August 2007 - Los Cuadernos de Julia

The Strongest Parts of Our Bodies

Last year when I only just started blogging I wrote this post about the offbeat news stories in Metro newspaper. Those included a story about the bull who got stuck in the river mud while trying to get to the herd of cows on the opposite bank, and tips for appeasing the over-amorous neighbours whose moans don’t let you have your own quality time.

Frankly, I don’t read Metro very often. I spend so much time reading both printed and digital texts that having something in front of my eyes on the train is too much. But now and again I flick through Metro’s pages, and it somehow happens that it is in the second half of the year that I get to read some really funny stories.

So today I read about a Malaysian man nicknamed “King Tooth” who beat his own record of train-pulling. He tugged the seven-coach 2.9tonnes train almost 3m along the tracks. Rathakrishnan Velu is a strict vegetarian, he gets up every morning at 4.30am to do at least 25km of running and to lift at least 250kg (and not just with his teeth). He is said to attribute much of his dental strength to daily meditations. Indeed, in some videos shown on the web he is seen entering the state of uttermost concentration before embarking on his record-breaking “trail”.

His management is reportedly “slightly disappointed” because the man was expected to tug the train 4m. The government, on the contrary, is elated. The Malaysian cabinet minister Dr Maximus Ongkili is quoted saying: ‘I don’t know what toothpaste he uses. But I’m sure a lot of companies will be looking to endorse their products from Rathakrishnan’.

I included a few images in this post from Metro, but I especially like the one on the left. I think this is the most natural image of profound contemplation since “The Thinker” by Rodin – and strikingly similar, too (see right).

It wouldn’t be Metro, however (or any other respectable newspaper), if it didn’t accompany the story with a selection of other world records in lifting and pulling. So, in the past we’ve had a Pakistani man lifting 51.7kg with his right ear. We’ve got a Briton lifting more than 11kg with his tongue. A Lithuanian lifted 59.18kg with his beard. An Australian pulled “a Boeing 747-400, weighing 187tonnes, a distance of 91m in 1min 27sec”. I suppose this one is not just about the weight or distance, but primarily about the time.

Last but not least, at a strongman contest in Jakarta (Indonesia) in June a man “proved how hard he was by pulling an 8.9tonne bus 50m using his penis“. I won’t contemplate his methods of training, but really, isn’t this the ultimate proof of manhood?

Carmarthen Cameos – 9: Childhood Memories of Dinefwr

When I sat down to narrate my journey and stay in Carmarthenshire in June, I wasn’t sure how this would go. As I said in the very first post under Carmarthen Cameos label, I didn’t know how to approach Carmarthen. It would seem occasionally that medieval ballads and lullabies were still heard across Carmarthenshire, and my visit to Llandeilo and Dinefwr only confirmed to me that there are still places very near to us that haven’t lost their original charm.

However, my impressions were largely my own, and I didn’t intend to make them particularly entertaining or objective. I must admit, though, going to Dinefwr Castle was like fulfilling a child’s dream for me. That post on Dinefwr attracted some comments, but little did I know that a couple of months later I would receive a letter from Jeremy Thomas, who grew up in Llandeilo in the 60s and 70s and now lives in the States. The letter in which he narrated his memories of Dinefwr is the one that you’d write about something that suddenly visited you and is very precious. It also documents that part of history of Dinefwr and Llandeilo area which is only known to someone who lived there, and, with Jeremy’s permission, you can now read what it was like to be a kid in Llandeilo:

“Your words brought back the memories of the many weekends of my youth when my cohorts and I would trespass on the castle grounds.

Yes, trespass. In those days the castle was not open to the public at all. There were no signposts, no pathways, and no history lessons. The castle was as raw as if it had been left untouched for centuries. To get there we would pretend we were entering guarded territory (back then the threat came in the shape of the dreaded local farmers). We’d scale the hillsides and thrash through the wooded areas to get to our reward–a veritable time-wrap.

The novelty never wore off. Each and every time inside the castle we would be transported to medieval times–an eerie but irresistible connection to the voices and bodies of the past. We all had ancestors going back centuries in the Llandeilo area, so the connection was plausibly familial.

