Fucking Fabulous London

If I had time and no schoolwork nor competitions to prepare for, no books to read, no exhibitions to see, no internship, no job.. and if I had an Internet connection at my new home, I would surely keep my promise and tell you all about my trip to London this summer.

I would try to keep myself from saying how great and wonderful and superb London was because it seems like such an obvious thing anyway. I might mention the way my flight ticket was booked for the wrong month and I ended up paying way too much for a new one and spending one night in Karlsruhe, at a nice airport worker's place. Or that once landed and on the coach for the city centre, I got a glimpse of a Banksy painting in a neglected part of town. I would probably brag about free cocktails and champagne in a trendy bar on my first night there, and about the place I was couch surfing which was quite far from the centre but a nice, typically british flat/house in front of which was a Volkswagen repair shop with many beautiful hippy-buses and even the original car that had starred in "Herbie".

I might have described my days full of museums and more or less aimless wandering around and discovering Tate Modern, Tate Britain, taking a look at the Tower Bridge and at the soldiers in front of Buckingham Palace, taking a soy latté in one of the thousands of Starbuck's and having my breath taken away when I first stepped out from the underground at Picadilly Circus station and saw the famous square.

Or spending one whole day running around the rainy Oxford Street, shopping and looking at people. Or taking the bus in the wrong direction ('cause if the underground system is quite clear, except for the zones, the buses in London are very confusing) and ending up discovering Chelsea. And what a wonderful place it was: I passed timidly in front of the haute couture boutiques and the red-brick houses with maids and drivers and their rich employers in them... Quite awestrucking.

I would probably mention the vegan restaurants I visited: one in Kensington, with a great menu, home-like ambiance and friendly customers and the other one near Oxford Street, where you pay by the scoops and can choose between numerous salads and stews and deserts and can even take away. I might also add enthusiastically that in every shop and pre-packed food place it's always marked whether something was vegetarian or vegan.

Finally I'd definitely describe the way London had felt like home from the very first moment I set foot there. The way people seemed less stressed than for example in Paris and were very friendly. The way I came across estonians every single day, once even took the bus sitting right behind a group of them and eavesdropping on their conversation. The way I was never afraid of getting lost and the way rain seemed to be a romantic part of the city life. The way I suddenly felt as if anything was possible, as if endless opportunities were peeking in my direction, waiting to be seized. The reassuring way in which the question "where are you from?" was no longer an unfriendly and alienating one, but a normal part of making acquaintance. The way "fucking fabulous!" were the keywords of my visit there, surging up on every corner, inspired by the architecture and the people and  the dazzling everything else.

Yes my friends, if I was really looking for means of procrastination, I would definitely tell you all about this. But I'm a responsible and hardworking person, so I'll just have to content myself with telling you that London was fucking fabulous! Take it or leave it.

A Place That Looked Strangely Like Paris

After I was in Paris now almost a month ago, I will be travelling again already this week-end: going to London and then to Tallinn this time. And it was about time huh!

So I thought I'd share my Paris trip a bit...

I went there by hitchhiking simply because train tickets were unthinkably expensive. This was the longest trip I've ever done hitching alone and it was quite fun. I never waited longer than 10 minutes and got rides with not only french drivers but also polish and slovakian truckers. I even had to pretend being french because this one french trucker didn't seem very friendly towards foreigners...

The reason I went to Paris was a conference held by Captain Paul Watson that was organised by the Sea Shepherd France in one of the universities there.

That's him in the middle and on the left you have the smiling Kim McCoy - she's the executive director of Sea Shepherd Conservation Society and also one of the three Shark Angels. I need not mention that the conference was absolutely great and gave me a lot to think about and plenty of motivation. The most amazing was that only two months ago I was surfing the net, reading Sea Shepherd stories and watching videos and thinking how great it would be to be able to meet Captain Paul Watson some day. And there I was! I even managed to shake his hand and ask him some questions :)

This whole conference and seeing Paul Watson and all those people made me feel as if I had walked into some parallel Universe that resembled strangely a lot to Paris. They had even put an Eiffel tower there to make a better illusion... So I spent the rest of my time sleep-walking and seeing people and things and places that only seemed semi-real.

