Before reading Heart of Darkness

I’ve just started reading “Heart of Darkness”..well, I should say that I started reading the book, but not the story. The book I bought at the second hand store is “Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and the Critics” and I’ve started with the critics.

I’d not realized before how close to being autobiographic the story was. I just found out that Kurtz is actually based on a real character (Georges-Antoine Klein). The critics seem quite sure that this Mr Klein is pretty close to Kurtz. In fact in the original manuscript of Heart of Darkness four times Joseph Conrad apparently first wrote “Klein” instead of “Kurtz” and later crossed it out and change it. This kind of thing makes me even more curious about the story. I am pleased I decided to read the critics first.

I probably shouldn't post about this!

Here is one, only one, of the things that happened lately.

One of the company men got very very drunk when several of us went for lunch and he became very very nasty. He ended up insulting me and threatening me because I was driving him back to work (I was the designated driver since really I don’t drink when I am at work) and he didn’t want to work. It was a pretty nasty episode.

At that point he was not working on the same rig than me, but we all thought that he was soon due to do so. I seriously hesitated coming back to work but decided to do so anyway. All while I was pondering on that he called the office and tried to get me fired saying that I was difficult to work with and he would not work with me….apparently a huge fight ensued in the office about whether or not I should be fired ..but at the time I was unaware of it since I was on holidays. I had been told before going on holidays that there had been a complaints against me….but not told from whom and I basically mentioned that things had been difficult but did not go into details…not a good idea to explain too much.

THEN…of course you realize things are never simple….. My back to back to whom I had told the story, proceeded to tell my boss about it…This, minus the fact of WHO talked, reached the company man on my rig and he blew a gasket and when I had to work with him again he was weird and told me millions of lies but I didn’t know why. Funnily enough when my back to back came to work this company man warned him to watch out for me because I was a backstabber…. Of course my back to back did not have the balls to tell him the truth so this guy probably to this day believes it.

THEN……surely you didn’t think it was the end….. something which does not even make sense to me….it turns out that these two company men actually already had another contract they wanted to go to…so that guy didn’t really need me to get fired…it seems that he just used the incident as an excuse to quit and create trouble for me….Kill two birds with one stone….. AND they said to everybody, including me, a zillion times how they were going to Portugal…..but really they went to Pakistan and really really didn’t want people in the office to find out they were going there. I suspect they are backstabbing somebody by going there…probably one of their great pal!!!

The funny thing is that the company man on my rig told me several times “I am going to Portugal next but don’t tell G. L ( a guy in the office)”. I guess I was supposed to be “the leak” and tell G. L……. Why on planet earth would I talk to G. L. about what two guys who tried to get me fired are doing???

Something funny: G. L. is the guy they complained to about me, and he is the guy who got in a fight with my boss about getting me fired (G. L. was on the side of firing me obviously) now it turns out that he is the one they are backstabbing…too funny.

Here you are folks, this is my life!!!!

To put things into perspectives the company man who threatened me is the guy who would brag about going out with local women and paying them a packet of cookies to have sex…from his point of view the good joke was that he didn’t even pay for the cookies and would just get them from the cantina….

Charming isn’t it?!?!?

And take my word for it, there is more…. But who wants to read about that stuff??!?!

Maria Cafe

Here is a fun fact about centipedes:
In Portuguese they are called Maria Cafe....Isn't this a really neat name!!!!

Camara Laye “the African child”

This is a short and sweet autobiography of a man from Guinea written once he moved to France. The back of the book says hat Camara Laye wrote the book when he was in France working in a “vast car factory” and when he was “lonely and unhappy”. It must be true because he writes about his childhood with a certain humility and tenderness.

It is a quick read. It is light but interesting and does show something of what Guinea must have been like at the time.

I had read it before, in French, since we studied the book in my last year of junior high school. I remembered mostly the mood of it and very little of the actual story, but I remembered the story about the little black snake and this time again, for whatever reason it is my favourite part of the book.

Children of Gebelaawi

I just finished “Children of Gebelaawi” by Naguib Mahfouz.

It is an excellent book, entertaining but also informative and thought provoking.

