From altin_topi at yahoo.com Fri Jul 5 17:02:30 2002 From: altin_topi at yahoo.com (altin topi) Date: Fri, 5 Jul 2002 14:02:30 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Memes eXodus] A Capitalist Manifesto In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20020705210230.45240.qmail@web9608.mail.yahoo.com> A Capitalist Manifesto Twenty years ago, - well, I have to admit, surely, it sounds a long time ago, - I was living in Taubinit of Zentana, bewildered by my youth and a sense that I was a would-be great Zentanian poet and narrator. Imaginary, I was living the parallel dream of an Ezra Pound, a Gertrude Stein, a Joyce, or a Hemingway, at the time when living in Paris, the museum city, the would-be writers often couldn't afford even a modest meal. My almost daily itinerary, summer or winter weather, no matter what, was a long promenade along the Taubinit's Seine, - Lumi i Lanes. As strange as it might sound, this distinctive fixture of my beloved city was(and still is) officially considered a "Lum", in Zentanian is the word for river, or named so at least, in some antique and scarce maps, including a fragmentary tourist guide, as the first and maybe the only edition, which at different times appeared and disappeared from the circulation as an indicative sign of new and different circumstances, the ups-and-downs of the regime's mood. But, for me, and I generally believe, as for all the Parisians, the River Seine is simply, the Seine, as for the majority of Taubinit's residents, Lumi i Lanes is just Lana. Only two decades later, after I have slept by the Seine begging the passing tourists for some change, in one of many Paris nocturnal promenades along Seine's watery highway, only then, I was able to realize that Lana couldn't have been the Seine, especially for a young Zentanian would-be writer. My city, Taubinit, lacked the bottom line rule of Paris, a place of pilgrimage and pedigree, a capital of tourism and arts. I trust my explanation, peculiar as it might seem. A young would-be writer in Paris, lived in a garret with a skylight, paying $2.50 rent, enduring a strictly diet, with a food budget about the same, while I had to share my room with my siblings, rent free; I was living with my parents and they were paying for it. The newly adapted Parisian writer used propane camping stove for cooking and everything else, bathed once a week by appointment in one of the public hotel bathtubs, while I had to fight with my siblings over our share of weekly chicken broth, a bowl of beans, and unjustly, I was forcefully thrown, sometimes twice a week, into a primitive shower, similar to one in a boot camp, which entitled me every week to use liberally my bed. Do you think that I had any other choice? Many would-be Parisian fictionists used as toilets various underbridge passes, metro stair landings and back copies of Le Monde as daily accidents in public parks or cheap caf?s, while I had to be all the time in the vicinity of those very few public toilet places and only in extremis, exercising my natural right of natura naturalis behind bushes pre-assigned well-in-advance, and equipped with an outdated copy of The People's Voice, forcefully as my last resource end product, always stuck in my rear pocket. Back twenty years ago, in Taubinit, I had written several short stories and a bunch a poems, but at the very first time, I received a pre-rejection, a friendly advice "not right for us". I was living with the awareness that I was enjoying my teenage days in the best possible place of Zentana, the capital, - Taubinit. So I knew exactly what to do, I didn't push the envelope further. An official rejection could have been disastrous, at least with the sole repercussion, a permanent change of my residence address. Two decades later, I still write tales and poems; some of them about a wacky, dreamy city kid turned into a suburban adult, and sometimes my writings resemble a bit author's life and travels. Now, I use any kind of reliable mail service to send my stories, when and where I can afford . That very first rejection kept me going. I have received a lot of rejection slips from dozens of book and magazine publishers, and few times I have received from them handwritten short notes which sounded as a subdue praise. - "We like part of your story, we would like to see more of your things." No matter what, my heart bounced from joy and hope; somebody had paid attention, cared and read my tale, and that kept me going. Nowadays, I'm in good company, I'm a member of the society of waiting-to-be-published authors. The years of acceptance or rejection is an indication neither of successes or failures for writers like us, we look at each other as ultimate arbiters, we are almost like a mutual admiration society. We compete fiercely trying to outdo each other, we inspire each other, we envy each other, we emulate each other, we are critical of each other, we admire each other, and at the end, we are completely dependent on each other. It is a wonderful thing to be in a society, where you believe that all your friends are geniuses. The society of waiting-to-be published authors meets at Starbucks or Barnes a Noble lounges, in East Village, Tribeca or somewhere else, where a coffee mocha costs a mere $2.50, without the need of a flashlight or a genius cab driver. We take long walks, or after our daily workload, we throw ourselves deadly tired in a subway train; we need to save the money for the brand name, - Starbucks. Sitting in a well-lit lounge, we read each others waiting-to-be published poems and novels, having preserved for another day the power of the ultimate arbiters. You sense a strange enthusiasm and hope amongst us, in the midst of the giants of commerce merger frenzy. Long ago, all the major journals and publishers with few exceptions(there are few that still publish thoughtful books)converted their literary and artistic religion to diet, sex, celebrity and the merry jingle of silly coins. They are too exhausted to dream anything else but cash. Not chassed by the monies, we authors/publishers of