©Giliell, all rights reserved
It’s something that became popular during the first wave of the pandemic: paint pebbles and leave them in parks, along trails… People see them, sometimes take them home (treasures for kids!), leave their own, arrange them in patterns. A way to feel connected with each other without actually being together. Just like the internet, but with pebbles…
These are my recollections of a life behind the iron curtain. I do not aim to give a perfect and objective evaluation of anything but to share my personal experiences and memories. It will explain why I just cannot get misty-eyed over some ideas on the political left and why I loathe many ideas on the right.
We were taught at school that Marx got one thing in his philosophy wrong and that it had to be corrected by Lenin – the idea of gradual societal progress over time. A violent revolution, we were told, is necessary to defeat the evils of capitalism and institute socialism, just as it happened in Tzarist Russia after WWI and in our country after WWII. After that glorious revolution, we can go back to gradual societal progress over time and the glorious, completely fair, and egalitarian communism will come. Eventually.
When communism did not come any closer after nearly one generation, people became restless. It was not exactly an attempt at revolution, there was no violence, and no attempt at actually overthrowing the regime, only an attempt at reforming it and making it better. But this cry for humanizing the regime that was supposed to care about human welfare did not suit well the powers that be in Moscow and the attempt was quelled by force. The Czech Republic was invaded and tanks from USSR, Poland, Hungaria, and Bulgaria rolled through the streets. It worked, but not as planned – the plan was to put up a facade that people do not want any reforms and that soviet-style socialism is wanted, as demonstrated by people welcoming the invaders as liberators. But weeks-long protests against the invasion put this idea quickly to sleep and what remained was subduing the population by brute force.
A year later, a young philosophy student Jan Palach has set himself ablaze in protest of this. He did not want the ideas that led to the push for humane socialism to die, he wanted the occupants to leave the country and in lieu of other options, he decided for protest by self-harm. I cannot say I condone his approach, but his goal was undeniably noble. He died, he became a martyr, but nothing much changed.
Fast forward another generation.
I was just a school kid during the times of the Velvet Revolution in the fall of 1989, in my last year of elementary school. I knew nothing about the things that happened short of a decade before I was born. I had no idea who Jan Palach is, I had no idea that we were still occupied by Soviet Army, and because I have lived in the countryside with no connectin to big cities, I had no idea that civil unrest is brewing for almost a year already. But it was. The boil of social unrest was swelling, unseen by many but clearly visible by others until it burst.
For me, the whole thing was an incomprehensible mess. I did not understand what is happening. Suddenly I heard on the news that peacefully protesting students were beaten to a pulp by police – a thing that only evil capitalists do to protesters, surely! And then the whole thing happened really quickly – and before the school year was over, before the next summer holiday, we had suddenly a different political regime and I had to learn that a lot of what I knew about how the world functions was bullcrap.
And suddenly I learned about all the things that were kept from school curricula – the deaths and torture in the name of the greater good, the lies and deception, and the fact that it all did not lead to a better life anyway. Those were not easy times – and I was lucky to live in a country where the armed forces were not given orders to use violence and the revolution was allowed to happen without bloodshed. Hearing about armed conflicts in other countries, and for example seeing Ceaucescu being shot to death was not cathartic or satisfying, it was only terrifying.
I do not like revolutions much. They might be necessary from time to time, but they are not pretty, they are not glorious and they do not lead to instant improvements. Not even the milder ones.
… Impressionism, by Georges Seurat
A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, 1886, by Georges Seurat. Image from Wikiart
This was an interesting project. Interesting in the sense that nearly nothing went as planned.
First I started to make five blades and I broke one after hardening, so I have made it into a smaller knife for my neighbor. But what happened after that was a real bummer – the four remaining blades stubbornly resisted my attempts at tumbling. After over a month in the tumbler, none of them had the pretty, regular finish that I have gotten on my full-width tang blades. Maybe the point of balance of these blades, or their width, or both, have played a role. I simply do not know. I only know that after over a month I took it as “lesson learned, you cannot tumble these, finish them or toss them as they are”. And because they are prototypes whose main purpose was learning, I have decided to use them as they were.
The first piece went on a bed of flowers into a land far, far away. What happens there is in the stars and out of my hands.
