasped, Eohippus lifts his hollow eyes heavenward.

"It is because I am not a bird."

At this, the barely constrained hilarity throughout the forum explodes into laughter. Enraged, the speaker snarls at the mob:

"Tell me one thing then, if I am wrong. Are the Gods so cruel to fill my head with dreams of flight, if I am doomed to forever crawl upon the earth like a cockroach?"

"Yet the cockroach may fly," cries an onlooker, and the laughter is redoubled.

Eohippus regards the crowd with disgust. "Make fun while you may. For in the end, my nemesis will claim us all, and snatch us back to the dust from which we sprang." He thrusts an accusing finger down, at the earth. "Your mortal enemy and mine, is gravity."

The audience howls with laughter until brave Hercle stands and places a protective hand on Eohippus' bony shoulder. "Come, come," Hercle says. "Let us grant our friend the strength of his convictions." The mighty hand pokes the old man's feeble arm. "For he has precious little strength of his own!"

Eohippus snatches his arm from his tormentor and walks away, until the mocking laughter recedes to silence behind him. Entering a glade, and still trembling with rage, he buries his face in his hands and allows self-loathing to consume him.

He is startled by the sound of footsteps and turns to see a beautiful stranger, who advances and cups Eohippus' chin in a hand.

"Poor philosopher," says the stranger. "The wings you yearn for are not feathered. Your well is dry, old one. You miss excitement, inspiration. You miss passion."

At this insight, Eohippus breaks down, weeps. "You see through me," he says. "Are you a God?"

At this, the stranger pauses and seems to calculate, and in this moment seems a little less beautiful. "I may be," says the stranger.
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how to revive a drowned fly

cherryunlimited@hotmail.com — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 03:17:00 +0000

Raise the Dead Trick! - The best home videos are here

riding a Wave

cherryunlimited@hotmail.com — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 16:17:00 +0000

Many foreigners arriving in Hanoi get a motorbike, though quite a few don't.

Among locals, the most popular bike in Hanoi by far is the Honda Wave. Most bike-riding foreigners turn their noses up at this bike, opting instead for a phony-baloney 'statement' bike such as a Minsk (message: Check out my sense of irony - I ride a piece of Soviet farm machinery) or an old Vespa (message: I am a connoisseur).

Owners of these 'statement' bikes will decry the Wave as a plasticky production-line toy, devoid of character, even as they get a taxi to work for the third time this week because the 'real' bike spends most of its time at the pits with one fault or another.

Plastic and soulless it may be, but let me speak in defense of the Wave, which is the direct descendant of the venerable, indestructible (Super) Cub, - check that (video) link - the most popular powered vehicle ever made.

The Wave is a solid, reliable, unpretentious, inexpensive, give-you-all-it's-got-everytime bike. The Hanoians grow up on bikes - they know.

Link - some weird and stupid Wave mods.
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conversation on the stairs

cherryunlimited@hotmail.com — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 17:15:00 +0000

F: So do those jackhammers goin' off all the time piss you off, or what?

D: Sure. They're noisy, huh?

F: Aw, fuck. And those damn kids always playing soccer in the street.

D: Yeah, well, they're just kids, i s'pose.

F: I gave the lead kid 500,000 dong so they'd fuck off and play in the stadium.

D: Stadium, huh? You what, sorry?

F: I gave the fuckin' leader kid half a million to take his buddies and bug the shit outta someone else.

D: So tomorrow - i'm guessing - they'll probably go to the stadium for free, and won't come back for more cash..?

F: I just told 'em to go the fuckin' stadium.

D: What stadium?
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my morning today (a true story)

cherryunlimited@hotmail.com — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 16:40:00 +0000

Wake up, fan whirring. Not for long. Power goes out. Various consequences: no shower, no clothes ironed, no coffee.

No matter. Can escape the building as long as the garage door has battery power. If it runs out, can contact work for help - uhhh, maybe not. Have had intermittent service from my mobile phone provider for the last several days. Smoke signals from the balcony, perhaps? Nah, that'd be like snow signals in Alaska.

Garage door battery has power. Okay. Better go to the bank, pay that bill. Zoom. Bike works, at least. Get to bank. The security guard says it's closed, though i know it's not due to close for twenty minutes yet.

Unable to communicate, i reach for my watch to show the guy the time. Forget for a moment that the watchband broke yesterday: it's in my pocket. i pull it out clumsily in my indignation, and it hits the pavement with a loud 'crack' and stops working.

Cursing, i reach for my mobile phone (actually, a borrowed one: mine broke down a couple of weeks ago). i show the guy the time. He shrugs. Closed. i produce ten seconds of language that would probably get me killed if anyone in earshot could understand English.

Go to work instead. Discover that all the computers in the office are not working for the nineteenth straight day. Then... (et cetera)
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Royality

cherryunlimited@hotmail.com — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 16:17:00 +0000

My brushes with celebrity have been few. i handed former Australian Prime Minister the Right Honourable John Howard a ticket at the Sydney Theatre Company during my very brief (one night) stint as an usher there in '85. Or maybe i just imagined it.

