I was 15 when we hit 2000 and it was so much more special than 2013. Unless, of course, the End of the World would have been a big deal to me, but all that was just a practical joke set in motion so long ago. That’s what I call patience! And a lot of dumbing down. Thank you religion and so called western civilization! You did a great job! But as a child of my time and a dumb westerner as I am, I had to make sure we all survived. We did. I checked. All that exploded were my brain cells and few girls I blew up with my hand, shaped as a gun, mouthing “pew, pew, pew”. I blame music and bad liquor. Mainly music. Thank you Dutch DJ’s! But finally, we are here! 2013! For real now. Lets say that all that happened during the last 21 days were just testing and examining. Tuning up. Trying not to blow up. Trying to find the right balance for the year of making. Welcome! I know, I know! I’m slow. I still feel like it’s the noughts or the noughties, or what have you. I still feel like it’s 2000! However, it’s a beautiful new year, full of opportunities to blow up! Inside and out. So lets make it a good one! Lets build up instead of all the dumbing down that we did for so long! Lets do! And better late than never, Happy New Year!
Smooth Yeti
In my yesterdays rant about The Olympics I mentioned the vision or thoughts I usually have when I think about the event and sports in general. Especially the science involved in making the athletes faster, leaner, more agile and whatever is necessary to cut all those seconds or add all the strength needed for wining. The big one there is nutrition. Training and hard work is key, of course, but one will go nowhere without proper meals, supplements and vitamins, and this is where science of nutrition and dieting kicks in.
Not that I know much about it. All I know is that it takes a toll on life. It needs an incredible dedication and a constant regime of workouts, rest and nutrition. Its incredible what all those athletes put themselves through to do something faster, stronger, harder and longer. What they do to put their bodies to the extremes to reach something so sublime and at the same time ephemeral. This is just mind-boggling and that is why I’m sitting here writing this and not running laps in the rain.
But lets go back to the nutrition and foods. Couple of weeks ago I wrote about some artworks made out of food and those just stuck with me. I noticed so much of them and started looking for more. I wrote about all these beautiful sandwich photography projects a week ago and more I saw more I thought. Olympics just added more things to think about to the bunch I already had. I might be hungry, but there is something more in food related artworks than just hunger or beauty. It might be only me, but there is something very vulnerable and beautiful in all that necessity to feed, eat and drink. For me it’s like looking under the hood. Looking at all those wires and parts that keeps you running. It’s more than being naked. It’s showing your innards, your batteries, and your connections to life.
“I’m so hungry I could kill someone.” “I’m so hungry I can’t talk or think.” “I’m so hungry I could eat a bucket of noodles.” I heard these dozens of times and saw people run to fill their belies with all those life extenders. What a beautiful and somehow sad vulnerability. Someone once told me that it’s in someway perverse to think that way, but I can’t help it. This is what I see and this is how I feel. That is also why I love food related artworks and these photographs by Turkish photographer Umit Bektas all around this post.
As we are full on Olympians at the moment, this one is spot on. Umit Bektas did this set of photographs called An Olympic Diet where he photographed Turkish Olympians during their preparation for the games and did that with all the food these athletes eat during their day of training. Yes! All that food is their daily intake. One day! For some it might seem far too much, for others not enough, but lets face it sticking to any of these diets would be hard.
This dedication deserves admiration and I wish success to all of them. As Turkey is yet to win their first Olympic medal they truly need that, as much as all the rest out there in Olympia. Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger, as Daft Punk would say it!
Smooth Yeti
Yesterday was the day that reminded me one thing, so much can happen in one minute. There was this girl, and she did a thing in a swimming pool. Why not? Good place as any! It took her a bit more than one minute and everyone cheered. I did a thing or two in a swimming pool in my day too, but it took me half a minute just to get in and I was politely asked to leave. With that said I have to confess, speed and competition makes me all confused, unless, of course, I’m in a way of danger or I’m a bit drunk. That’s why all The Olympics thing to me is a big thing of things, confusion and something else and quite a bit of something else. I do watch it, thought, but as one of the many lazy bastards who has no clue what is happening there. I guess they call it national pride.