At the end of the day we would always scare the living daylights out of each other, making up ghost stories as we sat in one tower room that I remember still had a parquet-type floor. I don’t know if you saw that same tower room, but I used to think it was some fair maiden’s boudoir.

There were never any other people at the castle which made the experience so personal. With dusk upon us and with our imagination running wild, the flight back to Llandeilo was always at full speed. I remember once getting in trouble with one of my friend’s mothers for having frightened my poor pal out of his skin with one of my ghost stories.”

I didn’t see the floor, but if I am totally honest, I didn’t even look on the ground where I walked. The walls and the views from them were so much more captivating for me. And considering that to walk up the hill to the castle is quite a feat, it probably doesn’t see too many visitors, in spite of being open to the public.

Jeremy also mentions the church (that I also missed), “Llandyfeusant, tucked under one of the hillsides on the way to the castle. We would also stop off there when we were kids to get our adrenaline flowing (it was always too dark on the way back, of course). The church hadn’t seen a service for decades back then and was always cloaked in such a creepy silence. Some of the tombstones were even open so you can just imagine what dares we subjected each other to. Life went along at a steady pace in those days and the days were definitely longer.“

I must admit, reading Jeremy’s story almost made me jealous. As a child, I lived in the capital city of concrete, brick and glass, and I had no such luxury of visiting a derelict church with half-open tombs, or of sitting in a cold medieval castle, pressing my back against the 13th-14th c. stones, listening to the movement of bats’ wings and to the scary tales of my friends. I had to exploit the books and my imagination to fulfil the void, but, God knows, I wish I had spent at least a couple of days in Llandeilo, visiting Dinefwr. Thanks to Jeremy, however, I did just that.

If you have your own memories of visiting Dinefwr, or any other castle, especially when you were a child, and don’t mind sharing your stories with us, please leave a comment.

– D([“mb”,”\u003c/div\>\u003cdiv\>\u003cbr\>\u003c/div\>\u003cdiv\>It feels so far away now.\u003c/div\>\u003cdiv\>\u003cbr\>\u003c/div\>\u003cdiv\>Like you, I am a linguist. I have lived in Russia (as Soviet Union), Geneva, Seville and France. I have been in the States for seventeen years now, but my family still lives in and around Llandeilo.\n\u003c/div\>\u003cdiv\>\u003cbr\>\u003c/div\>\u003cdiv\>Sincerely,\u003c/div\>\u003cdiv\>\u003cbr\>\u003c/div\>\u003cdiv\>Jeremy Thomas\u003c/div\>\u003cdiv\>\u003cbr\>\u003c/div\>\u003cdiv\>\u003cbr clear\u003d\”all\”\>\u003cbr\>– \n\u003cbr\>Jeremy Thomas | Partner / Director of Account Planning | Collaborate | work: 415.651.1218 cell: 415.425.2802\n\u003c/div\>\n”,0] ); D([“mi”,10,2,”11499b57fd73fa05″,0,”0″,”Julia Shuvalova”,”Julia”,”julia.shuvalova@gmail.com”,[[[“jeremyt”,”jeremyt@collaboratesf.com”,”11499b57fd73fa05″] ] ,[] ,[] ] ,”24-Aug (4 days ago)”,[“jeremyt@collaboratesf.com”] ,[] ,[] ,[] ,”24-Aug-2007 22:09″,”Re: Dinefwr musings”,”Hi Jeremy, I hope you are OK. I’m very sorry for not replying earlier, I’m af…”,[] ,1,,,”24 August 2007_22:09″,”On 24/08/07, Julia Shuvalova \u003cjulia.shuvalova@gmail.com\> wrote:”,”On 24/08/07, \u003cb class\u003dgmail_sendername\>Julia Shuvalova\u003c/b\> wrote:”,”gmail.com”,,,””,””,0,,”\u003c4d7733f50708241409y43d05bc1o7749d12e370bdbc3@mail.gmail.com\>”,0,,0,”In reply to \”Dinefwr musings\””,0] ); //

Manchester – One of a Kind

Being a Manchester blogger, I nevetheless don’t write about Manchester as often, as about literature, or music, or my own experiences. Thankfully, I’m not unlike many a Manchester blogger. When it comes to proving our allegiance, it may look as if we take our Mancunian connection as a matter of fact. As far as I am concerned, it is both so and not because Manchester is a great, quirky, impossible, challenging place to live, – it is simply one of a kind, which is why we all love it, for however long we’ve been here. But if you want to send your love message to Manchester, it’s got to be different, isn’t it?