waiting-to-be published books are free from any silly temptation to write for the insatiable consuming mob. We are blessed in a very special way, in our poems and tales, in our small universe, we can attempt to tell the truth, we can dream freely. In a time of emptiness, our tiny universe is thriving, our work is getting better in quantity and quality. Why? Because nobody wants to read us. We are blessed in our loneliness with our prerogative; sitting in a well-lit lounge having a $2.50 cap of coffee(cappuccino, latte, macchiato, mocha, etc.) and reading to our genius friends our latest work. My favorite heroine-artist Janis Joplin would have said, -"There is nothing left to lose." It sounds so true, no money here at all, and this is the ultimate freedom. So in a last note, if you are interested in glitz and buzz, we are not the right party to stop. Just pass by and don't stop. But, if you are a pilgrim, looking for a taste of hilarious as much as holy of yet waiting-to-be published authors our address is Memes-Exodus at http://www.alb-net.com/mailman/listinfo/memes-exodus Sincerely yours, Altin Topi --------------------------------- Do You Yahoo!? New! SBC Yahoo! Dial - 1st Month Free & unlimited access -------------- next part -------------- HTML attachment scrubbed and removed From altin_topi at yahoo.com Mon Jul 8 01:44:55 2002 From: altin_topi at yahoo.com (altin topi) Date: Sun, 7 Jul 2002 22:44:55 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Memes eXodus] A new book of Kadare in English, and a new NYTimes book review In-Reply-To: <142.11172a1d.2a5a7ed6@aol.com> Message-ID: <20020708054455.27885.qmail@web9603.mail.yahoo.com> Reading the NYTimes review... Richard Eder, the author of the Sunday's NYTimes book review article, July 7, 2002, writing about the most recent book of Kadare, "Spring flower, Spring frost" translated doubly (from Albanian to French and from French to English) defines that "It is Albanian identity, malformed by history, that Kadare is aiming at." Kadare is grim, defying the Western view of human species as a complex of evil and good. If evil is your essence, it will come back and haunt you. So according to Kadare, it is no escape from the evil of the past. And in his book evil is the essence. Mr. Eder should know a lot about Kadare and his books. In a way he conveys to us the feeling that he is downgrading Kadare this time, he thinks about the book as "unsteady, murky and capricious at times, but now and then with flashes of compelling wit and the frenetic syncopation of life about to be sucked back down a black hole." The book is about Albania today, and it is a projection from the present to the past. Mr. Eden writes that " his(Kadare's) ground is less sure that it has been, though; he writes more richly when he projects forward from the past rather then backward from the present." Kadare according to Mr. Eder wants to make fashionable the word "remote," and to get recognition for things like the case of the Blood Book, the Canon, which for a Western reader doesn't represent any more a universal appeal. Kadare through his two main characters, Angelin and Mark gives you a hint of the peace of mind for a final resolution that sounds a wildly reasoning. As per the words of Mr. Eden: - "Only if the state incorporates such feuds as instruments of its penal code, can the past be appeased and made to relinquish its hold." At the end, Kadare is not explicit, he doesn't make you know where his sympathies rest. According to Mr. Eder, Kadare who owns a lot to Kafka, this time is more closer to Swift than to Kafka. He ends his comments by saying that "His(Kadare's) greatness does itself more justice in allegory than in satire." Altin Topi --------------------------------- Do You Yahoo!? New! SBC Yahoo! Dial - 1st Month Free & unlimited access -------------- next part -------------- HTML attachment scrubbed and removed From altin_topi at yahoo.com Tue Jul 9 11:44:57 2002 From: altin_topi at yahoo.com (altin topi) Date: Tue, 9 Jul 2002 08:44:57 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Memes eXodus] A cultural and humorous approach In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20020709154457.77154.qmail@web9604.mail.yahoo.com> Injecting culture with humorous approach Does the statement, "We've always done it that way" ring any bells? In the United States the standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet, 8.5 inches. That's an exceedingly odd number, so why was that gauge used? Because that's the way they built them in England, and English expatriates built the US Railroads. Why did the English build them like that? Because the first rail lines were built by the same people who built the pre-railroad tramways, and that's the gauge they used. Why did "they" use that gauge then? Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they used for building wagons, which used that wheel spacing. Okay! Why did the wagons have that particular odd wheel spacing? Well, if they tried to use any other spacing, the wagon wheels would break on some of the old, long distance roads in England, because that's the spacing of the wheel ruts. So who built those old rutted roads? Imperial Rome built the first long distance roads in Europe (and England) for their legions. The roads have been used ever since. And the ruts in the roads? Roman war chariots formed the initial ruts, which everyone else had to match for fear of destroying their wagon wheels. Since the chariots were made for Imperial Rome, they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing. So the United States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches was derived from the original specifications for an Imperial Roman war chariot. The next time you are handed a specification and wonder what horse's ass came up with it, you may be exactly right, because the Imperial Roman war chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the back ends of two war horses. Now the ironic twist to the story... When you see a Space Shuttle sitting on its launch pad, there are two big booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank. These are solid rocket boosters, or SRBs. The SRBs are made by Thiokol at their factory at Utah. The engineers who designed the SRB would have preferred to make them a bit fatter, but the SRBs had to be shipped by train from the factory to the launch site. The railroad line from the factory happens to run through a tunnel in the mountains. The SRBs had to fit through that tunnel. The tunnel is slightly wider than the railroad track, and the railroad track, as you now know, is about as wide as two horses' behinds. So, a major Space Shuttle design feature of what is arguably the world's most advanced transportation system was determined over two thousand years ago by the width of a horse's ass! ..and you thought being a HORSE'S ASS wasn't important. --------------------------------- Do You Yahoo!? New! SBC Yahoo! Dial - 1st Month Free & unlimited access -------------- next part -------------- HTML attachment scrubbed and removed From MemeseXodus at aol.com Thu Jul 11 00:40:09 2002 From: MemeseXodus at aol.com (MemeseXodus at aol.com) Date: Thu, 11 Jul 2002 00:40:09 EDT Subject: [Memes eXodus] News and Entertainment Message-ID: <13f.11222788.2a5e6629@aol.com> Memes-eXodus News and Entertainment motto: "We cannot give you free lunch, but we can give you free information and entertain you to better your life quality and spice your day." Author Memes-eXodus Concerts in NYC: In an NY hot July, there are still ways and places, where you can get something intensive, moving and substantive. What about getting almost free or free tickets indeed, for a classical music concert or recital? Can you complain about such offer, when you get to listen to a Beethoven Symphony, at the same time having the possibility of meeting a bunch of old pals, co-patriots, music-lovers, and enjoying the architecture of Lincoln Center in Manhattan? It so reminiscent of the surroundings of Tirana Conservatory Roman Imperial grandeur, a landscape overwhelmed by the whiteness of the marble structure. The Italian conductor Riccardo Muti will lead an all-star American orchestra in a FREE concert July 22 at 8p.m. at Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Hall. Members of the NY Philharmonic will join players from more than a dozen of the Europe's major assembles for a concert of works that celebrate freedom. The program includes Beethoven's Third Symphony and chorus "Va pensiero," Verdi's hymn of liberty from "Nabucco", as well as the triumphal finale of Rossini's opera "William Tell." Tickets will be available at the Avery Fisher Hall box office on a first-come, first-served basis, beginning Monday, July 15. How you listen to Beethoven is an intensely personal thing. You can listen to his music also through students recitals on Friday and Saturday for a mere $10 in the cozy old school hall of European flavor at the summer Beethoven Institute (address Mannes College of Music, 150, 85th St. between Amsterdam and Columbus, 212-580-0210). Bad hair month damage control. Are you having a bad hair? You think is just a PMS thing? It's nothing compare to having a bad hair month. July is generally known as the bad hair month. For many beauty salons in the Northern Hemisphere the month of July, is unusually busy with a lot of curly/iron-flat hair female customers and very unhappy with their look. They complain that their hair frizzes out into an unruly mass on hot and humid days of July. When we asked a hair expert for any advice, the first and the only advice given us, was not to wash your hair for the whole month of July. Can you resist the temptation of taking a shower or a swimming bath and singling out from the rest of you body your head, not to be part of the refreshing and joyous moments in the sticky hot days of July? It looks as an impossible enterprise, but it is the only path to Salvation. How come? Why you have to endure such ordeal? It looks that chemistry and physics of the hair have the say this time. Hydrogen bonds as well as disulfide bonds hold hair protein together. The incoming water from the humid air disrupts the hair's hydrogen bonds by weakening the sulfur bonds, the atoms shift around, allowing the stronger disulfide bonds to pull hair into tighter curls, especially after taking a shower or swimming. The combination of tighter curls with swelled strands caused by the abundant water in the air makes hair frizzy. About 10% of the disulfide bonds don't re-form, the hair is really drenched, its structure is at its weakest, leaving hair vulnerable to breaking, and it is why hair snarls. -------------- next part -------------- HTML attachment scrubbed and removed From altin_topi at yahoo.com Thu Jul 11 16:07:50 2002 From: altin_topi at yahoo.com (altin topi) Date: Thu, 11 Jul 2002 13:07:50 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Memes eXodus] Your Moment of Zen In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20020711200750.5148.qmail@web9604.mail.yahoo.com> Your Daily Moment of Zen (Modified to reflect contemporary wisdom): 1. Do not walk behind me, for I may not lead. Do not walk ahead of me, for I may not follow. Do not walk beside me either. Just leave me the hell alone. 2. The journey of a thousand miles begins with a broken fan belt and a leaky tire. 3. It's always darkest before dawn. So if you're going to steal your neighbor's newspaper, that's the time to do it. 4. Sex is like air. It's not important unless you aren't getting any. 5. Don't be irreplaceable. If you can't be replaced, you can't be promoted. 6. No one is listening until you fart. 7. Always remember you're unique. Just like everyone else. 8. Never test the depth of the water with both feet. 9. If you think nobody cares if you're alive, try missing a couple of car payments. 10. Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way, when you criticize them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes. 11. If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you. 12. Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach him how to fish, and he will sit in a boat and drink beer all day. 13. If you lend someone $20 and never see that person again, it was probably worth it. 14. If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything. 15. Some days you are the bug; some days you are the windshield. 16. Don't worry; it only seems kinky the first time. 17. Good judgment comes from bad experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment. 18. The quickest way to double your money is to fold it in half and put it back in your pocket. 19. A closed mouth gathers no foot. 20. Duct tape is like the Force. It has a light side and a dark side, and it holds the universe together. 21. There are two theories to arguing with women. Neither one works. 22. Generally speaking, you aren't learning much when your lips are moving. 23. Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it. 24. Never miss a good chance to shut up. 25. We are born naked, wet, and hungry, and get slapped on our ass ... then things get worse. --------------------------------- Do You Yahoo!? New! SBC Yahoo! Dial - 1st Month Free & unlimited access -------------- next part -------------- HTML attachment scrubbed and removed From MemeseXodus at aol.com Sun Jul 14 12:36:39 2002 From: MemeseXodus at aol.com (MemeseXodus at aol.com) Date: Sun, 14 Jul 2002 12:36:39 EDT Subject: [Memes eXodus] The "Verdict of Time" Message-ID: <121.13d50fd9.2a630297@aol.com> Memes-eXodus News and Entertainment motto: "We cannot give you free lunch, but we can give you free information and entertain you to better your life quality and spice your day. Author Memes eXodus The "Verdict of Time" : The leading note of every age is struck by those creators who are the most robust and intense. Our own era, it might be called by our successors "The age of Proust or "The age of Joyce," or the "The age of Spielberg," it may be defined above all as the age of poetry and movie, or... who knows. When more ephemeral productions are buried in oblivion, only a few masterpieces may emerge, marked by intense energy imparted to them by their imaginative creators. Guillaume Apollinaire, a charming and delicate poet, but e robust critic, who interpreted Cubism to the 20th Century generations and is considered the father of Surrealism declared before his death: "All the artistic works of an age mold themselves, in the end, on the most energetic, the most expressive, the most typical creation of the age." The "verdict of time" is in fact the judgment of a very few enthusiasts, and as Arnold Bennet define it: "Why does the great and universal fame of classical authors continue? The answer is that the fame of classical authors is entirely independent of the majority...It is made and maintained by a passionate few... It is the passionate few that the renown of genius is kept alive from one generation to another... The majority can make a reputation, but it is to careless to maintain it... The few conquered by their obstinacy alone, by their eternal repetition of the same statements." The ancients were aware of this and dismissed the "profanum vulgus;" Voltaire, whom some moderns revere as the ancestor of the democracy, wrote to the chief of the police Herault in 1734 that he should only listen to the opinion of a few chosen minds on his books, "because the vulgar is always and everywhere led by a small number of exceptional men, in literature and politics." The passionate few, single out a few symphonies by Beethoven, a few overtures by Wagner, a few "Lieder" by Shumman or a few cantos by Verdi, to be heard forever. The passionate few, if they are successful, are soon joined by the snobs and the publishers, and/or the art dealers; the public opinion creators are submissively followed by the public and the crowds who are only too glad to echo the verdict of the "experts." The public can never express a sincere opinion on Oedipus Rex, Divine Comedy. King Lear, Andromaque, or War and Peace. The "experts" are the gregarious troop which tyrannizes over timid souls under the name of posterity. The Impressionist "movement" in painting began in obscurity and ridicule. Manet, in 1863, was hated and abused, gradually he won to his vision Pissarro, Monet. Monet in his turn won Renoir and Bazille; Cezanne joined the group in 1874, for their first group exhibition. The public, remained bitterly hostile until 1887, it accepted Renoir only in 1892 and Cezanne much later. Four or five enthusiasms admirer of these painters (Dure, Durand-Ruel, Vollard, Geffroy, etc.) succeeded in getting them accepted by an unanimous adverse public. This is the power of the public opinion creators. Let close this visit to posterity with a remark on Dante by Voltaire: "Dante will always be admired, because no one ever read him". -------------- next part -------------- HTML attachment scrubbed and removed From altin_topi at yahoo.com Sun Jul 14 23:49:25 2002 From: altin_topi at yahoo.com (altin topi) Date: Sun, 14 Jul 2002 20:49:25 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Memes eXodus] Kids Say the Dandiest Things In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20020715034925.71444.qmail@web9602.mail.yahoo.com> Kids Say the Darndest Things I was driving with my three young children one warm summer evening when a woman in the convertible ahead of us stood up and waved. She was stark naked! As I was reeling from the shock, I heard my five-year-old shout from the back seat, "Mom! That lady isn't wearing a seat belt!" My son Zachary, 4, came screaming out of the bathroom to tell me he'd dropped his toothbrush in the toilet. So I fished it out and threw it in the garbage. Zachary stood there thinking for a moment, then ran to my bathroom and came out with my toothbrush. He held it up and said with a charming little smile, "We better throw this one out too then, 'cause it fell in the toilet a few days ago." On the first day of school, a first grader handed his teacher a note from his mother. The note read, "The opinions expressed by this child are not necessarily those of his parents." A woman was trying hard to get the catsup to come out of the jar. During her struggle the phone rang