The book is a fictional account of the life of several generations in an alley somewhere in Egypt at the edge of the desert. Gebelaawi, the founder of the alley, and the ancestor of all those living there, has set up a trust. This trust is intended to benefit all of his descendants. In important aspect of what is described in this book about the life in the alley is how the trust, and particularly the way the trust is distributed, affects the politics of the alley and how some rare characters tried to change the life of the people in the alley.

Through the 5 chapters of the book Naguib Mahfouz shows how Adham (Adam), Gebel (Moses), Riffa (Jesus) and Qaasim (Mohammmad) lived in the alley, as well as one last character, Arafa, who I believe is really a character of the near past, present and possibly future.

Gebelaawi is meant to be a representation of how humans see god and the book was forbidden in Egypt for a long time because this and the representation on Mohammad as a normal human being.

I highly recommend this book. This would be an excellent book to discuss with people. I certainly wished I had somebody to talk to who had read it. If you read it what ever you do, do not stop before the end, do not miss the chapter about Arafa.

Centipedes

It is the wet season here and it means that the centipedes are back!! Hurray!
I like centipedes.They feel really soft and smooth.
And when they are all rolled up they hold pretty firm and can be held like skipping stones

You have to admit that it is pretty neat!

How to.......

To go from this:



To this:



You need to go through this:

Google and Privacy

Here is the secret of staying in touch with people: Don't email them, don't talk to them, don't give them any information on your where abouts for 25 years and let them Google you!!!
This way they will send your employer an email asking about you...this is the second time (two different persons) that this happens to me...I still don't know if the new "employer" has sent my email address, the way the last one did, or whether they just forwarded the email they received.

Any body who knows me knows to NEVER EVER give my phone number, email address or anything like this to ANYBODY under ANY CIRCUMSTANCES.

Jeeze I hate Google!!!!

Memories of Eid last year and a rant

Today is Eid, the day of celebration of Abraham's willingness to sacrificed his son for god...or is it the celebration of the day Abraham did not have to sacrifice his son....
I already wrote about it last year, so you can go and freshen up on it.

As I am reading "Children of Gebelaawi" by Naguib Mahfouz which a novel in five parts following the lives of five descendants of Gebelaawi (more than children in the direct sense) I was struck by a thought which actually reminded me of Eid last year.
In this book each of the five characters, as well as their shared ancestor Gebelaawi are meant to represent some well known figure.
Qaasim is believed to represent Mohammad the prophet
Rifaa is believed to represent Jesus
Adham is believed to represent Adam, the first man on earth
Gebel is believed to represent Moses
Gebelaawi is meant to represent god as it is viewed by humans...not as he is...and this is strongly pointed out by the author.

And I have not figured out yet who Arafa is supposed to represent...I haven't read the part about Arafa but I worry that I will not recognize him. And this is my point here.
Last Eid, when I was in Algeria my friend Ouhaid (I miss Ouhaid actually) was able to tell me all about Abraham, his two sons and one of the notable differences between Muslims and Christians...He told me about the all lineage of Mohammad and Jesus and all the rest. He just knew it, from the top of his head. I found that most Algerians I met could just go on about the early history of their peoples and other people as they relate to them. They had a vast knowledge of their roots.
Now as I am reading I realize that I do not really know enough about any of prophets etc to be able to really make a valuable comparison between the book and the accepted history of those characters. Naguib Mahfouz (the man in the photo) is Egyptian so I know that he knew. And Mr. Mahfouz, who was really a philosopher but wrote fiction, I am sure, wrote with a message. I feel I am missing the most part of it from my lack of knowledge.

I am truly enjoying this book and I highly recommend it, but I feel dumb.
I have no general culture... I know nothing about stuff like this.....Pathetic!
IF (big IF here) I am typical of our culture, but maybe I really should shoulder the blame on my own, we are then a pathetic culture...we have no culture...We have music videos where women shakes they ass in the camera. We have movies of terror with aliens, vampires and devils. We have fashion which is really a way to get people to spend money more than an artistic expression...and I am sure we have other crap...but we are pathetically sad culture...As I was saying...Either that or I AM a pathetically under cultured individual...which I have to say is true, but I do suspect that our culture is not really even qualifying as "culture" right now!!

back to work for Xmas

I'm at the airport waiting for my first flight (to Frankfurt).
I came early and I am please I did....flying this time of year is a nightmare.... So many people.....so many bags with all those people...the Security line up gets pretty crazy. Of course I "beepped" (which i normally never do)..it was the zipper on the pocket on the new fleece I bought...I treated myself to a new fleece to replace the old ratty one I always used to travel (Have to have a full zipper in front, has to have 2 pockets that can be zipped up)...That'll teach me right...now my fleece beeps...I'll have to take it off at metal detectors!