Yesterday I was trying my hand for the first time at making slideshows with music. I created two small ones, which gave me great deal of inspiration to experiment further. So, I took my photos of Manchester (all of them you could already see on Flickr), arranged them, edited and tweaked them, added music (“One of a Kind” from “Easy Jazz, Easy Listening” collection I copied to my hard drive when I was at QT Radio)… and then spent several hours trying to figure out how to change the file extension, so I could upload the video to the web. Finally, all jigsaw pieces came together, and here is my declaration to Manchester. It’s never been intended to be comprehensive, so there are a lot of Manchester sights missing. But we each have our own Manchester, so, while watching this video, you are seeing this city with my eyes.

I’ll continue to experiment with these technologies, but the very fact of me making this slideshow about Manchester as the first public slideshow must be telling. In connection with this, I think it’s not too bad that we, bloggers, don’t blog about Manchester very often. Because when we do, we do so with a difference.

[I’m also using the newly added feature in Blogger that allows you to upload your videos in different formats directly to your blog, without the necessity to host the file elsewhere, so as to obtain a code for embedding. LiveJournal doesn’t offer such option yet, as I had to upload the file to Imeem.com first in order to be able to post it to my Russian blog.]

//www.youtube.com/get_player

My Blogiversary

A year ago, on August 24, 2006, after much soul- and mind-searching and researching into the possible ups-and-downs of blogging, I took my online life in my hands and started Notebooks. I have long decided that it would be a kind of online version of my real-life paper notebooks I’ve been carrying around with me since about 1995. I could write about anything, although literature would presumably be the main subject.

The choice for the blog name that seemed so obvious immediately presented me with a challenge: I had to create a decently looking and sounding name for the blog’s URL. From what I remember, “notebooks.blogspot.com” and “notebook.blogspot.com” have already been taken, so I was offered to use “juliasnotebooks” or “notebooksofjulia”. It was a warm early morning in August, and I sat in a totally dark room because I sometimes like sitting and writing in a totally dark room. The room, however, grew darker as my spirits sank lower because I couldn’t bear having any of those cumbersome names for my blog. It had to be good, it had to be something I liked.

Somehow I remembered about The Notebooks of Don Rigoberto, which is the English translation of Los Cuadernos de Don Rigoberto. As I didn’t (and still don’t) know any Iberian language, I did some more research, to make sure that Los Cuadernos de Julia would be grammatically correct. Once I realised that it was, that very important part of the URL was created. Naturally, I had no competition whatsoever.

Turned out, not only did I take my online life in my hands, I did exactly the same thing with my life in general. Through the blog I’ve met different people, I’ve been interviewed, Notebooks have been added to the BBC Manchester Blog, and sometimes I receive personal emails from my readers who, for whatever reason, choose to express their opinion in private. This opinion is positive, but I respect the readers’ privacy, not least because there is already quite a few comments on the blog that sufficiently satiate my vanity. And I must be honest with myself, I didn’t expect any of this to happen.

One thing I was adamant that I wouldn’t be doing was the accommodation of the immediate interest. Which is the reason why this blog isn’t about fashion, or current affairs, or entertainment, or TV, or, indeed, sex. It doesn’t mean I haven’t written or am not going to write on any of these subjects. It simply means that I wanted to create the audience by publishing primarily my thoughts, my interests, and after months of experimenting with various tracking solutions and receiving comments and emails, I know I’ve succeeded.

It’s a bit cheeky on the part of any blogger to announce the anniversary of their blog because it comes across like asking for congratulations, etc. Well, I obviously won’t mind any such (big bashful smile). But I do believe that whatever artists do, they do it for people: readers, listeners, spectators. As one such artist would sing, “people who need people are the luckiest people in the world”. So, I think on this first blogiversary it’s really should be me who says a huge “thank-you” to everyone out there who lands on Notebooks via a search engine, reads the feed, or types the URL in the browser. I write a lot about loneliness and in loneliness, but you’ve given me a wonderful gift of communication, understanding, and expressing the interest and support. What more could I ask for?