so she asked her four-year old daughter to answer the phone. "It's the minister, Mommy," the child said to her mother. Then she added., "Mommy can't come to the phone to talk to you right now. She's hitting the bottle." I love the outdoors, and because of my passion for hunting and fishing,my family eats a considerable amount of wild game. So much, in fact, that one evening as I set a platter of broiled venison steaks on the dinner table, my ten-year-old daughter looked up and said, "Boy, it sure would be nice if pizzas lived in the woods." A mother was showing her son how to zip up his coat. "The secret," she said, "is to get the left part of the zipper to fit in the other side before you try to zip it up." The boy looked at her quizzically... "Why does it have to be a secret?" When my daughter was three, we watched Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs for the first time. The wicked queen appeared, disguised as an old lady selling apples, and my daughter was spellbound. Then Snow White took a bite of the poisoned apple and fell to the ground unconscious. As the apple rolled away, my daughter spoke up. "See, Mom. She doesn't like the skin either." A little boy got lost at the YMCA and found himself in the women's locker room. When he was spotted, the room burst into shrieks, with ladies grabbing towels and running for cover. The little boy watched in amazement and then asked, "What's the matter --haven't you ever seen a little boy before?" --------------------------------- Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Autos - Get free new car price quotes -------------- next part -------------- HTML attachment scrubbed and removed From MemeseXodus at aol.com Tue Jul 16 01:43:55 2002 From: MemeseXodus at aol.com (MemeseXodus at aol.com) Date: Tue, 16 Jul 2002 01:43:55 EDT Subject: [Memes eXodus] Geocaching or the modern "Kukamshefti" Message-ID: <115.147a137e.2a650c9b@aol.com> Memes-eXodus News and Entertainment motto: "We cannot give you free lunch, but we can give you free information and entertain you to better your life quality and spice your day." Author Memes-eXodus A new high tech version of Hide-&-Seek game - Geocaching: As with everything else, in our small Earth, the games are going global too. A new version of "Hide-&-Seek" or in Zentanian "Kukamshefti" is becoming a popular attraction and adventure game including the grownups too. Are you nostalgic of your "Kukamshefti" days, so challenging, frustrating, and entertaining altogether, when time seemed so deceiving endless, as living the eternity itself? I'm sure, oh yes, you do, we all are a little nostalgic, and we do miss part of it. *** We can offer you "that little something," you are missing for years, a high tech version of the game, a great adventure game, which as with all the postmodern things, it has a new name, - Geocaching. The game is taking off and spreading very quickly in Ameritania's East Coasts, and the rumors circulating recently are baffling everyone; the game was introduced accidentally in the most possible place where it can be played, in a remote region of Balkans, very far, thousands of miles, on the other side of Atlantis, in the country which is designated in some maps as Zentana. It is so true, the place is so remote that the GPS(Global Positioning System) can be somehow, in many ways a lifesaver for a foreigner. This instrument, a pocket GPS, saved the life of an Ameritanian tourist, and the amazing thing about all this surreal story is that the Ameritanian tourist happened to be a Zentanian-Ameritanian (what a name!) visiting his country of origin, a decade after his last visit to the country. He got lost in the midst of a densely populated area of his birthplace, and his former residence which at the same time happened to be the capital of Zentana, - Taubinit itself. It is an unbelievable story, with so many twists and turns, as it was the endeavor of the poor tourist to get out of the overcrowded place. Thanks to a Palm Pilot, and with some help from his GPS, he got in contact with several of his old folks, few of them still living in Taubinit, and some back in Ameritania, whom working together as a real "NASA team" got him out of that place, safe but a little bit shaky from the whole ordeal. His former city of residence, according to him, was turned into a new, unknown and overpopulated planet. He got out of this new metropolis, totally exhausted and in complete disbelief of what had just happened to him. Intermezzo It is a well-known fact that Taubinit, as with all the Zentanian urban centers, they lack a reliable mapping system of roads and buildings, neighborhoods, energy supplies net, sewage and drinking water system, etc. As a matter of fact, actually, Taubinit is going through a facelift unseen before, a well-intended construction fever, but this construction boom is in most of the cases, unplanned, and so uncontrollable that unfortunately, the situation seems out-of-hand, almost. As one of the Taubinit's resident put it: "You wake up in the morning, walk around you neighborhood, and you ask yourself in disbelief, -'Am I in the right state of mind ?' A new kind of building stands up somewhere, erected half-naked, and you didn't noticed it before, even the passed night, - ' Am I seeing a mirage or what ?' This is happening in Taubinit today. All this reminds me of the New-Realism zhanre, and specifically the Italian movie called "The Roof"(in Italian "IL Tetto"), which we used to watch on our old-fashioned black-and-white MADE IN ZENTANA TVs, at least once a week. We are going through the same New-Realism period of Italy devastated by the war, but with few new twists and tricks. Our devastation was not caused from the war as in Italy, but from the totalitarian control and some kind of mental sickness of the administration of Orwell's Animal Farm, called 'Utopia'. The above is just an intermezzo to make you more coherent and help you link the past and the present and in no way was intended as the purpose of the exploration of our entertaining work. (to be continued) -------------- next