Frenched by a muse

Usually when one discovers for the first time that they are not alone in their freaky obsessions, they feel a sudden sense of liberation, exhilaration or community. In my case, it's a cold shiver of fear. Kind of like Mimi Rogers in The Rapture.
-- Posted 7:39:00 PM by Paul Hrissikopoulos

"...I hold up before myself the images of Dante and Spinoza, who were better at accepting the lot of solitude. Of course, their way of thinking, compared to mine, was one which made solitude bearable; and in the end, for all those who somehow still had a "God" for company, what I experience as "solitude" really did not yet exist. My life now consists in the wish that it might be otherwise with all things than I comprehend, and that somebody might make my "truths" appear incredible to me..."

Friedrich Nietzsche,
Letter to Franz Overbeck, 2 July 1885
-- Posted 12:46:00 AM by Paul Hrissikopoulos

"Have you ever said Yes to a single joy? O my friends, then you said Yes to all woe. All things are entangled, ensnared, enamored; if ever you wanted one thing twice, if ever you said, "You please me, happiness! Abide, moment!" then you wanted all back. All anew, all eternally, all entangled, ensnared, enamored -- oh, then you loved the world. Eternal ones, love it eternally and evermore; and to woe too, you say: go, but return! For all joy wants -- eternity."

Friedrich Nietzsche,
Thus Spoke Zarathustra
-- Posted 12:17:00 AM by Paul Hrissikopoulos

From Lee's (useless) Superhero Generator:

You are: The Silent Crystal!
Power(s): Lycanthropy
Source of powers: Mythological god(ess)
Weapon: Psychowhip
Transportation: Quinpegasus

*gasp*... it's uncanny! I mean, I drive a Buick Century, but I do usually fill up at the Mobil down the street! And anyone who has seen me after a few glasses of wine knows all about the lycanthropy and the mythological goddesses! (No comment on the Psychowhip) How did it know? How did it know?
-- Posted 1:48:00 PM by Paul Hrissikopoulos

But can you dance to it?

So what do you get when an edgy Counterstrike player with an anger management problem is secretly recorded while having an in-game hissy fit, and the resulting soundtrack is cut to an ominous techno beat? You be the judge.
-- Posted 4:47:00 PM by Paul Hrissikopoulos

So Cruel, cont'd: So did you hear the one about the kid in Quebec who videotaped himself doing his best air Darth Maul, only to have it fall into the hands of cruel classmates who posted it online? Truly a case of 21st-century bullying. But after over a million humiliating downloads, some übergroovy rotoscoped remixes, and a savage beating by some online commentators he's become somewhat of a cause célèbre to legions of nice people out there who have become his staunch defenders (and benefactors!) Ah, why must night fall for the stars to shine?

Here's your once-in-a-lifetime chance to make bullying pay.

(Via Emmanuelle Richard)
-- Posted 12:08:00 PM by Paul Hrissikopoulos

So Cruel: "The thing that is in Room 101 is the worst thing in the world." Where's the rappelling rescue squad of renegade heating engineers when you need 'em?
-- Posted 2:07:00 AM by Paul Hrissikopoulos

Communism In Action

What a bunch of sick, collectivist bastards. I want to strap 'em all down Clockwork Orange style and make the watch the opening montage to Goldeneye on an endless loop, the humorless fucks. But, then again, they so generously gave him a whopping £65! Party hardy, comrade!
-- Posted 2:00:00 AM by Paul Hrissikopoulos

Van Gogh, eat your heart out

Wow. So passive-aggressive. And while we're on the topic, what is it with Ananova and tales of genital mutilation? Kind of like seeing that picture book of war wounds on your shrink's shelf. Makes you wonder who the real sickos are, eh?
-- Posted 1:44:00 AM by Paul Hrissikopoulos

Doppelgänger alert

At a party recently, I met this freak who also claimed that ONJ was his "monolith". Pfft. So what if the guy's hung like Godzilla; there's only room for one of us, you fucking rat bastard! En garde, asswipe!
-- Posted 1:43:00 AM by Paul Hrissikopoulos