The second piece I have finished with an experimental piece of wood – one of the very rotten willow pieces that I have stabilized with resin during my first tests. Only the piece was just a tad thinner than I needed, so the resulting handle is slimmer and straighter than I intended it to be. I am keeping this knife for myself. I just cut onions for dinner with it and it works reasonably well. Whether it works better or worse than other chef knives I cannot evaluate, since I do not use chef knives regularly.
© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.
© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.
© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.
The handle looks…. interesting, but not very kitchen-knifey. I have used dark brown dye for the resin on the assumption that it will give the wood the most natural look. And it did that. Only it gave the wood also a decidedly camo-tacticool look. I think it would be great for a bushcraft/camping knife, but on a kitchen knife, it looks a bit odd. But maybe infusing the wood with bright colored resin – yellow, red, green, or even blue – might lead to interesting results. I am definitively going to try that next time. The rotten log will not burn – yet.
I have made my first bolster from buffalo horn here and fitting that and the handle together with the curved spacer from bone went reasonably well right until the last step in the process. That last step was buffing up of the horn. I have used my DIY red hematite buffing compound because it worked well on the horn – it is less aggressive than industrial steel buffing compounds. But some of it got stuck in the pores in the bone and it is impossible to clean afterward. That is unfortunately a common problem with bone – it has nearly invisible pores that tend to pop-up at the very end of the work when the piece cannot be replaced. So working with bone is always a bit gamble and you often get some dark spots here and there. It is not plastic but a natural product after all. But these red spots look like someone bled all over it. Grrr.
The third piece got fitted with bubinga handle and bone bolster. It goes to my former colleague, who has been patiently waiting for it for nearly a year by now.
© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.
© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.
Nothing went wrong with the knife itself. I have fitted the bone bolster with the handle really well, there are no gaps between the white bolster and the blade. Nothing to complain about except the large cut in my right thumb during assembly because the blade cut during all that wiggling through several layers of cloth and masking tape.
Bubinga is beautiful and very hard, but it is not a wood that I would normally use. It is not grown sustainably and the species, while not endangered yet, are on a way to becoming endangered. But since I got this piece for free with a shipment of steel, I have used it. I think I got it for free because it had a worm-hole, but luckily enough it got completely ground away during work. And the piece was big enough for me to make the handle in a shape and size that I have initially intended. It has a trapezoid-profile with rounded edges, for better grip and edge-alignment.
The fourth blade was fitted with a horn bolster and cherry crotch wood with a bone spacer. And this is the closest to my intended design of all three. It is now in the possession of my main tester – my mom.
© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.
© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.
The cherry wood is very beautiful, all the more pitty for the unseemly cracks. I will have to devise and use some kind of end-cap for cases like this when it would be a waste to toss the wood but there are some blemishes on the end grain. My mother does not mid it as it is and I hope it will serve well. Apart from these cracks, the only thing that went wrong was a cut in my left thumb – yup, I got symmetrical cuts with different knives.
Stats for all these knives: blade ~210 mm length, 3 mm thick, 50 mm wide, grip ~130 mm long. They are more forward-weighted than my full-width tang kitchen knives, so they would be probably very effective choppers too – the point of balance is right at the heel of the blade.
… Hieronymus Bosch. (there’s a lot to see in this painting, so please click for full size)
The Garden of Earthly Delights, 1510-1515, by Hieronymus Bosch. Image from Wiki Art
… photography, by Ansel Adams
Jeffrey Pine, Sentinel Dome, Yosemite, c. 1940, by Ansel Adams. Image from The Seagrave Gallery
Avalus has been out capturing the natural world for us, and this set of photos is spectacular.
And this morning I had this big bird of prey pose and flex its wings for me. Quality is not the best, as I was shivering on my bike (cold! Forgot my gloves! Again!) and the autofocus had its problems focusing the bird from about 30 m away. It was a majestic sight. The pictures don’t do it justice.
©Avalus, all rights reserved
I am sure we all have encountered someone somewhere saying that the USA is the greatest and oldest running democracy in the world, yadda yadda yadda. But what does “demo” in this word actually mean, in America?
Let’s grant that the US democracy is the oldest continuously running one in the world. I have no idea if that is actually true and I am too lazy to try and find out, but whatever. Is that a good thing?
When I look at the spectacle that is the US voting, I do not think so. Even without such obsolete carryovers from a different era like the second amendment, two senators per state regardless of its size or the electoral college, it does not look like the American democracy is very much democratic.