part -------------- HTML attachment scrubbed and removed From altin_topi at yahoo.com Fri Jul 12 23:59:12 2002 From: altin_topi at yahoo.com (altin topi) Date: Fri, 12 Jul 2002 20:59:12 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Memes eXodus] Kids Say the Dandiest Things In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20020713035912.55663.qmail@web9602.mail.yahoo.com> Kids Say the Darndest Things I was driving with my three young children one warm summer evening when a woman in the convertible ahead of us stood up and waved. She was stark naked! As I was reeling from the shock, I heard my five-year-old shout from the back seat, "Mom! That lady isn't wearing a seat belt!" My son Zachary, 4, came screaming out of the bathroom to tell me he'd dropped his toothbrush in the toilet. So I fished it out and threw it in the garbage. Zachary stood there thinking for a moment, then ran to my bathroom and came out with my toothbrush. He held it up and said with a charming little smile, "We better throw this one out too then, 'cause it fell in the toilet a few days ago." On the first day of school, a first grader handed his teacher a note from his mother. The note read, "The opinions expressed by this child are not necessarily those of his parents." A woman was trying hard to get the catsup to come out of the jar. During her struggle the phone rang so she asked her four-year old daughter to answer the phone. "It's the minister, Mommy," the child said to her mother. Then she added., "Mommy can't come to the phone to talk to you right now. She's hitting the bottle." I love the outdoors, and because of my passion for hunting and fishing,my family eats a considerable amount of wild game. So much, in fact, that one evening as I set a platter of broiled venison steaks on the dinner table, my ten-year-old daughter looked up and said, "Boy, it sure would be nice if pizzas lived in the woods." A mother was showing her son how to zip up his coat. "The secret," she said, "is to get the left part of the zipper to fit in the other side before you try to zip it up." The boy looked at her quizzically... "Why does it have to be a secret?" When my daughter was three, we watched Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs for the first time. The wicked queen appeared, disguised as an old lady selling apples, and my daughter was spellbound. Then Snow White took a bite of the poisoned apple and fell to the ground unconscious. As the apple rolled away, my daughter spoke up. "See, Mom. She doesn't like the skin either." A little boy got lost at the YMCA and found himself in the women's locker room. When he was spotted, the room burst into shrieks, with ladies grabbing towels and running for cover. The little boy watched in amazement and then asked, "What's the matter --haven't you ever seen a little boy before?" --------------------------------- Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Autos - Get free new car price quotes -------------- next part -------------- HTML attachment scrubbed and removed From MemeseXodus at aol.com Fri Jul 19 23:39:05 2002 From: MemeseXodus at aol.com (MemeseXodus at aol.com) Date: Fri, 19 Jul 2002 23:39:05 EDT Subject: [Memes eXodus] Geocaching or the modern "Kukamshefti" (I) and (revised) Message-ID: <179.b8f70c5.2a6a3559@aol.com> The Road to Perdition... As experience taught us (and my grandma too), it's never a good idea to assume that you would be able to polish your creative work, and post it for the public at a late night hour, supposedly, 2:00 AM in the morning. First, you must take a good night sleep, giving yourself a chance to look at your work at the daytime. The night's sleep is indispensable; re-calibrates your overtired senses, sharpens your eyes, and your judgment as well. But, you know what? In our daily active life, we all are pressed for time, and most of the cases, we steal it from our night time meant for sleep. Always, I'm reluctant to post any material written in the fire of my creative impulse, in the immediacy of my incidental inspirational impetus, without proofreading it first; because during the course of my creative work (may I call it so?), as we all do, I believe, I follow my inside rhythm, an unpredictable pattern; back and forth, up and down, often making zigzags and changes, sporadically, chipping here and adding there, modifying parts of the sentences, while often neglecting the rest. All this process, without any doubt, it might upset the delicate balance of spelling and grammar, and inadvertently handicaps my inspired work. You cannot wash your hands with water as Pontius Pilate did in front of the crowd, when it came to decide the fate of our beloved Jesus, and conclude: " I'm done with it, I had enough of it, I'm over and through, and that's all. It is not my responsibility anymore." It means neglecting, ignoring, the underlying base of what is at stake, and why you're creating. The work will be your creation, your child forever, and maybe later, it will be transformed into a handsome (or maybe an ugly monster) grownup, stalking you throughout your creative life and your posterity as well. But this is our path; we sin and later we look to find our road to perdition.... But in my specific case, it would have been much easier to pursue effectively that road, if I was able to afford an editor. A.T. Memes-eXodus News and Entertainment motto: "We cannot give you free lunch, but we can offer you free information and entertain you to better your life quality and spice your day." Author Memes-eXodus A new high tech version of Hide-&-Seek game - Geocaching: As with everything else of our small planet Earth, the games are going global too. A new version of "Hide-&-Seek" or in Zentanian "Kukamshefti" is becoming a popular attraction and adventure game for us grownups too. Are you nostalgic of your "Kukamshefti" days, so challenging, frustrating, and entertaining altogether, when time seemed so deceiving endless, as being a passenger having no sense of time, flying under the wings of Eternity itself? I'm sure, oh yeah, you do my dear, we all are a