Exercises in Loneliness – VI

Let’s imagine you live in a flat. It’s nice, warm and cosy, you’ve got a toilet and a refrigerator, a warm bed (even a hot-water bottle, perhaps), and, as it should be, thy home is thy castle. You should be very happy, but deep inside you feel a strange unease. Then one day, under some inexplicable urge, you decide to cross the Atlantic on your own. It’s inexplicable, but it’s not unusual: people have been crisscrossing the Atlantic for ages.

Your urge to leave your flat is so strong that you cannot care to save some money to build yourself a decent ship and to take your domestic paradise on board. Therefore, you’ll only have one small boat. There’ll be no fridge. Definitely, no toilet. You will battered by the weather, and your boat will never be as cosy as your flat. At times you’ll be cold (or, adversely, very hot), and, most importantly, you will be all alone. There’ll be no beloved, no parents, no best friend who lives next door. Who knows, maybe your network will not support the signal? Or, if worst comes to worst, you’ll drop your phone into the water? No pets. Your radio signal will be interrupted, there’ll be no TV, and a book or two you take with you will not entertain you. Your boat will turn into a deserted island.

But you will see. Before, your world has always had its boundaries. How often do you look up to the sky? On your journey, there will be nowhere to hide from this enormous space that seems to originate directly from the ocean’s depths. And what about the water, indeed? Unless you take frequent vacations, the only water that you use regularly is for washing hands and taking a bath. And on your boat you will be surrounded by the vast territory of water, underneath which there is a totally different, unknown world.

This journey will make you re-evaluate things. For once, you will have but one thing in your possession: your life. Your boat may be crushed by storm, you may drop your tangible possessions in the water, or they may be blown by the wind. The only thing that remains truly yours will be your life, and for this possession you will fight till the end. But what is it – your life?

It is often believed there are two most important things that deserve thinking about – the meaning of life and the meaning of death, and no doubt you will have thought about these before you leave your homeland. Now, sailing between two enormities, celestial and oceanic, you will constantly have these thoughts on your mind. You will understand that finding a definition to a word comes through experiencing it. On this journey you-in-the-flat will die for good, but you-at-sea will be born. The two exist in one person, and this person is you, and, as far as your physical existence goes, you’re still alive. Can you be alive, if one part of you has died? Have the new you entered the next plain of being? Is this what life and death are about – going from one level of existence to another? Or are they not?

See, how many big questions you’ll have to ask yourself on that journey, before you get to the other side of the ocean and stand on the shore. This ground may not be native, or stable, or the one you expected to land upon. But under your soils there will be some solid ground, and to know where we stand is something we always seek to establish. You’ll hide your boat from the view, so nobody recognises you as a foreigner, and will start a new life in a new place, until you begin to feel it’s time to leave your hut and to set your sail again.

Jan 19 – Aug 23, 2007

There are certain thoughts that get written or even jotted down and are then forgotten, which is what happened to this text, as I literally forgot about it and have only just found. This is but an allegory. The flat represents both “the idols of the cave” and “the idols of the market place”, to use Baconian terminology. It is a set of beliefs imposed on us by the environment in which we were born, brought up and educated, where we continue to live and work, and which language we use. The journey on a boat is a metaphor for extreme and ultimate break of ties with the “flat”, but this is obviously a metaphysical journey. The contemplative nature of “being-at-sea” may suggest one can jump on the “boat” while still living in the “flat”. One thing I am wholeheartedly for is learning about foreign cultures by interacting with people of those cultures in their native language. But one doesn’t have to cross the Atlantic, and there is no “right” direction, in which to cross it. Gauguin went to Madagascar from France; H. Miller left America for Europe. The Atlantic Ocean is only there to highlight the difficulty and length of the journey, which continues even after one has reached the destination.

Elton John: “Remember No Two Ovens Are the Same”

I’ve only been a fan of Sir Elton John since the 1990s (due to my age, of course), and, like with many other great artists, I have missed a lot of really impressive performances. Some of these are still being shown on TV, like his duet with George Michael in Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me. But some, like the one below, are only remembered by those who’d seen them or been told about them.