Take voter registration for example. What the fuck is that? Many of my friends in Europe are constantly dumbfounded by how elections in the USA (and to an extent in the UK) work. The “first past the post” system is generally viewed as idiotic and Gerrymandering makes most people to say “wut???”, however, the existence of voter registration is something that, so far, surprised everyone. And if you told anyone that there is a ruckus now about sending people voting ballots in advance, they would look at you as if you told them that in the USA “water is wet” is seen as controversial.
In CZ, the mailing of ballots in advance is completely normal. Every citizen is registered at birth, issued a state-paid ID at the age of 15, and gets ballots in the mail for each and every election once they turn 18. During the pandemic, the ballots came with full instructions on how to cast the vote if you are in quarantine or cannot legitimately go to the voting place.
Whether the citizen then actually decides to use said ballots as anything else than highly uncomfortable toilet paper or very good kindling is completely up to them, but they get them, always. We are so used to this system that most people here take it as normal and are completely taken by surprise when they hear how the US goes about this.
Vote on working day and kilometers long waiting lines for voting are another hoot. Here the vote is on Friday/Saturday, the whole day, so everyone has a chance to find a few minutes to cast their ballot, either on a trip to/from work or whilst going shopping. Because – and that is real funny, I tell ya – the longest I have ever waited to cast my vote was maybe a minute when there was someone in the booth and I had to wait for them to finish casting their vote. It might be a bit worse in a big city, I have occasionally seen 10-15 people long lines in TV, I think. But the only big lines are those reported from ‘Merica.
What I want to say is, the country with the highest GDP in the world finally should pay for a full-feature version of government, they are trudging by on an un-updated trial for way too long.
Ok, I’ll admit it: I’m very, very stressed out right now. The USA at the brink of a coup, Covid still raging, and the ministry of education deciding to throw us collectively under the bus (the latest brainfart: if there’s a case in a class, they don’t want to quarantine the whole class, but only “immediate contacts”, because as we all know, 10 years old kids are great at never getting close to each other and staying in their seats for 6 times 45 minutes. It is also absolutely no additional work to teach half the class in school and half the class at home, no sir).
With this as my general anxiety level, and the loss of sweet Katja, I’m basically a helicopter pet mum, but to be honest, Gracie really does her best to freak me out. That’s a degu with a sense for Halloween.
©Giliell, all rights reserved
She’s lucky she’s cute!
After she developed soft stool from the stress of being rehomed, I came up there on Sunday to find her whole side caked with blood. I couldn’t even imagine how that had happened, the degus hadn’t been together, and the cage is safe. I caught her and examined her. The little sweetheart apparently tore a claw, which happens, but is no great injury. But of course it bleeds, and since she sits on her hunches, the blood caked the side of her belly. When I returned an hour later, she’d cleaned herself up again and nothing was seen.
On Monday, the little one came down from feeding them and said that Gracie’s toe had apparently bled again, because there was blood in the water. And I was like “I’ll see to it”, because a droplet of blood should be right invisible in a waterdish. I came up and the whole dish was red. There shouldn’t have been any blood left in the degu to turn the water that colour.
But Gracie appeared to be fine. I got closer, took out the dish and inspected it in better light. Now the orange brown colour of blood turned a more scarlet variety and I found a formerly dried beetroot chip in the dish. She’s been repeating that game. Either she hates beetroot, or she likes her water to be flavoured.
©Giliell, all rights reserved
I now moved the water away form the food. Let’s see if it was an accident or mischief.
On the good news, the running wheel finally arrived. Unfortunately the place we want to put it is currently occupied by Gracie, so they can only use it when out, but they very much like it. It was expensive as fuck, but it will sure last a long time.
©Giliell, all rights reserved
Sorry, no better pic possible at that speed.
… Monet (it appeals to me today because our weather has felt quite summer-like, but without the right light!)