Yes, national pride and that I’m one of those lazy bastards who prefers others to break their bones, tear and pull muscles, sweat, yell and beat each other senseless for my entertainment even when I don’t understand the slightest of what is going on. However, lack of such knowledge never stopped me from yelling: “That was pretty something you did there!” “Show them whatever is that you are showing!” “Ugh… this thing you did is ugh… I’m so and so…” “Yeah!!! In your face! In your face!” It all sounds better in a crowd, of course. And then came Ruta Meilutyte and did a thing in a swimming pool.
And good thing she did. Suddenly a girl who we Lithuanians barely knew a second ago became a media darling in an event such as The Olympics. This is huge and this is what makes the event so much more likable, human and lets face it a bit of a tearjerker. Suddenly, all teary-eyed, I’m proud of a 15-year-old girl, who did a thing in a swimming pool, and whom I know nothing about, and the country we are both from. One minute does make things go boom. Especially then all what happens happens pretty much out of the blue. Who could have thought?
I love this, this unexpected and unpredictable twist. Meilutyte did a thing in her first Olympics and the jaws dropped. Mine definitely did, because whenever I think about The Olympics I have this vision of a bunch of super humans, dream teams and genetic wonders. All followed by an army of doctors, coaches, nutrition specialists, scientists and mathematicians. With labs, wind tunnels, measuring equipment and spare parts. With budgets and endorsements heavier than any of them can lift. How real is all that? I have no clue. But lets face it, the fastest man from a billion, I just had another vision, should be pretty damn fast and that can be said about everything. And then there was teenage Meilutyte. How brilliant is that? I’m stoked, happy and proud!
Crying with your first gold medal in hand? Definitely cool! And you know what? I cried too! What a tearjerker yesterday was!
Smooth Yeti
It starts slowly, but you feel it instantly. It creeps in and spreads reaching all the tiniest parts of your mind. My mind. Out of nowhere, out of the blue.
Blocking, clogging and invading.
Suddenly my mind starts spinning faster. Spinning on the spot, without a clue, without a purpose.
It spins faster and faster and faster.
Overdrive. Gear panic.
I feel like freaking out. Or actually, I am freaking out. It’s panic. Pure. Scary. Instant.
Just a minute ago I was here. Talking, thinking, watching, observing, but now I’m locked inside my head and I want to get out.
Fast.
Something set my nerves on edge.
They are on edge.
I have no grasp on anything.
Anything.
I’m running circles inside my head.
I run faster and faster and faster.
Going nowhere. Freaking out. Looking for a way out.
No grasp on anything.
It’s my tiny panic attack.
Tiny. Panic. Attack.
Computer malfunction. Spinning on empty.
Three hundred seconds and it ends.
It ends instantly, but the feelings come back slowly. It floods every corner of my mind. Your mind. Out of nowhere, out of the blue.
My fingers tingle as blood rushes through my veins bringing me back to normality.
I sigh and look through the window.
I’m still here. In normality. My corner of reality.
Breath in.
Exhale. Or sigh.
Probably sigh.
Smooth Yeti
At first, it is just colors. Fancy ideas. Lets be dumb! Who cares? But really, who? Then it is just there. You know it, you feel it, and you try not to think of it. Or you do! You live by it, or you don’t. Then it becomes annoying. You start reading the small print, but your sight is gone and you have no clue whose glasses you are wearing. Who are these people? Especially the two annoying ones, that keep bringing their children. This is ridiculous! What is happening? But who cares? Really, who? This is the end. FIN! And then… colors! What? What I was talking about? Ahh yeah… Nonsense. Full stop. The end.
But do we really YOLO?
Smooth Yeti
I hate guns. I never saw a necessity to own one, or understood such need. I shot a gas gun (or whatever it is called) once or twice. It had its rush but I never got the point of it. Guns scare me. Quite recently, thought, I got thinking that I would like to blow off some steam in a shooting range. Not that I’m really up for that. I once tried archery and it had its fun. Besides the fact that I was extremely hungover, it was freakishly hot and the bugs were eating me like mad, that archery trail was brilliant and to my surprise I ended up scoring a decent amount of points. Shooting a gun seems to be a totally different experience. While the gun range is a somewhat claustrophobic and unsettling place, the thrill of bullets flying at incredible speed from the palm of your hand should be breathtaking. I have no clue if I ever actually decide to do it, but I put it out there as a maybe.
Smooth Yeti