“An Audience with Elton John” was aired on ITV in 1997, and the audience was packed with celebrities, including Boris Becker, Claudia Schiffer, David Copperfield, Ozzy Osbourne, and others. The documented scene originated from two rumours: that Elton John can write songs very quickly, and that he can write music to absolutely any text. Both rumours are said to have had a precedent in the 1970s, when he wrote a song to the text from a phonebook. He repeated the trick a few times afterwards, composing music on the spot to various texts.

This time Richard E. Grant handed him a leaflet to one of the kitchen appliances. The mastery of the composer is so stupendous that it does feel unbelievable, which registered in certain comments on YouTube. The problem, of course, is not in a simple fact of us living in the age of staged-up TV shows. The problem is in the sheer absense of anything similar. Now and again we hear about musical artists locking themselves up in a studio to conceive of a new album, which usually takes anything from six months to several years. Obviously, the time needed to conceive of an idea and to find the way to present it varies greatly from artist to artist, and there is no minimum timescale to be used as a limit.

And yet, in this video Elton John demonstrates something more than just his talents of a song-writer and performer. In a matter of seconds he chooses the style of music which makes the entire song a perfect parody on consumerist advertising. As I’m listening to it, I can vividly picture a TV advert, with mannerist ladies in purple skirt suits, with perms and fucsia lipstick, singing in the kitchen: “get to know all there is to know about your new oven before you begin preparing your own mouthwatering meals”.

Over to you now! And if you’ve seen this programme and have other fond memories to share, leave us a comment.

Every Inch Royal: Mail Post Box

There are many things you can find in Manchester that strike an unusual cord with you. For instance, I used to adore this wall painting in Northern Quarter, in Hare St. It requires no further musing, and I always thought it was very witty, given the name of the street.

Alas, this was painted over with some bright children-friendly images, and my heart still aches when I think of what a loss it was.

Another site which may soon be driven to extinction is located not far from Deansgate. I first noticed it in spring, but the weather was never good enough to snap it. The site is this:

I know they say that royalty and nobility both have got blue blood, so it is perhaps only logical that this “blueness” extends on to their possessions. Including one post box in red-brick Manchester.

Manchester International Festival Feedback

The first Manchester International Festival may have ended, but not our talking about it. As the festival is planning to become Manchester’s own arts biennale, the organisers are waiting to receive feedback on their efforts. If you were there and would like to participate, just follow the link below:

Manchester International Festival Survey

There is a small incentive: “one lucky person can win £100”. So, you can test your luck, too, by completing the survey.

I completed it last week, trying to be as honest as I could. I do think that Manchester: Peripheral could’ve been presented better. The survey is said to take 10 mins: not quite so, when you’ve got questions like “Please name any SPONSORS, if you can”. Certainly, if you can’t, then you don’t have to, but it’s nice to be able to, nonetheless.

The concerns for nature and economy weren’t ignored, whereby there is a section of questions that should help “to estimate the total economic impact and carbon emissions the festival has generated in Manchester”. In particular, they ask “how many miles did you travel in total to get to and from Central Manchester to ALL the Manchester International Festival events you attended?”

This is a very tricky question to someone like me, who doesn’t have a car and thus cannot count miles.

Water lilies in Warrington and Blogging at Cornerhouse

As you might notice, some changes have occurred in the sidebar on Notebooks, thanks to Craig McGinty. Craig has given a helpful hand and advice to many a blogger out there, and I didn’t escape his touch of gold either. Not that I mind, especially as the sidebar now looks neater and makes more sense even to me. Much encouraged by a late evening discussion I may tweak things further, but the top of the page is unlikely to change any more, so feel free to make use of the readily available archive of posts. Many thanks to Craig, who can always be contacted via his personal blog at Words, Writing and Web.

We met at Cornerhouse. This fantastic place, in addition to all gems of cinema and contemporary art, now also offers the wi-fi connection, which makes it a perfect venue for any purpose. We sat just a table away from where I wrote Exercises in Loneliness – IV, and admittedly the place today was quite busy. I’ve even met another friend of mine there and saw a fiancee of my colleague. This just confirms how small the world really is.

