Nebraska

Don't miss this movie. You will laugh a looooooot!

The acts were great. Bruce Dern was amazing. So was Will Forte. Maybe the movie was a bit slow-paced for me but overall it really was a good movie. I lovvved it!

The Pope!

I know this is kinda late but just today I learned about the Pope being the Time's person of the year 2013. You can imagine as a strict atheist I usually don't follow news about him. I guess I just read about what he stated on abortion and church's stand on LGBT back at the time when it happened. Again as a strict atheist, the guy, his character and his humanity happens to be impressive even sometimes thrilling to me. I'm serious! Read the following links specially the first one! 

Reasons why Pope Francis is the person of the year

The NY Times page

Blue, White, Red

In the last four days I have watched two very intense movies in the Art Theater. The last one was "Blue is the Warmest Color". The one before was "Dallas Buyers Club". Both were amazing. Particularly I loved the few sentences which were written on IMDB in description of "Blue is the Warmest Color" :

"Adele's life is changed when she meets Emma, a young woman with blue hair, who will allow her to discover desire, to assert herself as a woman and as an adult. In front of others, Adele grows, seeks herself, loses herself, finds herself."

Side Question: Is always the combination of Blue and French breathtaking?! :-o (Click on the Blue if you already didn't get what I meant! )

1984

1. I just finished reading 1984 by George Orwell. It scratches one's heart. If I wanted to remember one or two sentences from the book, they would probably be:

"Sanity is not statistical." and somewhere else the same character thinks "Sanity is statistical.".

2. On a different note, last night I watched Mr. Nobody with couple of friends and it was just awesome! 

"Each of these lives is the right one! Every path is the right path. Everything could have been anything else and it would have just as much meaning."

3. "Reality is arbitrary." -- The Limits of Control by Jim Jarmusch

4. I assume the items above are already being stitched together forming a coherent train of thought in the readers' mind. 

The Great Gatsby

"He smiled understandingly, much more than understandingly. It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you come across four or five times in life. It faced - or seemed to face - the whole external world for an instant, and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favor. It understood you just as far as you wanted to be understood, believed you as you would like to believe in yourself, and assured you that it had precisely the impression of you that, at your best, you hoped to convey."

These sentences were the most touchy ones for me while reading "The Great Gatsby". This is how the narrator describes Gatsby's smile in their first encounter in the beginning of chapter three. I just finished watching the 2013 movie and couldn't get these sentences out of my head while watching the movie!

As always for me reading the book was a far more splendid and joyful experience than watching the movie. I am happy I didn't watch the movie before reading the book. It doesn't mean I don't like movies based on novels but it just means I enjoy reading the books more. I was thinking maybe the very basic reason is how the author can elaborate on describing the characters in the text and that I go over these descriptions kinda obsessively over and over again. This would probably result in me being able to connect to the characters depicted in the novels more than the ones in the movies based on those novels.

I went through a few sentences of the book again after finishing the movie and one nice thing I either haven't paid attention to earlier or I have had but already forgot is the point where Fitzgerald describes Gatsby's face in a state as if he has just "killed a man". In that scene Gatsby kinda kills himself, he kills the personality he invented long time ago as Jay Gatsby.  

Now comes the most exciting part at least to myself. After reading the book a few months ago I went through the wiki pages for Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald and was blown away how their love affair was in parts similar to Jay Gatsby and Daisy's. Just read Zelda's biography and see how this young popular girl  in Montgomery Alabama, is similar to your image of young Daisy in Louisville Kentucky. Honestly to me it was even more unbelievable and in some senses more insane than the love Gatsby had for Daisy (for a delusion of being with Daisy... however you wish to put it) cause actually this thing happened just a few decades ago. Man! Human beings are weird species. 

Stephen Wolfram and Jacob Bronowski!

I wrote most part of this post on Oct 25. I guess I fell asleep before I could finish, edit and publish it. Got the chance to do so now.

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It's late but I gotta wait a bit more before leaving the Ghormeh-Sabzi in the slow-cooker and going to bed. It's an Iranian dish, basically a stew that is served with rice. These stews are called "khoresh"es and are a major part of the Iranian cuisine. 

Today I went to Stephen Wolfram's talk in the physics department. Honestly?! It was as boring as hell. Any new stuff?! Not more than what I learned watching his TED talk and reading his wiki page, which I guess is written by himself. C, my roommate also thinks he wrote that wiki page. I remembered an interview I read loooong time ago, back in high school days, with Freeman Dyson where he points out one cannot find smarter people than Einstein and Dirac and how both of them got drifted away from the mainstream science as they got older and older. Dyson explains that both of these geniuses, after the age of thirty lost their connection with experiment, which was once there major inspiring agent. They got more and more obsessed with abstraction and mathematical elegance and basically their philosophy led them to some kind of isolation from the scientific community. 