My bags are checked in (I am in hte lounge) from now on a couple of days of relaxed travel...though obviously this can always turn into a nightmare in no time flat.

books to take with me

I am preparing the books I want to take with me.
The main problem is that books are heavy and I have to consider whether or not I want to take the risk of taking them and not bringing them back.
So far in the pile I have, in no particular order:

"The African Child" Camara Laye

"Balthazar" Lawrence Durrell

"The Bookseller of Kabul" Asne Seierstad (probably easy to find again)

"Ambiguous Adventure" Cheik Hamidou Kana

"No Longer at Ease" Chinua Achebe

"The Famish Road" Ben Okri (I have a second copy so I don't have to bring it back)

"Heart of Darkness" Joseph Conrad (easy to find again, but Who do you want to give that to?)

"Things Fall Apart" Chinua Achebe (I just just found it at the second hand bookstore)

"The Children of Gebelaawi" Naguib Mahfouz



I'm not sure If I'll have time to read them all, or even to read any. I'm thinking of taking Naguib Mafhouz with me on the plane partly because I want to read it right away and partly because it is the heaviest one. Then I'll probably choose one other one for the trip. And for sure it will not be "Heart of Darkness" because it is too dark, and not "The Famished Road" because it is too big to carry in hand luggage with "Children of Gebelaawi". Two big books is too much. That's the kind of things I have to consider.

I can't just write about anything I want

I am sure you realize that a lot of what goes on at work I cannot write about. Sometimes because it is confidential information which does not belong to me, sometimes it is just because what is going on is best not to be referred to EVER. I always assume that both the client and the competition to the client are reading this...and I do know of a case where the client ended reading the blog of their wellsite geologist and complained about it.
So when "things" happen at work I don't write about it.

I will just say that last couple of work rotations have been very difficult, lots happened but nothing I can write about. People who know about it will know ...if you know what I mean....Wow, how very cloak and dagger of me.

Soon I will be back at work, and back into it all, writing about the fowers I see etc all while unbelievable stuff that I cannot mention happens.

Baking

I follow quite few blogs about cooking and I like reading the recipes and looking at the pictures of the food people made food.
I am not going to write the recipe because there are none.
But here is what I made for myself today.

They are just yeasted buns made with a combination of bread flour and normal (but unbleached) flour so they are not too soft.
They are flavored with orange blossom water. But they are not quite sweet enough so I ate the two which are already missing with some dark flavorful Yemeni honey. They were still warm and the honey melted a little. Yemeni honey is really very nice. It comes from the desert where sweet scented plants like frankincense grow so you can imagine (or can you?) how strong it is.

The other good side of baking is that the house smells so nice!

I always was impressed by the food photos some people post (like Mercedes at Desert Candy)...but now I will appreciate them even more. It really turns out that it is not easy to take photos of food.

water

watery ying yang

I never noticed it when I took the picture otherwise I would have framed it a little differently. I just wanted to show the line between dark and light (in the shadow of the bridge and in the sun). I guess you can also see in it a face with nose and all....

I like taking pictures of water, particularly moving water, but it is not easy to get something which is not a blurred mess. I think my new camera may be a little better at it than the old one.

Ice photos

Remember the cold?

This is for those of view who use to live in Calgary and have left, just in case you are feeling a little home sick and you are thinking that it would be nice to be somewhere cold for Xmas.
The photo above was taken at 11:00am...Note the colour of the sky! a beautiful (sarcasm) flat dull grey-white. And yes, the lighter patch UNDER the water is ice starting to form on top of the rocks at the bottom of the river...

Do you remember how cold it has to be before ice starts floating on the river?
Do you remember how long it has to be that cold before ice floats on the river?