little nostalgic, and we do miss part of it. *** We can offer you "that little something," you are missing for years, a high tech version of the game "Kukamshefti," a great adventure game, which as with all the postmodern things, it has adopted a new name, - Geocaching. The game is taking off and spreading very quickly in the Ameritania's East Coasts, and the rumors circulating recently are gasping in astonishment everyone; the game was introduced accidentally, in the most impossible place to be played, in a remote region of Balkans, very far, thousands of miles away, on the other side of Atlantis shores, in the country which is designated on some maps as Zentana. It is quite true, the place is so remote that the GPS(Global Positioning System) can be somehow, and in many ways, a lifesaver for a foreigner. This instrument, a pocket-size GPS, saved the life of an Ameritanian tourist. The amazing thing about all this surreal story is that the Ameritanian tourist happened to be a Zentanian-Ameritanian (what a name!) visiting his country of origin, almost a decade after his last visit to the country. He simply got lost in his birthplace, in the midst of a densely populated area, which is his former residence. What adds more to the oddity of the tale, his birthplace, his former city of residence, is a highly urbanized place, it is the capital of Zentana, - Taubinit itself. It is an unbelievable story, with so many twists and turns, as it was the endeavor of > the poor tourist trying to get out of the overcrowded place. Thanks to a > Palm Pilot, and assisted by his GPS device, he was able to get in contact > with several of his old folks, few of them still living in Taubinit, and > some back in Ameritania, whom working together as a real "NASA team" got > him out of the place, safe and sound, but a little bit shaky from the whole > ordeal. Nowadays, his former city of residence has grown, and turned into a > new, unknown and overpopulated planet. He got out of "the new metropolis," > as he calls Taubinit after the event, totally exhausted and in complete > disbelief of what he had to endure to get back to his new embraced > Ameritanian civilization, and for him only a decade old experience. > > > Intermezzo > It is a well-known fact that Taubinit, as with all the Zentanian urban > centers, they all lack a reliable mapping system of roads and buildings, > neighborhoods, energy supplies network, sewage and drinking water system, > etc. As a matter of fact, actually, Taubinit is going through a facelift > unseen before, - it might be a well-intended construction fever, - the > construction boom, in most of the cases is unplanned, and so uncontrollable > that unfortunately, the situation seems out-of-hand, almost. As one of the > Taubinit's resident explained: "You wake up in the morning, walk around you > neighborhood, and ask yourself in disbelief, -'Am I in the right state of > mind or what?' A new kind of building stands up somewhere, erected > half-naked, and you didn't notice it before, even the night before, - ' Am > I seeing a mirage or what ?' This is what is happening in Taubinit today. > It reminds me of the New Realism zhanre, and specifically the Italian movie > called 'The Roof'(in Italian 'IL Tetto'), which we used to watch on our > old-fashioned black-and-white MADE IN ZENTANA TVs, at least, once a week. > We are going through the same New Realism period of Italy half-a-century > ago, devastated by the war; but in Zentana's case, with new twists and > tricks. Our devastation was not caused by the war as in Italy, but it was > brought upon us by a totalitarian control freak and by some kind of > contagious mental sickness of Orwell's Animal Farm proportions originated > from its Animal Farm Administration, nicknamed 'Utopia' for reasons that > today are self-evident. The situation in the post-utopia decade has not changed much though; contrarily to what was hoped and expected, the things are getting more complicated. Because of the shaky database, and the fragmentary information provided by the scarce urban maps, any reliable information is almost inexistent. Today everything, any tip or firm information on the whereabouts of anything or anybody, known or unknown, famous or infamous, celebrity or a commoner, confirmed or unconfirmed, dead or alive, circulates underground, secretly, murmured in the same old fashion, as the codified gossips of the treasures hunters of the folk tales; the information is symbolic, metaphoric, hyperbolic and cryptic. The few traffic signs do not survive for long, they cannot perform their mission being visible and touchable, they simply disappear. You rely only on outdated, or in semi-oblivion street names, apartment buildings numbers, etc. Now, more then ever the invisible urban signs of this new civilization are considered as an integral part of the collective memory of the new inhabitants populating the area today and the so-called indigenous residents, those that claim Taubinit ancestry, 50 years and up. The city mapping and the address finder system has adopted a new name which reminds you of something very remote in origine, - Urban Mapping Folklore. The above is just an intermezzo to make you more coherent and in a way to assist you in understanding the > past and linking it with the present, and in > no way was intended as the purpose of the exploration of our entertaining > work. (to be continued) > > -------------- next part -------------- HTML attachment scrubbed and removed From altin_topi at yahoo.com Tue Jul 23 22:20:51 2002 From: altin_topi at yahoo.com (altin topi) Date: Tue, 23 Jul 2002 19:20:51 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Memes eXodus] Un unthinkable encounter In-Reply-To: <20020724021351.4177.qmail@web9602.