I remember reading somewhere in Jacob Bronowski's "The ascent of man" that any field of science is subject to the viewpoint of its founders and if someone else would have started the same field, it'd have probably be totally different from what it is now. I guess what scientists like to think or even take for granted is that scientific method leads you to an objective understanding of the natural world. Frankly I doubt if that is true. Quantum Mechanics showed us how influential the role of the observer is and even in a non-Quantum world I have a hard time believing that any human activity, scientific enterprise included, can be totally free of subjective stances. One can say well, natural science is less subjective than arts for example, cause we have at least the scientific method which tries to minimize the effect of experimenter's ideology or prejudgment on the results but I don't think that effect can be ever reduced to zero. 

Later in the day I was talking to a friend who is a CS grad student. I was telling him even if an objective criteria could exist which confirmed that for example what Wolfram says is the "right way" of studying the universe, needless to mention I doubt if such a thing can exist at all, unless the main part of the scientific community is investigating in it, that viewpoint or whatever will die very soon and the other mainstream "ways" will survive under the name of scientific activity.

Watch this video first. Watched it?! Well, now that "empty thing deep inside you", the fact that you know it's all for nothing and we are alone, that thing, yes, that! Just yesterday I was talking to a friend who believed another friend of ours has accepted to live like a depressed person while she can be someone very fun. He thought all she needs are some friends to cheer her up and some activity partners to help her overcome her enormous inertia... I was trying to tell him after all it's a lifestyle and I don't think it fundamentally differs from our lifestyles. One feels the absurdity of life deep inside and becomes C.K. Louis while one becomes, I don't know, Kafka or Camus for example. I ended saying "Listen, I think it's okay if people are aware of it and frankly I don't want to start a philosophical discussion that I don't really think there's such a thing as free will or if it exists it's probably very limited* so as a result I've a hard time accepting people have a choice to be someone different from what they already are or live in a way different from what they already do". We both laughed and agreed it wasn't really fun(!) to get into that discussion. 

Anyways for me the reality of life is tremendously sad, as Louis puts it, and I don't think any strategy you happen to "choose" to deal with it, is basically in any significant way, very different from any other strategy. You can just laugh in life's face and try to enjoy the most you can cause it's after all the only damn thing you have while you can just mourn your whole damn life cause it is damn sad and I guess if there's one legitimate justifiable subject which deserves grief it's gonna be the absurdity of life, its very reality.

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*/ Watch this other video as well and in case you don't know this amazing neuroscientist, Robert Sapolsky, just watch whatever talks, lectures, interviews, etc he has on youtube! 

You know what?! It's Friday night and I'm sitting here having my tea with my favorite chocolate feeling extremely fulfilled, content and happy. And you?! You could go and fuck yourself and be sure I wouldn't give a fuck. I'm just wondering why the hell on the earth, even say for a moment, I thought I might want to leave this life, this lifestyle that I have, even this single moment, for being with you. 

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Sounds cheesy?! I know! I just read it to edit before publishing and recalled this! :)) :D

Light the Night!

It was quite an exciting day. So I woke up around 6:15 in the morning which made the day very unusual from the very first second! I worked I'd say acceptable. Then I joined this voluntary task of setting up lights on people's, mostly university students', bikes. The project is called "Light the Night". I really love the whole idea. It was quite fun. As I was getting on my bike to get there a guy called me and told me he was my TA student two years ago. He was getting on his bike (apparently he lives near my place) and I asked him if he has lights on his bike and he actually didn't and said he was going to get it fixed today! It was nice to talk to him. There also I was attaching a light on a bike haven't been looking up at the guy and all of a sudden he asked me: "Hey! Were you my physics 225 TA". I looked at him and recognized him. It was cool to see these guys from like semesters ago. 

Then I went and watched Blue Jasmine with a couple of friends and it was really good. Happy I planned it. I really liked that it wasn't an extension of Vicky Cristina Barcelona / You will meet a tall dark stranger / To Rome with love and maybe even a bit Midnight in Paris paradigm but a very different one I'd say. I didn't like seeing Woody Allen repeating the same theme again and again and again. Cate Blanchett did such a great job! You gotta watch it to get what I really mean.

Frog in boiling water syndrome?!

I really don't care what a boiling frog actually does. I found about this "frog in boiling water" syndrome yesterday and I am kind of excited about it and want to share it with everyone. Though I guess it is a more or less well-known anecdote and the fact that it is very new to me doesn't make it new and exciting to other people. 

Anyways the story is drop a frog in a pot of boiling water and it jumps out immediately. Now let a frog be in a pot full of room temperature water and heat the pot gradually and the frog stays there till it is boiled to death. The poor little thing probably finds its death bath even very cozy and pleasant, at least for a while!

Don't keep telling me "This is life! Get used to it!". It is not! I want to jump out! I got to jump out! I will jump out! I just need some courage and some time to gather that courage but there comes the day! I am positive! 