Now that it is all back in your mind again, just remember that next it will be too cold to even hope to see liquid water...It will all be ice....
Now go back to what you were doing and REALLY appreciate the warmth..
Come on, keep moving, there's nothing to see around here... ;-)

And by the way, I took these photos with my new camera....Honestly there is no difference with the old one.

Movies...warning spoiler!

When I left work I really wanted to see movies. There was nothing good to watch on the plane and it was the same at the video store... It seems to me that in the last two years there really hasn't been any good movies.
(I am going to turn on the comment ability on this blog...If you know of recent good movies let me know..... added a few days later....no, no comment availability....I forgot to turn it on for this post and now I don't know how to put it on for one post only afterwards....later yet...I found it doing something else...so go ahead post titles of good movies if you know of any..I dare you, double dare you to come up with a good movie!!)....Anyway back to the original blog about a movies and how bad they generally are....
The reason I wanted to see movies was partly because I had seen an add (Where would I see such an add?... I think on TV in the hotel in Johannesburg) for a movie about three witches, three sisters, trying to get something (a fallen star maybe?) as key ingredient for a potion for eternal youth, or something like that. I wanted to see it. It is either not out yet, or I never recognized it.
Anyway. I really have watch only one movie so far. I went to the video store and rented 4, two to be returned after 2 nights..and I returned them unwatched, and two rented for a week. Last night I watch ..... Hmmm?...can't remember the name...but at first I was sure they had given me the wrong movie, sure that I could not have wanted to rent that movie...It is about a woman who falls in love with the son of her therapist, a romantic comedy I would say.

Do not read any further if you want to rent this movie because there is a spoiler in the next line.
I mean it!
Well, it is not a great movie but how refreshing the message "In long term relationships love is not enough"... Otherwise it is a regular chick movie: fluff, fluff, fluff, fluff...and then Kazam! they come up with a new message! Not your typical "love conquers all" which is absolute crap...or "life is so sad, especially when bad things happen to good looking people", but an actually interesting statement.
Well I applaud that fluffy movie for it!

"the Quarry" by Damon Galgut

Right now I am reading the very last Harry Potter book...I actually found it at the library. I obviously wasn't looking for it. I would have never thought that I would find it. So now I am hurrying, hurrying so I can finish it before I have to go back to work.

On the plane coming home I read and finished "The Quarry" by Damon Galgut, a South African author. This book is not as well known as "The good doctor", by the same author, which was even on the shelf of the second hand bookstore I went to today here in Calgary, but if you have nothing else to do it is worth the read. From my point of view this is not a book worth hunting second hand bookstores for, and not worth buying new.
It is an easy quick read which will teach you nothing at all about South Africa what so ever.... apart maybe, if you happen to pay attention, the fact that pick up trucks are called "backies".
The story is not meant to be anything like a true story. It starts with a man who is walking...apparently he has been walking for days and has no end in sight, no aim, no target that we are made aware of. But we do know that he hides from the car traffic...so possibly he is hiding and running away from something. Along the way he is picked up by a priest going to his new "posting" in the township (black neighborhood - this IS South Africa) of a small town where neither one of them has ever been. And from this encounter the story takes a new turn. The main character, who remains nameless through the entire book, stops walking endlessly at least temporarily, until the situation forces him to start again. And this time he is running, running away from something.
I really can't say more without spoiling it though truly it is a "mood book" and no a "plot book". Knowing the plot before hand would only slightly spoil the reading the book.

This is how the book starts:
"Then he came out of the grass at the side of the road and stood without moving. He rocked very gently on his heels. There were blisters on his feet that had come from walking and blisters in his mouth that had come from nothing, except his silence perhaps, and bristles like glass on his chin.
He crossed to a stone that was next to the road and sat. He was there for a while until, apparently without emotions, he bowed his head and wept into his hands. Then he stopped. He looked around. The road was a curve of dust. On either side of it the grasslands stretched flatly away and there wasn't a solitary tree."

The main critic from me would be that once the book was finished I felt that I would keep nothing from it. The only difference was that I had passed a few hours reading... But I can't say that I was entertained for a few hours, both the mood and the plot were too flat to give a sense of entertainment.