Post-coital withdrawl

Andrew Sullivan points to this article by a pro-war journalist, suggesting that the current reconstruction administration in Iraq is pooching it. Can we please, please dispense with the political correctness and sloppy research and get some people in there who can do the job? It is asinine to leave Iraqis in the dark for weeks -- when you could have their power back on in days -- just so you can smugly say, "we're only here to help the Iraqis help themselves." What bullshit, after rolling through their country and knocking their government offline, to suddenly portend that a hand's-off policy is the way to go. As Thomas Friedman said before the war, "You break it, you own it." I agreed with him then, and I agree with him now.
-- Posted 12:03:00 PM by Paul Hrissikopoulos

Yeah, but our lies are true

Merde In France has posted another odious drawing from the pages of Le Monde on his site. Up until recently I used to hop to the Le Monde website every morning to work on my French and to try to see the world from the point of view our friends across the sea, but now, as geopolitics evolves and my French improves, Le Monde just makes me tired. Now I try to stick to the stories about movies and French political scandals -- and I steer clear of those incredibly paranoid, ignorant and oh-so-self-righteous hack political cartoons at all costs.
-- Posted 11:28:00 AM by Paul Hrissikopoulos

Greetings from Boise, Idaho

Ah, away from the blog for so long, lost in the penumbra of transformation. Opening my eyes this morning I find myself in a parallel universe -- a taste of another life, one passed by. It is the evening of my third day as an anonymous contractor at the world's second largest manufacturer of memory. Ah, such a delicious irony. I wake up early, meet my carpool downstairs, ride to the plant, punch in at the security desk and disappear into the sprawling industrial complex of my benevolent corporate master, winding my way through endless, labyrinthine corridors to my cold, little, windowless office. I lunch regularly at 12:30 p.m. with people who, were I born in another place, would've been my friends. Every night, on the way home, I pass the school where my children would go, if I had them. And tomorrow I'll do it one more time. But at the stroke of six, I will step onto a plane, and as I float up and away into the blue sky this strange dream will evaporate forever, leaving me with nothing but an expired security badge and the memory of this strange glimpse of one of so many lives I could've lived.

I do appreciate these little gifts.
-- Posted 11:08:00 PM by Paul Hrissikopoulos

1:4:9

Last night I drank a whole bottle of Beaujolais and watched Xanadu three times in a row. Why, you might ask? I don't know. These are strange and desperate times in the PKXH household. Increasingly vivid dreams and strange coincidences are challenging my faith in chaos. Because I have historically lacked a strong sense of self-discipline, most of the meaningful progress I've made in life has been largely due to a mysterious, deep, instinctual drive that pushes me in strange directions that only make sense in retrospect. It has succeeded in dragging me forward with dangerously increasing velocity in spite of my often violent attempts to do nothing with my life. Only in the last year or so have I grown so exhausted from constantly fighting this weird subliminal riptide that I've surrendered myself to it's inexorable pull.

I have no choice; it's as if all of my trusty sentimental anchors have mysteriously picked the same moment to crumble themselves to dust. I tried rotating through my standard palette of self-destructive tendencies in an attempt to counter this strange force, but my only modest success was in overeating myself by twenty pounds. But I think it's onto me -- my appetite is disappearing and I'm starting to feel an irresistible urge to run two or three times a day. So in general these would be considered unusually constructive obsessions that are overtaking me, thus I am vexed when it drugs me up and slams me down in front of Olivia Newton-John for eight hours. Now, looking back, I notice that ONJ references have been increasingly creeping into blog entries, letters and personal conversations over the last month or so.

