Here are a few points to consider while reading the notes:
- I've been on a bus for at least two hours everyday.
- I've been reading a lot: Metamorphosis by Kafka; The Master and Margarita by Bulgakov; Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami; and currently, The Crossing by Cormac McCarthy.
- Poland is very flat and that makes me think about dying a lot. I don't know why.
A story is a promise that this is how it was.
The Pope's big hat.
He is still a hero.
A well as deep as the earth.
Jean-Michel Jarre's relationship with Gdańsk (played 25yr anniversary of strikes, 'Very warm feelings for Gdańsk).
The horses are still there, chewing bark right off the tree.
What do they want from us? The mosquitoes. What can they be doing out there?
Other people's stories are other people's stories.
Non-descript 'American style' pop on the radio. I swear the guy just sang 'dream of vaginas'. I could be wrong.
The dry limitless expanse of capital
A long part of our bus journey is filled with the stink of human waste.
Zdzislaw Marchilewicz swore on the cross.
Videostudio Gdańsk.
Memory not history.
Zbigniew Stefanski - singer/violent extremist
It's so big that everything on it looks abandoned.
An amber chapel stolen by the Nazis.
Bar owner crying on the street after Jan Pawel II died.
God was asleep or dead for the Holocaust
p272. first and only time I remember seeing the word 'good', or any positive description in Kafka's writing.
Apocalyptic though? The head as metaphor for Rome.
Bus to airport: 210
Minimal techno edits of protests.
Comedy: The idea of picking something out and calling it absurd, in a world that is totally absurd is total hubris, and therefore the joke is always about the pointlessness of human endeavour, particularly the endeavour of the comedian. This is a way of turning towards nihilism and welcoming its logical consequences with arms open, flailing.
Film steam coming out of the ground.
Backlit nostalgia.
Two things about my trip back to the U.K
1. My room was totally infested by moths. Unwelcome invaders, eating my clothes.
2. A Polish shop had opened near my house - selling Polish beer, pickled vegetables and sausages. All the other shops in the area are run by people from India and Bangladesh. There was a sort of opening party at the shop, and we went in to have a look.
An overturned lorry in a field by the side of the road. Smashed window. With what we can only presume is the driver standing behind the truck; hands in pockets, looking sheepish. Advert for Oreo cookies on the side of the lorry.
Hotel Gryf: Totally Lynchian. Red carpets. Wide dark corridors.
Hand ball is like a pretend sport, but all the players are pretending to play it as if it is a real sport. Like they've been threatened that someone is closely studying the footage and if they are not playing it with enough conviction then someone will kill their family. but instead of this inspiring total commitment, they all just look scare like they know in their hearts it will never be enough.
There are men who are more like dogs than men.
The slow process of selling cosmetics to men.
Possibly we are the only animal that needs to believe it comprehends the world in order to act within it.
Dogs barking in rhythmic phase, like indicators blinking in a traffic jam.
It would be wonderful to have death carry away all your actions and possessions, useless and flapping in the wind.