Be my Bosch

          "For my book report, I randomly chose a book called "City of Bones", written by Michael Connelly. I read it in merely couple of days, though it's about 400 pages in length. Even though I was rather disappointed upon reaching the end, which came almost abruptly and left too many questions unanswered, I was amazed by Connelly's style of writing. It's simple, as if he just places his thoughts on a piece of paper as they come along. His message gets across easily, events are well organized and his descriptions are neither too long nor too short, but just right. Although, I have to admit, one of the reasons why I like the book so much is my infatuation with the main character; the lead investigator called Hieronymous 'Harry' Bosch. 

           He's a very mysterious, highly perceptive, imposing, authoritative, experienced and skilled investigator. His job is his life; he's very devoted to every single case he takes on. He's in his fifties and I don't exactly have a clear image of his face presented in my mind; it's his character that I find intriguing and attractive. Furthermore, he was named after a 15th century Dutch painted whose work I also find astonishing. Their connection is most exhibited in another Connelly's book; "A Darkness More Than Night". Bosch, the painter, was most popular for his triptychs which depicted world full of perversity, sin, nudity and twisted fantasies. This book is connected to Bosch's work in a sense that the symbolic interpretation of each of his paintings brings the investigators one step closer to reveling a serial killer's identity. One of the motifs referred to in the book is an image of an owl, which often appears on Bosch's triptychs. I wanted to see these paintings, so I used Google, my secondary brain which is operational when my own is in sleep/drunk mode. The painting I Googled is called "The Garden of Earthly Delights". It's huge and has too many characters to count, but that didn't stop me from staring at the painting like an idiot and trying to find the damned owl and the naked man who's hugging the stupid bird. It was like trying to find Waldo in a candy striper parade. After a good hour of searching, I accidentally stumbled upon it (if anyone's interested, it's located on the centre part of the triptych, on the left side, in the bottom lake, right next to two woman neatly situated in a bubble). 

           Bosch's painting reminded me of a poster I had last seen couple of years ago in Germany, in my gay uncle's apartment. That poster was also full of divine and sinful imaginary creatures, angels, demons, humans, animals and some kind of hybrids. Everything was chaotic. The poster presented some kind of morbid parade which descended from huge, gaping mouth of a smiling, bald, fat man. It was surrounded with naked female and male genitalia, detached from the body. This composition immediately reminded me of Bosch, so I sent my uncle a message, asking him if it was a correct assumption. Soon enough he answered me, saying that it was a common mistake since Bosch and the author of that painting shared a rather similar creative expression. He revealed to me that the author's name was Carsten Svennson and that the name of his painting was Gaia. I spent the next couple of hours scanning through every possible painting made by Bosch, intently studying them, thinking how his paintings could easily serve as an excellent illustration of Dante's "Divine Comedy". After feeling overwhelmed by art (since I never bothered studying it more than 3 seconds, which is precisely enough for me to look at a certain painting and look away), I decided to call it a day and go to sleep. "

          Pedagogy tries to teach us how to be more optimistic, tolerant, altruistic and empathic. All of these traits are not only important when working with children, but with people in general. Regretfully, our behavior undermines all the attempts our professors make while trying to turn us into better people. Take this conversation, for example.

Eva: I sent you an invitation to join a group called: My turban brings all the Muslims to the yard and they're like العنصرية ش. There's also a Chinese version of this group. It involves noodles.

Blair: I have a Muslim friend on my list. It wouldn't be appropriate to join that group. But I haven't got a Chinese! Hit me! 

Eva: My noodles bring all the Chinese to the yard and they're like 美味的面条.

Blair: There we go. Intercultural pedagogy my ass.

           On many different occasions do we talk about lesbians (most often these conversations include Blair - for no apparent reason, we just tease her that she's a lesbian). When talking about lesbians we divide them into two types: just lesbians and vicious lesbians. Just lesbians are plain lesbians. Vicious lesbians are bitchy lesbians who have to compensate for their physical lack of balls by inventing a figurative pair. That's why they often argue and beat people up for no reason. There's one of such lesbians living here, too. She lives on the other side of the town but she's known all over. People tend to avoid her. Anyway, few days ago, when Blair, Alecia and Alecia's cousin Mattias decided to test their alcohol endurance (which is now classified as a skill) by buying 6l of beer and a bottle of tequila, the three of us sat near a bank and waited for Alecia to return from the nearby cash machine. Mattias sat in between me and Blair. I saw the bank's security guard moving slowly behind the glass, with arms folded over his chest. I suggested teasing him, pretending that we would run towards him in a hostile fashion, to see if he was trigger happy. Mattias turned towards me and muttered in a quiet, yet serious tone; "We should sent in Blair to threaten him with her troop of vicious lesbians." At that point, something inside of me snapped and I experienced a really loud and to my companions, comfort-disturbing laughing fit. The joke wasn't so funny, but it hit the right spot at that moment and I kept laughing through the three following stores we visited. I wouldn't let it go. By the time we got to the apartment, we had already devised a complete scheme of Blair's lesbian organization, which functioned pretty much like  the Italian mafia, but instead of leaving a horse's head in an enemy's bed as a threatening gesture, lesbians could leave chicken breasts. 