Did I really just force an old friend and co-worker to watch Grease after luring him down to L.A. on the pretense of seeing Margaret Cho at the Wiltern? And upon receiving a beautiful bouquet of flowers from another friend, why did I immediately notice that the ribbon holding it together was the same pale mint green as the one in Sandy's hair when she sings "Hopelessly Devoted to You?" And when I was having lunch with an old college roommate of mine a couple of weeks ago, why, in a moment of frantic gesticulation, did I inexplicably blurt out that Olivia Newton-John was my "monolith"? Yes, that monolith. What does it mean? Am I going mad? Am I gay? Why my "monolith", and not my "Devil's Tower"? Did I mean that she's some strange, impenetrable totem that cast an ominous cinematic shadow over a young protosexual PKXH, that has now inexplicably reappeared on the eve of some strange transformation? What's going on? Should I plug my ears? Is it full of stars? Am I going to turn into a big glowing space embryo?

Something very odd is afoot...


-- Posted 1:42:00 AM by Paul Hrissikopoulos

Too weird to live, and too rare to die

"I just saw the movie and I can't understand why you're trashing it. Jesus, you might have a masterpiece on your hands. I had a good time with it, why can't you? Cheer up. The train has left the station and we're all on it. You're a very smart director and a very lucky man. What the fuck, this is not a funny story. It is an epitaph for a doomed generation. This is an incredibly intelligent film. It is an eerie trumpet call over a lost battlefield."

Hunter S. Thompson,
Letter to Terry Gilliam, 5/7/98

I was watching the Criterion Collection press of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas yesterday while listening to the Terry Gilliam audio commentary and once again I started thinking about how odd it is when people I know and respect tell me how much they hate it. I am convinced that to hate it is to not get it. It is one of the most darkly comical, anti-materialist tragedies I have ever seen on the silver screen. Everybody likes to believe that they have a dark sense of humor. Ah, but to prove it. I think this movie really is one of the great cinematic acid tests.

A pop quiz from the roadside sphinx... Question: Name that one thing which is universally reviled across the entire span of the political spectrum; that which is forever doomed to be simultaneously hated by the right for being too "anti-right" and by the left for being too "anti-left". Answer: truth.

This movie must be onto something.
-- Posted 5:42:00 PM by Paul Hrissikopoulos

Salam Pax Lives!

:) :) :)
-- Posted 12:27:00 PM by Paul Hrissikopoulos

"I like all my films the way I like my children. And those who have a stammer or a squint-eye or a limp, I love and protect even more. And all of my films have some sort of defect."

Werner Herzog
-- Posted 11:04:00 PM by Paul Hrissikopoulos

"Which infamous criminal are you?"

"You are the Marquis de Sade. Even stripped of exaggerations, your real life was as dramatic and as tragic as a cautionary tale. Born to an ancient and noble house, you were married (against your wishes) to a middle-class heiress for money, caused scandals with prostitutes and with your sister-in-law, thus enraging your mother-in-law, who had you imprisoned under a lettre de cachet for 14 years until the Revolution freed you. Amphibian, protean, charming, you became a Revolutionary, miraculously escaping the guillotine during the Terror, only to be arrested later for publishing your erotic novels. You spent your final 12 years in the insane asylum at Charenton, where you caused another scandal by directing plays using inmates and professional actors. You died there in 1814, virtually in the arms of your teenage mistress. You are a revolutionary deviant. I applaud you."

Well, duh. I didn't need any stinkin' Quizilla test to tell me that.
-- Posted 3:55:00 PM by Paul Hrissikopoulos

"...Thus spoke Zarathustra to himself as he was climbing, comforting his heart with hard maxims; for his heart was sore as never before. And when he reached the height of the ridge, behold, the other sea lay spread out before him; and he stood still and remained silent a long time. But the night was cold at this height, and clear and starry bright.

"I recognize my lot, he finally said sorrowfully. Well, I am ready. Now my ultimate loneliness has begun.

"Alas, this black sorrowful sea below me! Alas, this pregnant nocturnal dismay! Alas, destiny and sea! To you I must now go down! Before my highest mountain I stand and before my longest wandering; to that end I must first go down deeper than ever I descended -- deeper into pain than ever I descended, down into its blackest flood. Thus my destiny wants it. Well, I am ready.

