Kazhes pierakstu burtnīca

Jāatzīst, ka veids, kā es pavadīju vakaru, kamēr Liene un viņas kolēģi no MT ballējās pa kaut kādu viesu namu, varētu radīt neizpratni. Proti, es skatījos filmu par striptīzu. Tas vēl nebūtu nekas brīnumains - kāpēc gan vīrs nevarētu, kamēr sieva ir prom, noskatīties kādu labu filmu par striptīzu? Tomēr mazliet dīvaini ir tas, ka "The full monty" ir filma par vīriešu striptīzu. Te jau varētu aizdomāties par skatītāja seksuālo orientāciju, vai ne?

Nekad tā īsti nebiju 10CC ieklausījies un īstenībā izņemot viņu lielāko hītu - "I`m not in love" - neko par šo grupu īsti nezināju.

As a fan of Eco it was my duty to read the only one of his novels (except for the latest one) that is not translated into my mother language. First I prepared to take on it in Russian since I already had read "Baudolino" in that language. But when I found out that the English version cost about the same as the Russian I decided to push myself to the limit and read this book in a language that I`m not particulary comfortable with. Only when the book was already in my hands a vague anxiety creeped into my mind whether I would be able to read Eco in English. Mr Eco`s books aren`t usually characterised by an extremely simple language and the intellectual baggage provided in each of his novels couldn`t fit in a nutshell. Therefore one really needs to be quite brave (and stupid as a matter of fact) to try to get through one of his works in a foreign language. Yet I am not a chicken, I`m a donkey and that means that I`m stubborn. So I took a grip of myself and started reading. And you know what? You wouldn`t believe me but it wasn`t that difficult at all. Ok, there are passages in Latin in this book but they still would be in Latin head I read them in Latvian. There is a character who speaks in a mixture of different languages which seems to be something between English and German in this translation but it probably would have been much weirder in Latvian-German.

Autostopotāja eposa trešā daļa pastāsta daudz par dzīvi uz Zemes divu miljonu gadu pagātnē, kura stājas priekšā Artūram Dentam un Fordam Prefektam. Pateicoties kļūdai vietas un laika vienotībā viņiem palaimējos nokļūt zemes mūsdienās - divas dienas pirms Vogonu veiktās pasaules likvidācijas, turklāt Česterfīlda dīvāna sabiedrībā un kriketa laukumā.

"Next" izrādījās fenomenāli labs teorijas apstiprinājums, tas nu ir fakts. Kādas teorijas? Pirms filmas skatīšanās Noras māsīca izteicās, ka viņai trulās un vienveidīgās Holivudas filmas ir piegriezušās un ka viņa to skatīties nevar (savā ziņā interesanti, ka to saka 18-gadīga meitene, kas skatās/skatījās MTV bagātnieku realitātes šovus, bet that`s not the point). Tā kā šī ir zinātniskās fantastikas (more or less) filma, kurā galvenajā lomā ir Nikolass Keidžs - daudzu lielisku filmu dalībnieks, bet filma tapusi pēc kāda Filipa K. Dika (viena no ievērojamākajiem amerikāņu zinātniskās fantastikas rakstniekiem) stāsta, mums bija pārliecība, ka tā varētu kalpot par pretpiemēru.

Paraquoting a review that "Spinal Tap" got to its album "Shark Sandwich" ("Shit Sandwich") this is Legally Shit 2, Blonde Shit 2 - or whatever you want. 17 minutes of this film was more than enough to stop watching it.

The second day with the series didn`t produce a lot of unexpected effects. We see the first glimpse of Margaret, who happens to be pretty enough to be what she is. We also se Master meeting Ivan Bezdomny at the clinic and telling him that the stranger whom he met was the Devil himself. Apart from that the whole "Variete" gang including Rimsky and Varenuha suffer badly, Voland and his company have their performance and that is it. In terms of things bugging me or not bugging me. Most critics in Russia are somehow dissatisfied with the portrayal of Korovjev, although I find the actor nearly perfect. The actor playing Bezdomny reciewes only good words although he seems to much of Shura Balaganov (from "The golden calf") to me. The lack of special effects and the static camera grow more and more on me and I don`t care about them anymore. Probably I wouldn`t notice the camera at all, had I not read how badly it was used. The whole performance of the dark magic was done quite good despite some minor flaws combining two scenes in one. More about "Master and Margaret" will be written when I watch the later parts.

"Fokuss Pokuss" (kā šī Vonnegūta romāna nosaukums tulkojas latviešu valodā) ir ļoti tipisks Vonnegūta darbs, tik tipisks, ka tipiskāku grūti iedomāties. Tā varonis ir Jūdžīns Debss-Hartke, kas it kā raksta savas dzīves aprakstu, sēžot cietumā. Kas jau ir citur bijis:

Kādreiz es domāju, ka šis Džeroma stāsts/romāns, nezinu, kā to pareizi definēt, ir oficiāli atzīts par visu laiku smieklīgāko literāro darbu. Patiešām - kāpēc lai tas nebūtu?

Despite the fact that everybody and his grandmother has at least once proclaimed that the time of Pelevin were over he still always manages to bounce back and produce something truly worth reading. In his latest novel Pelevin once again takes a comfortable use of modern technologies. The first case when he did it was in the short story "The prince of the government plan" about a man playing "Prince of Persia". Then there was "Generation Pi" where the whole political scene of Russia was rendered by computers. Finally in the "Transitional Period" he wrote a monologue from a girl in a porno site. And now "The helm of horror" is written in a form of a chat discussion. Still this isn`t a simple chat because the number of users is limited, they can`t change their nicknames, they can`t leave the chat and they can interrupt one another - a thing impossible in a realistic chat. There`s a whole eight of them including a man named Monstrodamus, a Romeo, an Ariadna, an orthodox Christian woman named Ugli 666, a computer expert Nutrcracker, a woman of passion named Isolda, a strange fellow under the name of Organizm and drunk chat geek who uses the ugly chatter lexicon that i hate the most. The reasons for the whole situation lie in the fact that the eight people are inside a labyrinth in which the Minotaurus dwells. Every one of the characters has a labyrinth of his own next to his room. For one it is the windows screensaver "Maze", for another - a labyrinth in a park, for someone - a dead end with a chair, a loaded gun and a piece of paper. The problem is that no one knows where Theseus, the murderer of Minotaurus is. Yet they suspect that both Minotaurus and Theseus are among them. The deepest problem thou lies in the fact that everyone of them, including Minotaurus are inside the helm of horror which lies on the head of Minotaurus, therefore both Minotaurus and Theseus are a part of Minotaurus (similarly to a set of all sets which includes itself as a part of itself). The book is short, easy to read, but hard to understand. This time Pelevin doesn`t go too much for sex but much more for the content, and he`s a master of that for sure. Very good, I say.