And then there was today - my first up-close experience of Royality. His Royal Highness the Prince Andrew, Duke of York, is hanging out in Hanoi at the moment; and dropped by an office i know* for a quick visit.

You can see how these things would be a bore for the guy. Everyone gets so hushed and deferential around him, that he's compelled to jolly things along with questions and quips just in order to avoid nervous, tongue-tied silences. He plays the role smoothly and comes off as a not-bad guy. With the shiniest shoes i've ever seen.

Picture is a still from video i took today - someone is gonna be disappointed in my camera work.
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*not necessarily my office

somethin's gotta give

cherryunlimited@hotmail.com — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 15:45:00 +0000

If i haven't been posting much lately it's because i'm in the doldrums. All i'm getting from my job recently is a sense that i'm not very good at it, despite having been doing it forever.

There's a lot to be said for the idea 'live each day as if it were your last'.

Because it could be. It's awful, but people can pop off any time, you know. i've already lived longer than Elvis Presley did, apparently. Which freaks me right out.
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armchair philosophy

cherryunlimited@hotmail.com — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 14:20:00 +0000

Think of the times you've felt pleasure when looking at a sweeping mountain range, a palm-fringed beach at sunset, or maybe even a glittering city skyline at dusk.

Why do we experience a sense of 'beauty' (or 'transcendence' or 'sublimity' ...or is that sublimeness?) when we look at a spectacular chunk of scenery? i asked some work friends (hey - shall i just call them friends?) during a receptive moment. Some of the ideas went like this:

1. Because these things are 'intrinsically beautiful' (a circular argument, i think). 2. Because they are just so big. Hmm, maybe. 3. Because you couldn't make these things no matter how long and hard you tried. There's something in that. Do you have another idea?
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Miss

cherryunlimited@hotmail.com — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 03:20:00 +0000

It, creature, Jelly Jelly, Miss 'Misty' de Point, wakes reluctantly, in a little room. A little before the alarm clock. The fan whirring. Went to bed too late last night. Not next week. 100% this time. Piles of pointless papers, invoices or plans, around the room. Will tidy those next week. 100% this time.

Up. Pees. Laptop on, kettle on (Nescafe). Can't see words on screen. Where is that Nescafe? Aha. Nothing new online. Sweating. Miss Misty turns the fan around. Dawdles.

Sigh. Work to do. Iron on. Misty showers, does a turn for herself in the mirror, and disapproves both of what she sees, and the vanity inherent in the turn itself. Dresses in sweat; it's hot. Fan off. Go. Have to.

The bike, the motorbike says, Fly. Come fly with me, let's explore. - Nuh-Uh. Responsibilities. Miss Misty D. goes to the office: aggressively, cursing extravagantly at less 'considerate' motorists.

Midday. Work. Long story. Another time. 22.00, 22.30 hours, finish. Working these New York hours, and spent as they are from giving, giving it all up on stage year after year for nebulous reasons, and isolated as they are within cultures in which they may be alien, and being rootless, childless, bourgeois, meaning-seeking, gratification-seeking types, Misty and her co-workers sometimes go for a drink after work. A debriefing. Like-minded individuals. Nothing serious. A laugh. Then back to the little room, with lots of pointless papers, invoices or plans, all around.

Miss reads a book in bed before sleep, when practical. Then wakes, (back to start)

And time vanishes, it does
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quiet and silence

cherryunlimited@hotmail.com — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 15:48:00 +0000

Today was blessedly cool in Hanoi - only 30 degrees. A wind hit the city at 07.30, hard. The big, heavy potted hoa sứ on the balcony was blown over, waking me, and for 10 minutes the wind screamed, rattling windows and throwing things about in the street six floors below.

Lying there in bed, listening, i started thinking about silence.

Silence is not the same thing as quiet. You can find quiet in a lot of places, even very occasionally in Hanoi. Maybe.

But even in the quietest places, say for example when you're walking through a mountainside forest, there is sound. Sweet sound; there is the gentle rustling of breeze through the leaves, maybe the sound of insects chirping. i've never been in a cave alone (and i doubt you have either) so in a cave there's always the sound of your friends or others murmuring, maybe water dripping. Subtle sounds, not silence.

i could only remember one time in my life when i'd experienced complete and utter, absolute, total silence. It was stunning - eerie, electric.

It was on the 3rd August 2004, in Scotland. The island of Lewis, near here. With my journalist's instinct i made a quick video, but talked all over it, duh.

Next time it's quiet, think about what you can still hear. Quite a lot, maybe.
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two-dozen-or-so Better Commandments (well, more suggestions than commandments, really)

cherryunlimited@hotmail.com — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 08:51:00 +0000

Get lots of sleep. Eat vegetables. Exercise. Read a bit. Have children and/or pets. Be clean and tidy. Express yourself; make something, like a painting, or learn how to play an instrument.

