Kazhes pierakstu burtnīca

Ar šo grāmatu man saistās divi stāsti. Viens - komisks. Otrs - pilnīgi nekāds.

Tikko atgriezusies no Ēģiptes, Liene man paziņoja: dabū Lava-Lava! Tikko neatgriezies no Ēģiptes, es atbildēju ar jautājumu: Kas tas tāds?

Yuri Norstein, a Russian animator and animation director was the evil mastermind behind this cartoon. If you haven`t seen the "Hedgehog in the fog" you`ll have no idea what this is all about, but here you have a cartoon that for the most time looks like it was a moving picture by a great artist and not just a collection of images out of a comic book. Would you like me to tell you the storyline? I`d do that in a second if I knew where to begin. First, there`s a little wolf that watches everything and steals a piece of paper from a poet, but that paper turns into a baby. Then there`s girl playing with a bull. Then there`s a fisherman. There`s a baby feeding from his mom`s breast. But it all doesn`t make much sense. Oh, I forgot about a little boy eating an apple and dreaming of himself sitting on a trea and sharing his apple to crows. Damn, does this sound weird. I bet you didn`t get the story. Well, in that case you got it. It`s beautifully animated, it`s totally strange, it`s what soviet animation sometimes was like and its what American animation rarely managed to be. It`s ART.

It took me some time to get a hold of this book. You see, it never got published in Latvian and it can not be bought in Russian. As far as I`ve understood it`s banned or something like that. Weird things happen in the world. It`s not that scandalous - just a very good book. Anyhow there are three parallel stories taking place on the pages of this book. Or are there just two of them? Or is it four? I`m not so sure. The central line tells us about Saladin Chamcha and Gibreel Farishta - two Indian actors who survive a air-plane explosion and after that they somehow turn into respectively Satan and arch-angel Gabriel (Shaitan and Gibreel for the muslims). But the angel isn`t that good and satan that bad. Probably what bugged the muslims the most is another part of the story which tells us about Mahound (Mohammed) and his revelations from Gibreel (this story comes to Farishta in his sleep). It`s actually a bit similar with what Bulgakov wrote about Jesus. And the third story line is about Ayesha - a young woman that leads her whole village to Mecca on a pilgrimage. What`s weird is the outcome - you can`t really say, whether the ending was or wasn`t a lucky one for the pilgrims. This was certainly not an easy reading task by any means - Rushdie`s writing style, his choice of words, his structure of sentences aren`t easy to handle for a person like me that`s not too strong in English, but it was most certainly worth it. It was worth the time, the effort, for "Everything will be asked from us and everything will be given."

I`m not exactly the most romantic person in the whole wide world. But that doesn`t necesserialy imply that I can`t enjoy a good film "for ladies only". "The Notebook" is a typical example of such a film. An old man reads a romantic story to a woman that has lost her memory. The whole thing happens in a nursing home. It`s no big wonder to learn that the characters in the story and the old pair are the same people. Yet once again you don`t really need to be surprised. It`s interesting to watch even if you know what`s going to happen. This film ain`t flawless for sure - and I doubt that any melodrama in the whole wide world is. And it`s not a film that I would want to watch over and over again (not that were are many films I would). You can`t say that too many famous actors are involved in this film but that`s no problem either. So - watch it if you want to shead a tear while watching a film. In case you don`t and in case your eyes are hurting from sitting at a computer all day long - don`t. I`m going home, that`s for sure. And there`s no use stopping me.

Tā kā mani apraksti lielākoties sastāv no manas dzīves atstāstījuma, būtu grēks nepieminēt, no kurienes es pazīstu Rodžeru Žeļazniju (kā autoru). Patiesībā nekā daudz, ko stāstīt, nav - kaut kad vēl skolas laikos es iepazinos ar tā saukto "Moškova bibliotēku" - lielāko Krievijas interneta bibliotēku, kur vismaz tolaik pilnībā tika ignorēts tāds jēdziens kā autortiesības. Un šajā bibliotēkā bija tops ar vislabāk novērtētajām grāmatām. Un šajā topā 10niekā bija vairāki Žeļaznija darbi.

Atzīšos - mana iecere noklausīties visus manā kolekcijā esošos ierakstus ir debīla un pašnāvnieciska. It īpaši tas attiecas uz "agrīnajiem" metāla diskiem.

I am slowly turning into a computer nerd. Some may think that I am one already but watching films about the youth of Bill Gates surely is a sick thing. Anyhow Bill Gates isn`t really the main star of this film. It`s Steve Jobs, the man that created "Apple" we want to see. And no wonder - in comparison to the pale dorky Gates Jobs looks like a Jesus-like creature, a very complex person with its good and bad sides but certainly a Man and not a mouse. The film didn`t have a big budget and it surely didn`t have a perfect script. The actors are quite good though and I won`t even complain about the fact that the computer freaks look too much like hippies to me. The funny thing that Bill Gates is played by an actor whom I`ve only seen in "Freddy got fingered". In case you don`t know Tom Green is also connected with Bill Gates - he once swam across a lake that the wealthiest man in the world owns. Update: I found out that Anthony Michael Hall also appears in "The Breakfast Club", one of the most famous films of 1985 where he plays a dorky kid. I don`t know why anyone who doesn`t care for computers would want to see this film but I learned a lot from it. For instance, that not "Windows" wasn stolen from the Macintosh but that the Mac itself was just a copy of what people at "Xerox" were doing at the same time. Yeah, and DOS also wasn`t created by good ol` Bill and his pals but bought for 50 grand off a weirdo.

ZZ Top ir vislabāk zināmi bārdu dēļ. Bārdas viņiem varbūt nav tik kuplas kā Krišjānim Baronam, taču noteikti garākas. Un tas jau šo to liecina. Muzikāli viņi vienmēr ir bijuši blūzā un bugijā bāzēti rokeri, kas nav aizrāvušies ar sarežģītām kompozīcijām un kuru dziesmu tematika reti sniegusi pāri dažādu sievietes ķermeņa daļu apdziedāšanai.

"Roždennij v SSSR", vismaz kā es to saprotu, ir atbilde uz Brūsa Springstīna "Born in the USA". Tā kā man arī Springstīna veikums ir salīdzinoši vienaldzīgs, tad gaidīt kaut ko milzīgu no atbildes varētu būt naivi, vai ne?