неделя, 27 декември 2015 г.

С Днем Рождения!

Happy Birthday Sergey Bodrov Jr.
(27 Dec 1971 - 20 Sept 2002)

I believe there is a parallel universe where 13 years ago you and all of your crew would have been rescued, and you would be celebrating your 44th birthday today.
And this parallel universe is a better one.


It would be better for many people (and I am possibly not anywhere on the list of people to even qualify to say this. Although I would probably have been a slightly happier 14-year-old).
For me, it would mean there would be new movies. There would be TV shows, which I would look out for when going home for the holidays (I have never owned a TV). Some would be interesting, and some would be stupid. But what they'd have in common is that they would have had your voice in them.



С днем рождения, Сережа!








четвъртък, 18 юни 2015 г.

Nancy

There is this girl who lives in my head. I don't know where she came from as she is not of the usual sort  that comes here. She only moved in recently but she has unpacked her suitcases as if she is planning to stay forever. I am a bit disgruntled by this new addition and by the overcrowded shower schedule caused by it, but I don't really get to have a say about it. And while I find her incredibly boring it is difficult to dislike her. She is nice and well-behaved. She drinks red wine and her hair is always in place. She always washes her bowl after finishing with her Special K. She dresses classy, has a stable job and a respectable profession. A doctor perhaps, or a dentist. Or a sales consultant. Or a lawyer. She is comfortable to be with as she would never do anything awkward. She is everything that I am not. She is naturally normal.

Let's call this girl, say, Nancy (short for Anastasia). 

Nancy (short for Anastasia) knows how things work in this world.
She would never have cereal after midday.
She would never leave her house without trimming her eyebrows.
She would never hoard tea mugs in her room.
She would never never make a bold statement without supporting it with sufficient evidence.
She would never wear baggy jeans. Ever.
She would never put her feet on her chair.
She would always get diet cola when feeling indulgent.
She would go to the gym and run in the mornings.
She would never smoke.
She would never wear a shirt that hasn't been ironed.
She would never juggle in the park.
She would never even think of climbing to the roof to watch the sunset.
She would never wear panda-patterned socks.
She would never get a fail for an academic essay.
She would never eat Nutella straight from the jar.
She would never drink coffee in the evening.
She would never steal sunflowers from Canary Wharf station.
She would never put newspaper cuttings on her wall.
She would never sit on the floor.
She would never wear heart-shaped sunglasses.
She would never buy strange clothes in a charity shop.
She would never get drunk. Though that is a bold statement unsupported by sufficient evidence.
She would never fully rely on anyone's encouragement.
She would never wear black tights in the summer.
She would never wear Doc Martens to a formal event.
She would probably never wear Doc Martens at all.
OK, maybe in the mountains.
But she wouldn't because she has proper walking boots for that.
She would never travel by herself.
She would never lie down on the road just because she can.
She would never listen to sad music on her own without a (reasonable) reason.
She would never steal a pint glass from the pub.
She would never listen to the birdsong at dawn after a sleepless night.
She would never buy a glow-in-the-dark dinosaur figurine for herself.
She would never keep fairy lights in her room after Christmas.
She would never cross a field ringing a pair of pocket Chinese cymbals at night.

She would never love you as much as I would. But then again, that is a bold statement unsupported by sufficient evidence.

събота, 13 юни 2015 г.

At night

because I haven't written much at all recently and also I spent a substantial amount of my day on the Tube:

At night
when I often realise
that I miss our
shoulder-length conversations
At night
it is often hard
to run as I
am walking the streets knee-deep in memory
so intense that I must have made it up

It has happened before, it will happen again

Sometimes I like to imagine my mind
as a vast cellar where I
deposit in big jars
all that should not be;
an exercise in taxidermy
and the occasional promise of orange marmalade tomorrow;
Can you stomach these pinned butterflies?
emotional potpourri
triple marinated fortune
Would you like that with rice or with noodles sir?

Life keeps writing take-away poetry
on a piece of kitchen roll.


събота, 22 ноември 2014 г.

Social media

If you gaze into the social media long enough it will not gaze back.

There is noone on facebook to talk to. Or put it that way - there are a lot of people to talk to - that is of course if you qualify square profile images under names as people - but noone will hear you. You know that - yet you still occasionally put your heart and soul in it.

Twitter is no better.  The life of a post lasts a second. Every retweet is a reincarnation - which also lasts a second. Nobody will go back and read through what you said. It is quantity over quality. Very easy to overuse exclamation marks on twitter, it is. And you have to count your words, and even your letters. It is almost like going back 10 years and SMS texting on your Nokia 3310. (Apropos, I still own and use a Nokia).

Embrace the emptiness.


понеделник, 17 ноември 2014 г.

Greenwich Early Music Festival


It is that time of the year when winter is coming and heating is a central subject in casual conversations - but on the plus side, Greenwich Early Music Festival and Exhibition was in town once more, between 13-15th of November.

Fear not, reader! I am not going to bore you with Google-able details.

As a Trinity Laban student I was stewarding at some point during the festival. Looking back I think I had incredible luck shift-wise. It is not everyday that one gets paid for having fun. And it was pretty much all fun, apart from the slightly aimless handing-leaflets-to-disinterested-people-outside part.  And perhaps the bright-orange prom-queen steward banner thing was a bit over the top. People kept asking me how to get to Greenwich Observatory and the nearest Tube station. Unfortunately people would just not get interested by the traditionally looking leaflets!

They had no idea what they were missing:

Rows of recorders, herds of harpsichords, stacks of baroque bows, herds of harps, flocks of viols and flights of fiddles, the occasional hurdy-gurdy, and many more oddly-shaped and deliciously old-fashioned instruments occupied the Painted Hall and the vault-ceiling-ed St. Mary's Undercroft - which, I realised after walking in close proximity almost day for two and a half years - are actually connected with each other via a long underground tunnel.

Needless to say I attempted to play every single harpsichord in the exhibition at least once.

Somebody once said that the sound of the harpsichord reminds them of  a couple of skeletons making love on a tin roof. Undoubtedly amusing and endearing comparison - however, to me (as both a harpsichord-enthusiast and synesthaesiac) the harpsichord sounds like sunset rays over a golden treasure, with a hint of ginger ale and chocolate orange.

Oh no, look at the time.

Now, to diminish the suffering and to make this a bit less of an aimless post, while yours faithfully is trying to silence her harpsichord withdrawal symptoms with listening  (full on, obviously, to show a good metal-fan heritage) to recordings of Rameau, played by Gilbert Rowland, a renowned UK harpsichordist whom she had the pleasure to meet at the festival, you can have a look at some photos from a previous edition of the Festival:

































See you there next year. =3



събота, 1 ноември 2014 г.

You know what?

You know what?

(Of course you don't.)

I would be seriously concerned if I thought my dreams would never come true.

(But, I know they will. They always do.)

If.

I don't want this to be too easy; but I don't want it to be too hard. Nevermind.

Возможно, вы имели в виду: 
.
?

Nevermind.


Google Trans(too)late.
I am the son of the criminally shy.

Listening to The Smiths again, instead of Avro Part (or Brahms...?).
If I only knew...

But I didn't.