Roommates

I was telling someone just a few days before that night. I was telling him how strictly I insisted on living just by myself for the first two years I got here. I even had some sort of phobia I guess, I don't know. I was too scared for my privacy being kind of invaded. Then I explained how good I feel now about having roommates and the fact that probably I was so lucky and my first roommates turned out to be really really good. I then recalled and told him about one thing I have really missed since I gave up living alone. The fact that when I get home tired from work sometime around 9-10 pm and I rotate the key in the lock hole and open the door, the silence that all of a sudden pours down on me, that silence, the peaceful experience that happens right away when I get home, after a very long day, right at the entrance door, I've missed that experience. Usually when I get home both my roommates are already home and there would be some source of noise somewhere. Yes that's what I was telling someone a few days before that night.

Both my roommate left the town a few days later and I was alone for like 5-6 days. That night I got home, unlocked the door and something poured down on me. I can't say it was a pleasant feeling. It was more like someone put a bucket on top of the door to tease me. It was not just silence, there was a weird feeling with it. It was like looking at a black and white photo or movie while you know there already exists a colorful version. Looking at that black and white version could totally be a nice experience, a classy one, a nostalgic one but there's something missing in it. The colors make the picture, the scene more realistic, more beautiful, more joyful in general; they give it some texture, some little spice maybe. The black and white version has all the essentials, one can't deny, but there is always something missing, like in a food with no spice whatsoever. It's great, prevents you from starving but you could realize there is something missing. Something was missing that night too.

Bleeding Beets

In the morning I was boiling the beets I got from farmers' market over a week ago. As always amazed by their unique color was searching recipes online. In one of the hints mentioned in a recipe said "add vinegar to the beets while cooking to prevent them from bleeding". Just think about it for a second! Beets bleeding! It was such a weird and impressive expression for me. Couldn't get it out of my mind since then.

I feel from all the magic world of childhood I have carried and kept the magic of words with me; words can still astonish me; phrases can still take my breath away; and sentences, yes, sentences can still seduce me. 

"Third in line of succession to the fucking throne" - my ass! *

Well, overwhelmed with the crucial news (!) on Kim Kardashian's ass on the first page of CNN website and switched to BBC so at least you get some decent news reports among all those bull-craps?! You'll be safe to a good degree unless her fucking majesty gives birth to this poor baby. Man! People were fucking following it on Facebook like crazy! Like their own mom was in labor of giving birth to themselves!

*/ Maybe it was more appropriate to have the title as follows : 

"Third in the line of succession to the fucking throne" - Kim Kardashian's ass!

baby + ctrl + z

There comes a day that due to technological and scientific progress you can unhave a baby you just happened to have! I am telling you! There comes such a day and hopefully people still can read this post by then and acknowledge me as the Nostradamus of the twenty-first century. I am telling you, there comes a day!

ABC ... D

Me sitting here in front of A, having a romantic date, enjoying my great meal; my phone vibrating constantly meanwhile for text messages B is sending me; C calling to schedule a date/trip; me sitting here in front of A, ignoring B and C and my phone for a moment, wondering if memories of those very few moments I had with D are going to set me free one day... One day!

And it's hard to dance with a devil on your back so shake him off

Regrets collect like old friends
Here to relive your darkest moments
I can see no way, I can see no way
And all of the ghouls come out to play

And every demon wants his pound of flesh
But I like to keep some things to myself
I like to keep my issues drawn
It's always darkest before the dawn

And I've been a fool and I've been blind
I can never leave the past behind
I can see no way, I can see no way
I'm always dragging that horse around

Our love is questioned, such a mournful sound
Tonight I'm gonna bury that horse in the ground
So I like to keep my issues drawn
But it's always darkest before the dawn

Shake it out, shake it out, shake it out, shake it out, ooh whoa
Shake it out, shake it out, shake it out, shake it out, ooh whoa
And it's hard to dance with a devil on your back
So shake him off, oh whoa

And I am done with my graceless heart
So tonight I'm gonna cut it out and then restart
'Cause I like to keep my issues drawn
It's always darkest before the dawn

Shake it out, shake it out, shake it out, shake it out, ooh whoa
Shake it out, shake it out, shake it out, shake it out, ooh whoa
And it's hard to dance with a devil on your back
So shake him off, oh whoa

And it's hard to dance with a devil on your back
And given half the chance would I take any of it back
It's a fine romance but it's left me so undone
It's always darkest before the dawn

Oh whoa, oh whoa...

And I'm damned if I do and I'm damned if I don't
So here's to drinks in the dark at the end of my road
And I'm ready to suffer and I'm ready to hope
It's a shot in the dark aimed right at my throat
'Cause looking for heaven, found the devil in me
Looking for heaven, found the devil in me
Well what the hell I'm gonna let it happen to me, yeah

Shake it out, shake it out, shake it out, shake it out, ooh whoa
Shake it out, shake it out, shake it out, shake it out, ooh whoa
And it's hard to dance with a devil on your back
So shake him off, oh whoa

Shake it out, shake it out, shake it out, shake it out, ooh whoa
Shake it out, shake it out, shake it out, shake it out, ooh whoa
And it's hard to dance with a devil on your back
So shake him off, oh whoa

Wish me luck!

Well, I wish I could write! Here's where I wanna start practicing.