I stayed at Alundra's place who I'd met through Couch Surfing. He showed me around a bit and introduced me to some of his friends and helped me to get in Palais Tokyo for free. There we saw an army of musical Darth Vadors and a huge pile of rubbish and a gravity-laws defying elephant. Here's Alundra in Boltansky's room in Musée d'Art Moderne and the crazy elephant.

The rest of my stay there I spent wondering around the city streets, window-shopping, watching videos in Centre Pompidou, looking to bump into famous people (I think I saw Sinclair), taking my morning coffee on a terrass on Place de la République and my dinner picnic on the grassy hill in front of Sacré Coeur and drinking the most expensive beer of my life in a bar in Montmantre. I wonder if I'll top that record in a few days in London... I'll let you know.

Step Three... but not here

Thanks for your helpful comments and remarks on my last subject! I'll come back to those questions quite soon. From now on those who want to take Step Three and all the next ones can do it on Vega the Black and Green Star and I also suggest you find out why the lake has fallen upside down.

For those of you who do not care about the above, you can still check out the page Now You See Me Now You Don't and find out what I'd been up to in the last few weeks...

Step Two

Assuming you followed the "step one", or if not don't worry, I won't be upset... So now you might be wondering werther it's not too late, werther doing something would make any difference what so ever? I honestly don't know, but I'm sure as hell that trying to change is better than giving up on it. If we give up now then it's surely true that there is no hope for any change for the better - the icebanks will keep melting, the canadian sealers will continue slaughtering seals, the plastic bags will continually not decompose, the poor people will keep eating dead animals and the rich people will keep eating shark fin soup until there will be no more sharks left in the oceans, thus no plankton, thus no air. And we will all eat factory-produced food and keep factory-produced pets and breathe factory-produced air through our factory-produced special air masks or something...

I don't know how about you, but I'd rather try and keep the hope of a brighter scenario. "Okay smartass, how do we do that?" you ask me? I would start with something small and simple like changing some of my wasteful habits. Here are some personal examples:

• Water: try to use as little as you can - don't leave it running while brushing your teeth (I know, it seems obvious but there actually still are some people out there who don't pay attention to that) or while washing dishes or rubbing shampoo in your hair... Well, I just try to minimize the moments where it stays running uselessly. Don't buy water in bottles! Tap water is ok to drink and if you don't like the taste then getting a filter is not a bad idea. Have you ever noticed that if you spell the name of a famous bottled water backwards you get "naive"? Do you think that's a coincidence or could it mean something about the fact of selling people water for more than 1 euro per liter whereas they can get it as much as they want for free at home? Besides, some of the chemicals used in making the bottles are actually transferred into the water, which makes it bad for you and the nature.
• Recycle: I know, I know, it's obligatory in most countries now, but from the example of my flat-mates I also know that we can always try harder. Re-use the glass and tin jars to put in your tea/coffee/sugar etc. If you have the possibility of choice, buy the products that aren't packed into ten million different bags and boxes.
• Plastic bags: Get a cloth tote bag for your grocery shopping (or make it yourself with personalized decorations). Don't hesitate to refuse the free bag they give you in all the different clothing and what not stores, unless you really need it. Re-use the old ones instead of trash bags... And I still haven't really figured out how to replace or reduce the little bags used for fruit and vegetables in supermarkets (the ones we use to weigh out and then stick the price on, which makes them tricky to re-use)...
• Transport: walk or take the bicycle as much as you can. Or use public transportation rather than a car. Pay attention to where your food (especially fresh stuff) comes from: did the orange travel all the way across the globe, polluting a lot of air and wasting a lot of fuel on its way to your plate? Prefer your local products as much as possible, they are surely better for your body too.

This obviously is far from being a thorough list and all new propositions, ideas and/or objections are very welcome. Those to whom the above is not only a habit but already an obvious one, might want to take a little step further in the whole "making a difference" business. On this occasion I eagerly encourage you to take the 30-day Veg Pledge. You can even download your free Vegetarian Starter Kit, which might seem a bit cheesy for the skeptics, but it's actually quite informative and motivating and answers to pretty much all the questions that might arise for a beginner-vegetarian. Plus there are some really nice recipes and who wouldn't appreciate a possibility to eat somehting new and tasty?!

