sagan.

if you want convincing, watch this.

si non, it is enough to know the following: sylvie testud is beautiful (and awesome).
this film is predictable. life is too.
this film is beautiful. life can be too.

sagan's life is presented as a celebration of life. typewriters, tobacco smoke, drugs, friends, speedy cars and existential philosophy act as the spoonful of sugar which helps the years and the sadness go down.

this film ends badly. all things end anyway, but that's not for a while.

so because no one has found a medicine to fix this lame and predictable turn of plot called death, it seems perfectly wise to keep taking our placebo, fragile and solitary things hanging in our human frames that we all are.

"Donner la vie à des personnages qu on ne connaît pas c est beaucoup plus drôle que de parler de soi. C'est aussi une façon intelligente de tromper sa solitude. Et d'oublier qu'il vous manque l'essentiel."

i had missed going to the cinema alone.

"Je ne sais pas vraiment pourquoi on écrit. Je crois qu'on écrit pour trois ou quatre personnes qu'on aime et qui vous croient forte et qui ne savent pas que d'un mot ils peuvent vous mettre à terre."

go went gone. see you soon. miss you much.

Goodbye school, hello learning! Hello lands and times of sunshine! Several times over.

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June 21st MMVIII

The longest sun of the year was celebrated in the most assiduous Yorkshire rain, with a pyromaniac feast at Bullpot Farm and a light trip to the netherworld. Many nice climbs, strange and rare pretties, fun pools. Here are Toby's pictures of a tiny section of the amazingly labirinthyne Ease Gill.

The Sunday was marred in trying not to kill people while practicing rescue techniques and first aid on them. I was jaleously watching a more interesting sight: everyone else switch to pre-hardcore expedition thrill.

Some tension was built and resolved along the minor plots of the expo-training: the Russia vs Holland quarter final (ended badly for Djuke). Would Mike's blue hair extend under his waist and would it be shaved again by the said saddened Dutch lady? (Ended happily for Mike. This time the public did not learn what the colour of his pubic hair was.) Some worrying was done about Becca and George who were digging a connection between parts of Ease Gill without a callout hour in case they reach virgin passages (ended happily for all but the hung over). Would the kitchen of the Farm burn down after more burning cocktail experiments? (Luckily it was caver- and fire-proof). Would any crockery and furniture survive a midnight game of cricket? (Some did. Breakfast was had in it.)

There was a certain odd moment of the night and the trip back when I came to terms with leaving England. I think one was a bit past the point when the people I especially like had gone to bed and before the point when the rest of the party reaches alcohol shortage or the limits of their livers. Then I realised this ability to drop down one's boundaries and go back to free teenage-like behaviour only when intoxicated is alien to me still and quite sad. It's very much English awkwardness, age too. I haven't enough of either of these. Yet. And it is time for me to go back to warmer lands where emotions and drinks flow easily, without sad anthropological insights for the sobber and awake.
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Results day came and went.
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May week deserves a longer post on its own, in the vein of the expo-training weekend
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July 1st MMVIII

With the storm
And the night behind me
And a road of my own

A train was missed, a breakfast gained. July morning went by early, while we were still in bed, hours before each of us set off on a summer-long pilgrimmage to wherever each believes their ideals lie, waiting to be rescued from the hands of time and men, from the depths of obscurity. Mr nice boy was lead to the station where we exchanged a revolting sandwich packed with my morning care for a red stone egg and a muttered excuse. Then all the goodbye lines we could think of and really goodbye.

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Everyone with whom my thoughts are, is leaving for somewhere - flying, walking to challenges, hitching to adventure, marching for gay pride, swimming for sanity, digging for surprises, caving, coming home, going, returning, discovering old and new places, moving, chasing their shadow. Shifting new selves will shine and leave glimpses, pieces of themselves in postcards and blogs. Missing the leaving, loving the waiting, going and going and not growing tired of the horizon. It fills me with life. My feet are itchy.

And we have yet many a sunrise to meet together. All of you.

(especially monday, whose inspiration was passed on and dragged me out of the limilal state of home-bound uselessness today)