Confessions of an Addict

Even though most people don't know this, drinking one caffeinated drink a day on a consistent basis is the amount of caffeine that makes you dependent on caffeine. Caffeine addiction isn't taken very seriously, but it can have terrible effects on the human body. In fact, it's been documented that caffeine is just as addicting as nicotine.

As a Coca-Cola addict, my friend Pierina wanted to find a creative outlet documenting her current struggle with caffeine-sobriety. In order to do so, she started a diary writing about the withdrawal symptoms that have been creeping up on her in the last couple of days, and these short pieces on suffering and the path to recovery is what she came up with:

Day 1

I'm going crazy. The simple thought of the ice that accompanies a good glass of Coke makes my mouth drool. I think about the cold going down my throat (I just licked my lips) and it begs me to drink it. I yearn to feel it's sweetness. I don't even want to approach the fridge in order to avoid it.
Part 2: I just had a huge meal and all the anxiety has left me.
(Add Author's note on how hysterical I was yesterday)

She was in a bad mood, desperate, overexcited, and annoyed with everything.

Day 2

During lunch today, I sat with someone who ordered a Coke and I resisted the temptation to drink it. But I'm going crazy. I think I will gain weight because of the fact that I get a craving for sweets when I don't drink it. My body tries to convince me to have something cold in my throat, and yelling that it must be sweet. I hope I survive.
I took your advice of replacing it with something else, and I put a Trident gum in my mouth which calmed the anxiety of my taste buds with a mild flavor.

Religion Is Like a Penis...

I first read this quote a couple of years ago and I've always loved it. I'm not one to back down of a conversation involving religion, but I am not big into getting religion forcefed to me. Why am I even talking about this? Well, read on.

I was at a train station yesterday watching an episode of Revenge(judge all you want, it's addicting) on my laptop until someone approached me. I took off my headphones and turned my head to see an older, well-dressed Chinese man from a Baptist Church. The first thing he said to me was "Hi, have you accepted Jesus Christ inside your heart? There is only salvation through Jesus Christ and he cares about you, but first you have to accept him."

He then pulled out a little book titled "Bridge to Life" and asked me to say the following prayer with him:
"Lord Jesus, please come into my life
and be my Savior and Lord.
Please forgive my sins,
and give me the gift of eternal life.".
He explained the importance of the quote and why saying it will cleanse me of all my sins and lead to me a marvelous life from here to eternity. I told him that I'm not much of a religious person and I've been fine without Jesus Christ my entire life, but he wasn't taking no for an answer.

He kept insisting that I say the prayer with him, or at least the "Amen" because it will make me see things I've never seen before (like Jesus in my dreams, who he did see and had a conversation with). "I accepted Jesus into my life nine years ago," continued the man, "and great things have happened ever since. For example, I got a promotion months after my epiphany. How can you explain that? Only Jesus can make that happen. He blessed me and gave me that promotion. Soon after that, I got a job with the government and kept getting promotions. I am now retired and have a nice pension that I'm living off."

I countered with a pretty common question among people who don't follow a higher power: "So what about everyone that has horrible things happen to them like war and disease? Did it happen to them for not believing? Or what about me? I don't believe and I had cancer two and a half years ago, and now I'm cancer-free. And the opposite of that is true as well. There are people who have accepted Jesus and they haven't died of cancer so what difference does it make?"

He said that Jesus saved me because of his mercy, and the others died simply because they were getting to heaven sooner which is counter-intuitive since taking other people to heaven for a lifetime of bliss is an act of mercy, but curing someone else so they can continue living in a world where Satan's temptations are everywhere is also an act of mercy? Can't really be both.

Anyways, he also went on a tangent about how this prayer is the only way to get protection from Satan and his evil ways. He kept insisting that I say the stupid prayer to the point where he was almost physically moving my mouth so I'd make the words. "Just say the words, no big deal." After shutting him down continuously, he eventually got the hint. He left me the little book and told me to read that prayer whenever I'm ready and I will see what Jesus has to offer me.

At the end of the conversation, I liked the man because he seemed genuine and harmless, but I understood what it was like to be an attractive girl at a bar who gets hit on by a very persistent guy who doesn't have a chance. Although I have no problems with his beliefs, the quote I started this post with is something I can't stress enough.

If someone wants to see your religion, share it with them and enjoy. Otherwise, just keep it in your pants.