Women in the Garden, 1866, by Claude Monet. Image from Wikiart
… Gustav Klimt
The Tree of Life, 1909, by Gustav Klimt
©voyager, all rights reserved
Our weather has been fabulous for the past few days, with lots of sunshine and temps hovering around 18ºc. It feels more like September than November, and Jack and I have been spending our days outside. Jack is still having trouble with an arthritic left shoulder, so we haven’t been going very far, but Bubba is content to lie on his bed, basking in the sun while I do yard work. We have the flower beds cut back and tucked in for winter, we’ve gotten rid of most of the carpet of leaves that fall from our 2 red maples ( I like to keep a light protective leaf cover), the hoses are put away, the patio furniture is covered, the annuals have been uprooted and tossed, and I’ve harvested the last of the tomatoes. There really isn’t much left to do outside, but it’s too darn nice to stay inside, so I might just take the day off and find a good book to read in the back garden. Housework can wait. I have a long winter of Covid confinement ahead of me to get caught up on indoor chores. Summer in November is a gift not to be wasted.
The good news is that Jack’s shoulder is improving, and he should be able to resume normal activity soon. He’s been getting bored with just short walks down the street and back, and he’s more than ready for a bit of adventure. Honestly, I am, too. I’ve hardly used my camera since Jack went lame, and short walks around the block are boring for me, too. I have a backlog of photos from the earlier part of autumn, though, and I thought I’d share them over the next few weeks. Both photos today were taken along the Thames River in mid-October.
©voyager, all rights reserved
I peeked into the Trumpverse a bit and what I saw was unsurprising, but it surprised me anyway. I did not go to Breitbart or some similar far-right downright fascist propaganda sites. I just went to a YouTube channel that I had a reason to believe will have a high percentage of Trumpists in its following and I looked at comments under the only one video about recent politics the channel is hosting. I did not linger for too long, I did not even watch the whole video, just a few minutes and a few comments sufficed. This tiny window into the mind of a regular trumpist was informative, although I do not know what can be done with that information if anything.
From where I stand, Trumpism is just a new flavor of fascism. It is about the government controlling people, dictating what they can and cannot do with their private lives, in their private homes, sometimes even with their own bodies.
From where at least some Trumpists stay, the opposite is superficially true. They think that Biden is a socialist and that he is going to try and control them and take their personal freedoms. Their position with regard to him is the same as the position of leftists is in regard to Trump. And they despair and fear for their future after Biden’s win just as leftists despaired and feared for their future four years ago.
The problem seems not to be whether one values freedom, but what one considers to be freedom. Due to the main focus of the site I was visiting, there was a strong bias towards one uniquely American thing – guns, guns, guns. They see the right to own guns as the most important freedom one of them all, and they think that by having guns they are safeguarding all their other freedoms against a potential governmental overreach.
Which is, of course, bullshit. In modern times any uprising in which the government’s armed forces do not join in with the people is doomed to fail. Rifles, handguns, and knives are no match for tanks, rockets, and drones. But they really, really believe their fantasy that the right to have guns keeps them free and that is why they are/were voting for Trump and Republicans. They fear Biden is going to confiscate their guns and thus, by proxy, take away all their freedoms.
I do not believe these people can be reasoned with, but it seems to me they are overlooking one important aspect. If they need a gun to feel safe from an imminent governmental overreach, then they already are not free. Not only are they shackled by an unreasonable fear of something they would be powerless to oppose if it happened anyway, but they also keep the whole society in shackles of another fear – of random mass shootings, of armed militias going berserk, of random gun accidents. And if their fear of governmental overreach necessitating armed opposition were justified, then the government is already completely dysfunctional.
I lived my whole life in a society without guns, and a third of that life in a totalitarian regime. Fear of random stranger shooting up a school or a workplace never was on my radar, indeed I did not even know such things exist on the scale they do in the USA well into my thirties. And when the totalitarian regime fell, it was not because people took arms and stormed the whatever, it fell because the armed forces refused to shoot unarmed citizens and/or the top brass were hesitant to give such orders (personal anecdotes and historian descriptions vary). Having more guns in that situation would not make a difference except turning the Velvet Revolution into a Scarlet Revolution. I am not saying that armed revolutions are not sometimes necessary, or that they neer worked, but I am saying they do not work as these people imagine them.
But as far as I could see, the gut-wrenching fear and despair at Biden win were genuine. They really think that socialism means the state is going to get them, shackle them, and ruin their country. They really, honestly believe that Republicans and Trump were and are doing a good job, for them personally and for the American people as a whole.
Guns and abortins, these two issues are the only ones that matter to them. And only Republicans give them what they want.
And I am at a loss how to mend divides soo deeply entrenched in society. How do you snap someone out of a whole life of propaganda?