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20020724022051.57434.qmail@web9606.mail.yahoo.com> Reading NYTimes "Face to Face With Milosevic" by FRED ABRAHAMS Two years ago, I was wandering and asking myself, with a feeble hope and a lot of anger, about the same thing, what Fred Abrahams, the former Head of Human Rights Watch Office(HRWO) for Kosovo and Albania, asked himself; whether there would be justice for the murders, rapes, mass executions, and genocide committed in Balkans, and in particular, in Kosovo. At the time, I was giving a hand to HRWO(NY group) from the commodity of my apartment, via Internet, helping them with the data-entry of the information (collected by Fred Abrahams and his team in Kosovo). The statistical information was based on the interviews with the ocular witnesses of the crimes and horrors perpetrated in Kosovo. But, never, in the oddest dream, I would have been able to imagine such scenario: an encounter face-to-face of Mr. Abrahams with the Dark Prince, the Voivoda of Genocide, and maybe the new Serbian Knight of the 20th century Serbian oral folklore of the Knights' Order, Slobodan Milosevic. Mr. Abrahams was caught by surprise, when Milosevic smiled at him. It was the weirdest thing that can happen to anybody in that situation. The question that flickered Mr. Abrahams mind was a kind of uncertain uneasiness; Milosevic leaned back defiantly, so sure of himself, and smiling at the witness, Mr. Abrahams, who, with his testimony, was accusing him of crimes against the Albanians of Kosovo. Maybe he knew something that might have surprised everybody in the war-tribunal chamber, including Fred Abrahams himself. But, it was a "surprise", somehow expected from him; a "surprise", a line of reasoning coming from a small authoritarian prince of a remote province, Serbia, the land of the Serbs, a people emotionally rooted in their mythology, and looking up to their hero, Milosevic, as the new fighter against the world, championing the insurrection of a great race, the Serbian race. Milosevic, now a ridiculous figure, but a defiant ridicule, came to prominence because of his ruthless and his mixed manners, seen as a kind of likable defiance which at times played at the tune of the West's views to keep Yugoslavia together; then it was thought as a great show of an astute westernized politician. Later, because of the carnage he caused in Balkans, his persona was canonized as the "Butcher of Balkans" and compared by the world media to Hitler, with a likeness of a modern Stalin. Involuntarily, Fred Abrahams smiled back to Milosevic. You cannot explain this kind of facial reaction of Fred Abrahams, he couldn't find an explanation himself; it was not an emotional reaction, but a smile caused by the rattled nerves, being in that court, sitting in that bench. Now, it was the turn of Milosevic, to use his law background, and his ability of the self-appointed lawyer, by amounting his own defense. After, as we should have expected by now, Milosevic spoke of global conspiracies against the Serbs. Fred Abrahams soon realized, as many others did before him, sitting in that chamber, face-to-face with Milosevic, that his cross-examination of the witnesses called to testify, his vision, and his line of reasoning, why and how the horrors were perpetrated, was of a delusional mind, of somebody who was playing for an invisible public, a public living emotionally and mentally, somewhere in the remoteness of time, the Serbs fortified in their 14th century view of their history. I think the best part of the encounter is the one given below, when Milosevic and the witness, Fred Abrahams, living mentally in two different worlds, were referring to these parallel worlds with no point of contact. As the author of article put it "It was as we were moving in parallel words" and "he (Milosevic) put forth arguments commonly heard from a bar stool." Excerpt from the article... ''You are a New Yorker,'' he(Milosevic) said after nearly two hours of cross-examination. ''How many killings and rapes, for example, are committed every day in New York?'' ''Don't answer that,'' Richard May, the presiding judge, said. Milosevic quickly returned to his theme. ''How come that you as an American, as a New Yorker, you take greater care of the human rights of Albanians in Yugoslavia than you do about human rights of Americans in America?'' ''Irrelevant,'' May snapped. ''Next question.'' The question was irrelevant to the legal charges against him. But this line of reasoning couldn't fail to impress Serbs who believe they have been unfairly singled out for attack. Minutes later, our dance was done. I got up to leave, the armrests slightly blacker from my sweat. A.T. --------------------------------- Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Health - Feel better, live better -------------- next part -------------- HTML attachment scrubbed and removed From MemeseXodus at aol.com Tue Jul 23 22:51:29 2002 From: MemeseXodus at aol.com (MemeseXodus at aol.com) Date: Tue, 23 Jul 2002 22:51:29 EDT Subject: [Memes eXodus] Some Random Thoughts Message-ID: Memes-Exodus News and Entertainment motto: "We cannot give you free lunch, but we can offer free information and entertain you to better your life quality and spice your day." Author Memes-eXodus Some Random Thoughts Save the whales. Collect the whole set. A day without sunshine is like, night. On the other hand, you have different fingers. 42.7 percent of all statistics are made up on the spot. 99 percent of lawyers give the rest a bad name. Honk, if you love peace and quiet. Remember, half the people you know are below average. He, who laughs last, thinks slowest. Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm. The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese. Support bacteria. They're the only culture some people have. A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory. Change is inevitable, except from vending machines. How many of you believe in telekinesis? Raise my hand. If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked something. When everything is coming your way, you're in the wrong lane. Hard work pays off in the future. Laziness pays off now. Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines. Inside every older person is a younger person wondering what the hell happened. -------------- next part -------------- HTML attachment scrubbed and removed