Why Kafka just isn't Brad Pitt

I admit, it's not the most pungent, fresh, exciting and palatable topic, but it's the one I chose to write on. Why? Because I am dominated by food and cannot think of anything BUT food, even when I read stories about a clerk-turned-beetle-turned-compost. In 'The Hunger Artist' ('Der Hungerkünstler'), the starving artist is fed my breakfast when he leaves the cage after 40 days fasting. Not really MY breakfast, but the breakfast I had today. A sort of soupy, semolina pudding with milk and maple syrup (of course Kafka did not have the genius to add the maple syrup - was there any in 1915 Prague??). I love sweet, soupy breakfasts like porridge, pudding, grits, milk rice and semolina, so Kafka's story slightly backfired when I read it. Instead of being disgusted, I actually thought - yum.

I just finished an essay on Babel, and again realize how much I hate the movie. I always have. The first time I saw it, it did not ring the usual 'auteur-film' bells, I was deeply unimpressed. Poppa Pitt with a melancholic expression carrying Elizabeth (I and II) through the Moroccan desert. How tacky can a film be? (I suppose that question was answered with Benjamin Button).
I like the various 'voices' of the movie, the different languages and especially the Japanese bit of it that reminds me of Lost In Translation, in a good way. I even appreciate the Moroccan desert panorama shots, though usually, I despise docu-styly movies hoping to impress with epic images. BUT Brad Pitt as anything but Brad Pitt??????? I quite like him as Joe Black, appreciate his Tyler Durden, love Rusty Ryan - but Richard Jones???? There are other ways of coping with midlife crisis (cf Tom Cruise, Johnny Depp). Was there no pirate-movie casting at the time? Was there no crap action film script lying at Brad's bedside?

I should probably do some proof reading or research my Kafka piece, because my blood pressure rises every time I think about potential casting choices for Richard Jones (along with splitting the movie into four different features). 

A not-New Year's resolution

I have to admit, I am not the person to run, write or organize a blog. I am, and here follows a confession, utterly, utterly lazy, unmotivated, complacent and greedy. If it doesn't come to me within two seconds, it won't come at all. Ever. So about a month after my first post, a second, catching-up thingy.

Yes, I bought these flowers myself, not expecting anybody else to buy me some.

Yes, it's been a busy month, I'm at my parents', where I am left alone with a huge kitchen and sheer endless supplies of food (and a Kenwood food processor), all day long. What else to do than bake, cook and try recipes that I'd never venture doing in our humble student kitchen. Actually, it is more the disposal of the food that is much easier here, because there are always people around to eat what I cook, people that aren't fussy, people that are meat eaters, people that fancy three-course meals every day.

Because, let's be honest, I am a single student with a small kitchen, and recipes rarely adapt to my needs, and what I need is one, or maybe two scones. And a one-portion beef stew, and a one-portion brioche recipe, and a one portion pork pie recipe, and a one-portion... well you get the picture (whoever you is, if there is a you outside my head). Don't get me wrong this is not a frustrated single speaking. No - it's a slightly overweight (muhahaha) student speaking who is sick of reading recipes that could feed the entire British army, if not the entire British population. I'm not a thicko either, although usually preoccupied with letters rather than numbers, I am the offspring of two accountants and I am fully capable of calculating, hence I am able to downsize recipes. What I can't do is quarter eggs or work with thimbles as measures.

ALSO, shops don't sell the stuff I need in single-appropriate sizes. You HAVE to go for the gallon of syrup, the ton of flour, the yard-long bread, the wheelie bin full of sugar and baking powder, enough to make a continent rise. Of course, these things 'keep well', 'are always handy' and 'easily stored'. But did I mention that I am a greedy, fat student with limited space to store my gallons of syrup and milk, and not even enough will power to let a bag of flour sit on the shelf for more than a month. I do my best to cram the stuff I buy into the small space in the cupboard that is reserved for them, and labelled accordingly, a technique referred to as 'tetrising'. But what I cannot ignore is the voice in my head screaming 'flour, butter, sugar, eggs - cookiessssssss' (and trust me, that voice is quite loud). I realize now that my accolade is taking biblical proportion, but, hey, that's exactly my approach to food.

I realized during the last two weeks at my parents' that I should try to 1. get a bigger cupboard and 2. find ways of using the limited content of my food cupboard in order to make tasty stuff in one-portion format that will help me to turn myself into a one-portion size person. OMG, is that a New Year's resolution?

Britain - a nation in simile

You read 'smile' didn't you. Interesting psychology, but not what I'm on about.

What I'm talking about is the omnipresent and unnecessary use of 'like' in the language of Britain's youth (and recently, transgressing borders into the register of an older generation). It occurred to me on the bus back home to Chavtown-upper-Mousle that for some people, 99,9 % of what they say is 'like'.

- I feel like, like, you know, like, d'you know what I mean, like (Unknown on iPhone in Bus line 49)

No, I most certainly don't. And it would not bother me that sixteen year-old, underprivileged school leavers talk in similes that really aren't any, but considering that my seminars at uni start sounding like bus conversations - it does. I include myself when I say that my seminars consist of about 70 % similes, used to support arguments, to express personal opinion, or simply to articulate a full stop (imagine a coherent sentence with an added 'like' at the end, just to emphasize the end of the spoken - it reminds of army radio transceiver conversation - over and out). Britain, I'm afraid, has grown into a simile-abusing nation, with so little to say, that it has to flavor every sentence with an additional 'like' or two, just to fill up the unused narrative space that is lingering as a faint atmospheric mist over the island.

As I said, I do not exclude myself in the use and abuse of 'like'. In fact, writing, I am terribly self-conscious and catch myself wanting to use 'like' whenever everything else just sounds so, well, 'un-like'. But, there was a time when my use of like was strictly limited to the creation of similes and the expression of appreciation (he acts like an ass, I don't like that). However, Britain has corrupted me. The minute I set foot on this faintly damp island there was no going back, I was infected with the virus, or the like. Not using 'like', or not liking the use, is more than just a declaration of foreignness, it is the epitome of denial vis-a-vis the English language and culture - it is the ultimate betrayal of the British people, their Queen and of the head of the Church of England (which happens to be the same person). 

Retrospectively then, is the sixteen year-old school leaver with five children the future of British culture? Does Britain rely on snuffling teenagers with a limited register? Does the same no-winter-coat-wearing teenager embody British culture at its fullest? And why do I still not understand what she was saying on her overpriced phone?