          "I think karma has me on her black list. She's been a real bitch lately. Yesterday, some stupid bird crapped all over my jacket. It could be considered luck only if I had been holding somebody else's jacket. Also, just two minutes before leaving home and going to catch a bus, I accidentally spilled a full cup of coffee on my white sweater, clean pants and and on my new, flowery and completely giddy slippers. This was an open invitation for a whole new inventory of profanities. Also, on the bus that day, a very hairy and smelly man sat next to me, fell asleep and snored the whole way. Even the loud sound of bus engine gave in to that rumbling noise.

          My stomach hurts. Karma gave it another punch few days ago, during a Corpus Linguistics class. Corpus Linguistics is an elective class and (to my surprise) it's not all that bad. For May, the feeling of sitting there in front of a computer and searching through numerous corpora and through a vicious little program called SARA (which often refuses cooperation and crashes) is almost orgasmic. She's a bit of a freak, but we love her. Anyway, we work on computers and we're constantly online. So, the lazy bums that we are, we usually set up camp in the last couple of rows of the classroom and waste our time on Facebook while the rest of the people diligently work. We pretend to be scanning through collocations and evaluating Z and MI score of different phrases, but we're actually harvesting corn on FarmVille. At the beginning of our last class, one of my lazy bum colleagues ordered me to come online on Facebook chat so that she could forward me a link. Once I opened the link, I realized that it was an invitation to a group called: "I hate it when I have my period in the ocean and a shark bites my vagina." Again, not the funniest group in the world, but it was one of those moments when you're absolutely not supposed to be laughing, which only adds oil to an already raging flame. One of my hands covered my mouth in vain attempt to muffle the sound of laughing, and the other, which was solidly pressed against the table as I laughed, began rocking it as my entire body shook. The monitor nearly fell down. The moment I pressed 'Join', I felt something going wrong. In about minute or so I unexpectedly got my period. Luckily I had been on land, otherwise I would no doubtingly become surrounded with man-eating white sharks eager to bite my vagina. Stupid karma. How does she do it every single time?

          I was unable to move properly for the rest of the day. I remember how one of my male friends once wondered out loud what it would be like to have a period. I told him that if he was eager to find out, I would gladly stuff a went sponge down his pants and subsequently kick him in the nuts."

          Out of pure boredom, I had been skimming through some interesting showbiz news when I ran into an article I just had to forward to Alecia. Being aware of her incessant obsession with Colin Farrell, I simply knew that she would rampage through the room out of pure joy after reading it. No need to deny it, like most of these posts on my blog, this one also revolves around a penis. However, this is not just any penis, but a Colin Farrell penis. The article was about Jackie Collins being in awe after watching his home-made video. She made a statement about the glorious and tremendous size of Farrell's equipment. The moment I had shared this link with Alecia, she made a desperate plea, wishing to see that video. Being a good friend, I was even willing to expose my laptop to countless threats which emerge from a single visit to most popular porn sites, just to make her happy. Finally, I managed to find it. I tried opening it, but it requested a newer version of Flash Player. At this point, I started suspecting that it was a dud, but forwarded the link to Alecia nevertheless. She told me that it was the real video and I initiated the downloading process, wishing to see just what made Jackie Collins shiver in fear.

          Woman like Alecia and me don't know how to watch porn. We both watched the video at the same time and commented on the most idiotic things; why the hell was that stupid naked woman in front of the television switching channels when she has a very naked and eager Colin Farrell in the room?! These comments lasted till a certain part of Colin's body probed the scene (very literally). I'd say he's an exception, if we were to believe that average penis length table, which situates Ireland somewhat at the bottom of the list. My MSN window never stopped flashing after being swamped with Alecia's impressions and exclamations. Farrell certainly lived up to his reputation. I was forced to watch the initial part of the video couple of times to pause it at a precisely perfect moment where its valor would be at its climax. After that, my finger never moved away from PrintScreen button. Colin's penis invaded absolutely every chat window. It was unstoppable. After that incident had passed and the passion cooled down a notch, Alecia and I gallantly became fans of Colin James Farrell on Facebook (this was only because his penis didn't have it's own profile).

          Also, Alecia had just asked me a very interesting question and got a semi-automatic, but an honest answer. She asked: "What do you think, if I were to end up on TV, what would be the reason?", to which I simply stated: "Indecent exposure." I admit it, her little escapade of taking a dip in the fountain last week may have influenced my answer a bit.