Any more ideas on this subject? Let me know! In the meanwhile I hope you'll keep tuning in and that the next time you read my new post, it will be as (even temporarily) a meat-free person :) As for all the already-meat-free readers: thanks for bearing with me, I promise that the steps yet to be taken might interest you guys...

Step One

If you are here on my blog and reading this post then hopefully you are willing to hear me out...
So I would like to benefit of this privilege and share with you some of the things that I hold very dear, hoping that you might understand (wherther you know me in person or not). This will be the prelude (The dress rehersal I should say) to my explaining and reassuring and facing scepticism etc that I feel is yet ahead of me. But this is not about me, it is about everything that is and should be important.

So step one: If you haven't yet seen or heard of the film "Earthlings" and if you are still reading my post inspite of the crappy and confusing intro, then please go and watch it, it's available here. I'm not sure about how legal and thus lasting this Internet-available version is, so check it out before it's gone. But I must warn you: unless you suffer of severe compassion defficiency, you will probably need some hankys to go through it. It's probably best to watch this alone or in a close company, at least for the first time. So please take a moment to sit down and go through the whole lot of it right away... (You can come back here and finish reading the post afterwards if you want, but I thinks it's important that you see this first).

click here to watch

After you've watched it (or if you've already seen it), you might feel hopeless and powerless (maybe even unwilling) to change anything. Or you might feel like doing something, anything about it... That's how I felt anyway - and here I am, writing this post. I assure you - even the smallest effort is already a good start and the fact of having watched the film through shows you have consciousness and interest regarding these questions...

Letting other people know about what you've just seen is the first reflex I guess. Tell your friends, send them the link, put it in your MSN personal message, your blog, your internet site - anything might work to spread the word. Then you might want to find out a bit more about these things. Meat.org - for more precisions on the food issues; The 11th Hour - for a more global and less hard core view on how serious the problem is (this is what inspired me to believe that I can actually do something) ; Sharkwater - as extremely overlooked as it is important (unfortunately "Earthlings" did not feature the shark finning issue), this film is being screened all over the world and should definately be seen by the biggest possible number of people. This was also where I first found out about the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society and which gave me the last positive push I needed... The last two films are unfortunately not available directly on the internet, but they should be downloadable (sorry Rob and Leonardo, but the cause is more important than the copyright!). This is not about some commercial stuff or profit, it's - I repeat - about everything that's important on this planet and for our generation...

The conclusion of this post is not long, but sincere. If you have been patient enough to see "Earthlings" and are still with me: thank you..! Keep tuned for the upcoming.

Part 2 or How All Of The Sudden It Became So Easy To Be A Vegetarian

I spent the whole night watching interesting videos and looking for information around the net and what I found... well... there are things that just break my heart and things that infuriate me and make me feel ashamed of being a human. Sometimes I think that it's maybe just best to give up and not do anything, to ignore everything that's going on and just wait for the end of it all, hoping that in the end nature survives and humans will be just one more species extinct in the course of the evolution (not that I'm really sure about the whole concept of evolution, but that's another story)...

But then there are also things that give hope and make me want to do something - anything - to help and support the ones that are actually accomplishing things in battles against time and money and powerful corporations... I hope some people will agree...

This video of Captain Paul Watson (from the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society) is part of those hope-giving things. If you don't really understand what the hell this post is all about and the video here is too long and you don't have time to watch it then I suggest you go see a film called "The 11th Hour" or even better - the one that I just discovered with awe yesterday called "Sharkwater" (and which was the reason I stayed up all night, surfing around to get more informed). Wathc it ASAP and I'm sure that, as I, you might suddenly find the time and the motivation to want to see and hear more.. to go further in the investigation of what's really going on and maybe even act on it.