Rest in Peace Stedman

Not much to say here, man. You mill be missed in the tennis court, the poker table, and Berkside.

Rest in Peace, Stedman. You will be missed,

Uts.

Night Mail - Hardcore Rap

Thanks to Alejandro and Diego for showing me this gem of hardcore rap detailing the Twitter of the 1930s.

 

I
This is the night mail crossing the Border,
Bringing the cheque and the postal order,

Letters for the rich, letters for the poor,
The shop at the corner, the girl next door.

Pulling up Beattock, a steady climb:
The gradient's against her, but she's on time.

Past cotton-grass and moorland boulder
Shovelling white steam over her shoulder,

Snorting noisily as she passes
Silent miles of wind-bent grasses.

Birds turn their heads as she approaches,
Stare from bushes at her blank-faced coaches.

Sheep-dogs cannot turn her course;
They slumber on with paws across.

In the farm she passes no one wakes,
But a jug in a bedroom gently shakes.

II
Dawn freshens, Her climb is done.
Down towards Glasgow she descends,
Towards the steam tugs yelping down a glade of cranes
Towards the fields of apparatus, the furnaces
Set on the dark plain like gigantic chessmen.
All Scotland waits for her:
In dark glens, beside pale-green lochs
Men long for news.

III
Letters of thanks, letters from banks,
Letters of joy from girl and boy,
Receipted bills and invitations
To inspect new stock or to visit relations,
And applications for situations,
And timid lovers' declarations,
And gossip, gossip from all the nations,
News circumstantial, news financial,
Letters with holiday snaps to enlarge in,
Letters with faces scrawled on the margin,
Letters from uncles, cousins, and aunts,
Letters to Scotland from the South of France,
Letters of condolence to Highlands and Lowlands
Written on paper of every hue,
The pink, the violet, the white and the blue,
The chatty, the catty, the boring, the adoring,
The cold and official and the heart's outpouring,
Clever, stupid, short and long,
The typed and the printed and the spelt all wrong.

IV
Thousands are still asleep,
Dreaming of terrifying monsters
Or of friendly tea beside the band in Cranston's or Crawford's:

Asleep in working Glasgow, asleep in well-set Edinburgh,
Asleep in granite Aberdeen,
They continue their dreams,
But shall wake soon and hope for letters,
And none will hear the postman's knock
Without a quickening of the heart,
For who can bear to feel himself forgotten?      

-WH Auden

20 Little Poetry Projects

Back when I took my first Creative Writing class, one of my favorite assignments was called the "20 Little Poetry Projects". It was a writing challenge that consisted of writing a poem by following 20 specific rules regarding many useful tools for writing successful poetry (or any form of writing for that matter). I decided to dig up one of my very first poems for this post. First, these were the twenty rules assigned to me by my professor:

1. Begin the poem with a metaphor (or simile).
2. Say something specific but utterly preposterous.
3. Use at least once image for each of the five sense, either in succession or scattered randomly throughout the poem.
4. Use one example of synesthesia (mixing the senses).
5. Use the proper name of a person and the proper name of a place.
6. Contradict something you said earlier in the poem.
7. Change direction or digress from the last thing you said.
8. Use a word (slang?) you've never seen in a poem.
9. Use an example of false cause-effect logic.
10. Use a piece of "talk" you've actually heard (preferably in a dialect and/or which you don't understand).
11. Create a metaphor using the following construction: The (adjective) (concrete noun) of (abstract noun)..."
12. Use an image in such a way as to reverse its usual associative qualities.
13. Make the persona or character in the poem do something he/she could not in "real life."
14. Refer to yourself by nickname in the third person.
15. Write in the future tense, such that part of the poems seem to be a prediction.
16. Modify a noun with an unlikely adjective.
17. Make a declarative assertion that sounds convincing but that finally makes no sense.
18. Use a phrase from a language other than English.
19. Make a non-human object say or do something human (personification).
20. Close the poem with a vivid image that makes no statement but echoes an image from earlier in the poem.

Celestial Voyage

 

It emerges like a full moon on a starless night.

Its wings thrash away the dusty clouds.

A single crow flies northward as

the light breeze soothes the silent eve.

The scent of dew saturates the town.

A pleasant humidity dampens my face,

tasting like warm milk on a sleepless night.

The tranquil woods resemble the ageless silhouette

of the eternal dusk.