Know how to do one thing very well. Know how to fix little things around your house. Have a house. Have it near the sea, or a mountain. Have it in a place where the climate agrees with you, and let there be trees and birds, not traffic. Take walks. Go camping. Train yourself to give without expecting anything in return. Do work that doesn't feel like work to you.

Don't smoke of course, and drink only a little alcohol. In the end the only things you own are your health and your time, so consider carefully the price at which you will sell them; for sell them you must. Don't give a damn what anyone thinks of you, but don't do things that will hurt others, either. Live and let live.

Spend time contemplating the night sky.

Did i forget anything? Oh, yeah. Avoid stupid lists like this (you're smart enough all by yourself), and keep doing what seems right at any given moment - just as you always have.
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another rant

cherryunlimited@hotmail.com — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 05:27:00 +0000

It's amazing the number of people you meet who say 'I don't believe in God, but...' and then express an opinion that goes something like this:

'It's a good thing we have religions, and bibles, and commandments, because they're good rules and we'd all be killing each other without them'.

As if the idea of morality, an awareness of right and wrong, was only invented in the last two thousand years, thanks to those desert-dwelling do-gooders like Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad.

Bullshit. A 'sense of right and wrong' is a product of natural selection, like fins on a fish. Historically, if you kill, you are killed, and your killer genes are removed from the species. Simple.

Here's an analogy. Why don't dogs bark at motorbikes in Vietnam? They do everywhere else. Easy. There are a lot more motorbikes here. It just won't do to have bike-hating dogs here, it's dangerous. So over time, they've been... removed. And now bike-hating just isn't part of the genome for dogs in Vietnam.

Similarly, if people don't go around killing each other (et cetera), it's because thousands of generations of our ancestors have found it's the best way to survive.

Religion has always been primarily a tool of political control - 'You, peasant. Stop complaining. You're life's shit, but you're going to Heaven when you're dead'. Secondarily, it gives people a something to belong to, like a tribe. Supporting a football club does the same.

Indeed, far from enhancing our ability to co-exist peacefully, religion is one of the most divisive forces in human culture today. As a social phenomenon, it's an anachronism, and a potentially dangerous one. Yet somehow the idea of god-worship is seen as an unquestionable right, and a good; rather than the negation of reality (and real spirituality) that it actually represents.
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inside the Big Bia Hoi

cherryunlimited@hotmail.com — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 17:41:00 +0000

This is the кръчма adjoining the beer factory, so people say the bia hoi there is the freshest. Some of my colleagues are visible on the left. It was quiet at the time. Usually, it's closed before we finish work.

Click the picture to enbiggen it. Then try to read the menu on the wall.
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menswear

cherryunlimited@hotmail.com — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 20:27:00 +0000

i don't know much, Allah knows, but i'll tell you one damn thing i do know: Men, be careful when buying your underwear.

i'm a shorts man, as i'm sure you are, now that it's the Twenny-First Century, and we have a futuristic awareness of things like hygiene.

But when you pop down to your local underwear retailer to buy a half-dozen new pairs of undershorts, be careful to scrutinise the stitching, the seams on your potential new undergarments. i've been caught out more than once like this:

Some shorts have a double-seam arrangement on the rear (what idiot designed this?) that is supremely uncomfortable. There should only be a single seam on the rear of your undies; one which compliments the natural contours of your bumcrack.

Double check every time, for the sake of your comfort and health.
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why i don't watch the news

cherryunlimited@hotmail.com — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 04:55:00 +0000

So, 'Knight of the Realm' Elton John (pictured) and her husband want to buy a Ukrainian child? i don't see how that's news, except maybe as a violation of the child's human rights.

momentary confusion

cherryunlimited@hotmail.com — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 04:16:00 +0000

Each language makes your mouth work in different ways. Because you're an expert in your language, it's difficult to pronounce another. For example, i can't pronounce one single comprehensible syllable in Vietnamese.

The other day i was eating lunch in the cafe at work. Chicken and rice. Chicken is always cut into little pieces with big heavy scissors. Those scissors give me the creeps. But i digress.

The chicken was served with a small side dish of soup. In it, a leafy vegetable, and scattered lumps of brown, cancerous-looking material which looked like they may have fallen off a chicken if anything.

i was curious. i called a waiter over, held up a piece of the spongiform tissue between my chopsticks, and said, 'What's this?'

'Crap,' said the waiter.

i understood after a moment.
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wings

cherryunlimited@hotmail.com — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 21:00:00 +0000

Tonight i was talking to an Irish colleague about Bulgaria. About walking knee-deep in snow, the apartment blocks, the tripe soup, the chalga, living in places like Kozloduy.

The friend was amazed that i had gone paragliding. i was amazed too, like i was talking about someone else. i miss the place terribly.

Picture shows a hill for paragliding at Resnik, BG.
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