As for the title of my today's story: it's maybe the recent accumulation of the people i've talked to and the things i've seen and heard and thought. And maybe having watched "Sharkwater" just before also helped shifting something into place. Anyway, there is something in what Captain Watts says here, that just made a click in my head and all of the sudden it became so easy to be a vegetarian... I just had to put this out here (as to respond to my previous post) and share what I'm thinking. Now I'm wondering if someone might get a similar reaction, so let me know what you're thinking too...

PS: during the time you spent reading and watching this, about 5000 sharks were slaughtered. To find out more go see the film...

Why I'm Not Vegan

(in response to Hanna's last post)

I've also been thinking on this subject for quite a long time. But first of all, soy milk is not exactly healthier (concerning calcium and protein). Secondly, the soy products are so damn expensive, as are all the bio and fair trade products, which means that a poor student is in the obligation of eating junk filled with genes and hormones and pesticides. Besides, start to think of it - there is milk inside chocolate and inside ice cream, sauces and many bakery products, inside body cream and shampoo etc etc etc. And it's even worse with the eggs - almost anything we eat containts "traces of egg" (that's what they write on the packages). So putting in a lot of money and effort it is possible to exchange our usual milk products with the soy products. There is even vegan ice cream and vegan shampoo out there. It's obviously not in our normal supermarket just around the corner, but still possible to find. But how to replace, or even just avoid the eggs? That one I haven't figured out yet...

It is a different problem with meat: in general it's too expensive to buy, so that solves the problem. But if I'm eating out it is absolutely impossible to find something that wouldn't contain meat or at least chicken or fish. And if I decide to be the false-vegetarian/vegan who's afraid of missing on some vital substances and therefore continues eating fish.. well, it's impossible to find a tuna sanwich without mayonnaise and/or eggs...

Being vegetarian (and I'm not even mentioning vegan) is quite harmful for your social life as well. Because it rules out eating out with friends ("hey, want to grab a kebab?" - "um, no") or at a friend's place - unless the inviting person is vegetarian, they will not even once consider asking about special diets of people (once again, poor students who do what they can)... And if you are strong enough to pass the evening watching others eat (and without grabbing any of those aperitif chips - they too contain traces of egg!) then good for you, but it is extremely antisocial and makes you feel weird or bad, as well as your friends.

These are more or less the problems and the questions that arise when I consider becoming vegan or even just part-time vegetarian. If someone can share their experience on the subject, I would be more than happy to hear about it. And I hope that one day I will be able to stick the black & green star full-time to my front and vote against the massive and torturing production of meat, eggs and milk by not eating them...

My Story About Getting Credit

One of my videos on YouTube [here's a link to my little channel] was selected among millions of others on the Internet as a TOP 10 video on Classical Music on the WeShow Awards US Edition. WeShow selects the best and most relevant videos in the whole world from across sites such as Youtube, MySpace, Metacafe, DailyMotion (among others) and categorizes them across 200 channels. The video that was chosen from my channel was actually the first one I ever uploaded on YouTube and also the one that has by far the most viewers and comments... So this Top 10 thing is pretty huge. But...

The irony of the whole story is that out of all the few videos I've uploaded, this is the only one that has really nothing to do with my ideas or creativity. It's just an interpretation of John Cage's 4'33''. I found it somewhere (probably downloaded using the mule) and thought I could share it with the world just because I liked Cage at the time... So really nothing to get excited or happy about.

To be honest, I wouldn't even keep it on my channel anymore if it wasn't so damn popular! I'm guessing that the more than 200 000 people that have watched it might also look at the rest of my stuff (not that I've dared to put up my artwork really!)... How awful of me to use someone else's work in order to promote mine! I don't even know who's the real author of that "secretly stolen selfpublicity" video. I think it's just a recording of a TV broadcast. How spectacular!

The conclusion of this story is that these things always happen to me. I get credit for the wrong things or for the things I haven't done or the things I didn't really do as well as I should/could have. Is it bad? Is it good? How the hell should I know!

In the meanwhile I suggest you go and see the great film Foureyed Monsters that I recently discovered and maybe I'll upload some new videos to my YouTube channel in order to start deserving at least a tiny bit of that credit WeShow has given me.