"Whence come the highest mountains? I once asked. Then I learned that they came out of the sea. The evidence is written in their rocks and in the walls of their peaks. It is out of the deepest depth that the highest must come to its height.

"Thus spoke Zarathustra on the peak of the mountain, where it was cold; but when he came close to the sea and at last stood alone among the cliffs, he had become weary from walking and even more full of longing than before.

"Everything is still asleep now, he said; even the sea is asleep. Drunk with sleep and strange it looks at me. But its breath is warm, that I feel. And I also feel that it is dreaming. In its dreams it tosses on hard pillows. Listen! Listen! How it groans with evil memories! Or evil forebodings? Alas, I am sad with you, you dark monster, and even annoyed with myself for your sake. Alas, that my hand does not have strength enough! Verily, I should like to deliver you from evil dreams.

"And as Zarathustra was speaking thus he laughed at himself in melancholy and bitterness. What, Zarathustra, he said, would you sing comfort even to the sea? O you loving fool, Zarathustra, you are trust-overfull. But thus have you always been: you have always approached everything terrible trustfully. You have wanted to pet every monster. A whiff of warm breath, a little soft tuft on the paw -- and at once you were ready to love and to lure it.

"Love is the danger of the loneliest; love of everything if only it is alive. Laughable, verily, are my folly and my modesty in love.

"Thus spoke Zarathustra and laughed for the second time. But then he recalled his friends whom he had left; and, as if he had wronged them with his thoughts, he was angry with himself for his thoughts. And soon it happened that he who had laughed wept: from wrath and longing Zarathustra wept bitterly."

Friedrich Nietzsche,
Thus Spoke Zarathustra
-- Posted 9:25:00 PM by Paul Hrissikopoulos

Out of control

Hmm... maybe all of this snarky Francophobic rhetoric is getting out of hand. I don't like stories like this. Looking at my own posts, even I'm starting to get a little over the top (imagine that). Alright, then -- let's all step back and take a deep breath. I promise. No more France bashing. Chirac bashing? Yes. France bashing, no.
-- Posted 7:28:00 PM by Paul Hrissikopoulos

Blair Envy

It's a disorder I've suffered from for some time now. And once again, the courageous visionary and world leader is right on the money.

Once, on a BBC webboard, in response to some Axis-of-Weasels-mongering some francophile sneered, "Well then why don't you give back the Statue of Liberty and rejoin Britain?" Naturally, I replied that I considered the Statue of Liberty more than paid for by the treachery of the XYZ Affair, and that maybe us Yanks wouldn't mind so much repatriating if we could have a leader like Tony Blair.

Naturally, the Beeb-Dweebs decided to block my post. Quelle surprise!
-- Posted 12:38:00 AM by Paul Hrissikopoulos

Hubris watch

Andrew Sullivan thinks that the Republicans may be getting a little big for their britches. He may have a point. We're all glad the situation in Iraq has (thus far) turned out a lot better than it might've, but unfortunately, some triumphalists -- intoxicated by their victory over the gloom-'n-doom prognostications of the flummoxed Left -- are starting to open their big yaps, and, as the saying goes, "remov[ing] all doubt."

Watch it, boys. Remember what the slave holding the golden crown whispered into the Roman conqueror's ear...
-- Posted 12:24:00 AM by Paul Hrissikopoulos

Castro: "The devil made me do it!"

Hey, when did Castro get a talk show? Look out Kilby!

UPDATE: Hey, look at that finger! Castro must be hung like an ox!
-- Posted 5:05:00 PM by Paul Hrissikopoulos

Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water

Canadian politicians are teaching the doctors about infectious diseases. Is it just me, or are these Canuck pols starting to sound like the mayor of Amity in "Jaws"? Alright, everybody -- sing along with me: Duhhh-DUM! Duhhh-DUM! Duh-dum-duh-dum-duh-dum-duh-dum-DUH-dum-duh-dum-DUH-dum-duh-dum...!
-- Posted 4:59:00 PM by Paul Hrissikopoulos