Long before then I had a short afternoon walk around the pond in Centre Park in Warrington where I work these days. I noticed that many provincial cities are often slagged off without a reason, and I find it truly disappointing because this is how an opinion is being formed. As a result, many people may just never visit a certain town because it is described as poor, or bad, or sad, and apparently people like Charles Dickens or Jean Genet are too rare these days, so no-one wants to enter the dens of life. What can be lost is well illustrated by this slide show of pictures I took today in Centre Park. I don’t think it will generate a flood of visitors to our business den, but hopefully it will somewhat have changed the perception of Warrington.

http://www.slideflickr.com/slide/JG6Z9zOS

Warrington Centre Park on Flickr. Other photos from Warrington.

Exercises in Loneliness – V: Thoughts on the Train

The moments of tranquility and loneliness are likely to happen on a half-empty evening train, but a morning train can be an equally inspiring environment. A lot of people who take the 8.10 train from Manchester to Liverpool I already know by face. A large group of Asian men and women alight at Birchwood. So do two girls, whose nationality I cannot make out because I know neither Spanish nor Portuguese. But they definitely speak either Spanish or Portuguese. A well-dressed man who on my memory always wears sunglasses, jeans and a jacket, often with a white shirt, goes to Warrington. Once in a while one of my colleagues catches the train, usually when his car is broken or when he lent it to his girlfriend. I owe to my former colleague the tip on finding a place to sit – at the opposite end from the first class. And it is in this multitude of people that I sometimes reach for my notebook, to collect the impressions du matin ou du soir (morning or evening impressions).

Morning

Trains are awfully democratic. You finally come to realise this when your head is catastrophically close to the conductor’s postérieur.

I suppose what really concerns me is that any group (however large) that fights for acceptance through positioning itself vis-à-vis other groups ends up being less tolerant and more narrow-minded than its once “oppressors”.

I really like travelling by train. It must be the motion that I enjoy so much. It relaxes me. At the same time, there’s always enough people around to remind you by their presence that in you hermitage you’re yet not alone.

Evening

A guy who sits next to me across the aisle (later on it turns out he is Greek) is wearing, apart from the actual clothes, a baseball cap and earphones. The music in his earphones is loud enough for me to hear those “zdub-zdub-zdub” beats. He moves his head ecstatically a few times to the music’s rhythm before picking up the phone, exchanging a few phrases with someone, then getting up and going away. By the time he comes back (although I thought he’d left), another guy has taken his place. The Greek is undeterred, sits right next to the guy and rests his feet on the opposite seat. Then he begins to talk to me. He lives in Liverpool and wants to know which is Manchester’s main train station. When the train stops and I’m getting up to leave I receive a friendly, if somewhat masculine in gesture as in strength, pat on the back, between my shoulder blades.

At Birchwood, a guy sits on the bench in the pose of Copenhagen’s Mermaid.

We arrive at Manchester via Castlefield. Every time the train goes past the houses, I wonder what it’s like to live in such house. Anyone on the train can see directly into some of the flats. I know I wouldn’t care in the slightest and certainly wouldn’t keep my curtains shut at all times, but it still puzzles me. I always think of the scene in Les Triplettes de Belleville, when a train stops opposite the house, and the dog looks inquisitively out of the window at the dull passengers before exploding into hysterical barking, as the train moves on. Of course, of course, we’re not supposed to look into private flats and thus into private lives, but this is what we’re always doing in one way or another, aren’t we? And in the city that is constantly growing and expanding, you can’t walk starring at the ground. Tall buildings are there for us to raise our heads and stretch our necks, and while doing so you may, by pure chance, end up looking into someone’s flat, as it happened to me a few times in Northern Quarter.

Off the topic

Speaking about Les Triplettes, this is one of the most original animated films on my memory. As its director, Sylvain Chomet explains in his BBC interview, he’s always liked the circular motion of cycling and thus chose the Tour de France as the film’s subject. If you’re a fan of French language and music, you can enjoy both the film and any of its musical themes. As for me, I really like Attila Marcel composed by Sylvain Chomet and performed by Béatrice Bonifassi. Many thanks to the Imeem user for sharing their love for Les Triplettes with all of us.

http://media.imeem.com/m/uoZdN69JOb/aus=false/