Eirene soothes the senses

as mellow souls dwell in this placid Paradise.

The night's visage resembles an old man,

a seasoned sage with eons of wisdom.

As nature strolls through this celestial voyage,

words of blood and war are discarded as malarkey.

The icy winds cool the golden bells,

and lull their insipid chimes until the next dawn.

The lunar light of the nocturnal hour

gleams at the sky, the ground, and the living.

And the elements of the mundane and the ethereal

are as iridescent as the cosmos of the night.

The young child was delighted

by the symmetry of its design.

Struck by its awe, he felt calm.

At peace of what is,

and of what is to come.

In this moment's serenity,

the darkness will have its way,

inntil lyset tar oss.

And through this peaceful voyage,

he will be forever cloaked

by the mantle of the night.

 

 

Note: Eirene's the personification of peace in Greek mythology.

 

 

 

Fantasy Kingdom

I loved fantasizing about running away from home and going on an adventure as a kid. I finally got around to seeing Moonrise Kingdom, and it provided the satisfaction that only weekend and summer escapades could provide a young explorer. It is basically a movie about a boy and a girl who run away from their respective homes in order to meet each other in the wilderness and live a care-free life, while simultaneously exploring their awkward selves.

I loved this movie because it was the perfect movie for adults that's starring kids--or at least that's how I saw it. It served as a portrait of nostalgia for everyone who's had a hiking expedition in summer camp, played special agents at weekend sleepovers, or simply laid in bed while formulating a plot to skip town and live off the land--and that's something that adults still dream out to some extent. Even though growing up is constantly raising the stakes for people as far as responsibility goes, the desire to escape reality and wander the world without a great, long-term master plan is very enticing.

Moonrise Kingdom also reminded me of Jon Krakauer's novel Into The Wild. The book (which also spawned a great movie) relates the true story of Chris McCandless, a recent college grad's journey through the United States after donating all his money to charity and cutting off any form of communication with everyone he knows. McCandless is a hero of mine because he had the balls to give everything up in order to live an unpredictable life that makes him happy and gives him the opportunity to constantly discover new places and new people who introduce him to parts of the world that his clear-cut, sheltered life would've never revealed to him. Just like French internet prankster Remi Gaillard said, C'est en faisant n'importe quoi qu'on devient n'importe qui ("It's by doing whatever, that one becomes whoever").

When thinking about people who found enlightenment through a rejection of the normal world, there's also the story that my friend Eric told me about Mr. Butch, the homeless guy in Boston. This man was apparently a very well-known guy who decided to give up everything he had in order to live a life where he didn't depend on material goods. He would only accept the necessary resources (meaning food, warm clothes, and beer) to survive because he didn't want to be seen as a charity case. Mr. Butch apparently became a legend in Boston who people would gladly trade some of their free time and a sandwich for the wisdom that only a man who rejected a life of normalcy could offer. He eventually died and received a parade that was attended by approximately 1,000 people mourning his loss. Hell, some women even came out and talked about how his kindness and charming demeanor got him laid regularly.

I'm sure that there are other stories like that of McCandless and Mr. Butch out there, but these two are just examples of people who lived a happy life and touched the hearts of many through self-created lives that were based on personal exploration (Mr. Butch even has his own Wikipedia page). And this is what I really liked about Moonrise Kingdom--it took the fantasy that we all had as kids, teenagers, and adults, and made a movie out of it. It's wacky and full of oddball characters for that precise reason--it wants to show you how sometimes some of the craziest ideas can be the best ones.

I can't think of a better way to end this post than with another Frenchman, Stephane Paut. Known musically as Neige, he's the frontman of experimental shoegazing rock band Alcest that's essentially a mosaic of the fantasy world that he formed as a child:

While "Souvenirs" (his first album) was a description of memories I had as a child about a luminous far away dimension "Écailles De Lune" (second album) could be seen as a metaphor of how I manage to live with this experience now in my everyday life. As I sometimes feel that nobody really understand and grab what I am speaking about, in some moments it's like if I was a stranger here, speaking for nothing, and looking for something else than people around me...

Last summer I was in holidays with a couple of friends by the seaside in the south of France and we were used to go on the beach at night while listening to music and contemplating the sea. I had a kind of revelation. It was a so beautiful and fascinating vision, the golden reflects of the moon on the waves, the whispering voices of water and the immensity of the nightsky just above your head.