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The more I learn of mankind, the less I come to expect

06:21 / 22.07.05

Tez's mood has been pretty depressed over the last few days, not due to any one specific thing, more as a particularly bad resurgence of his long-standing view that the human species is, well, basically unpleasant.

So please people, huggles aside, remind me that there actually is something worthwhile and decent about mankind.

06:49 / 22.07.05

Alcohol.

Seriously, I'm not being crass here. Only humanity could find a way to turn rotting agriculture into a means towards joculosity, sociability, and dancing.

Think about it, since when did the equation "Deadrottingthings=partytildawn" make sense? Since mankind and alcohol, that's since when.

Just think of it as an example of the human race's general ability to turn horrible, smelly things into desirable, tasty things.

07:06 / 22.07.05

Exhibit B: Cheese.
How can life be bad when there is cheese in the world?

paranoidwriter waves hello

07:35 / 22.07.05

Do what I do: either put on some music, daft-dance and fill your heart with Silly; or peer deep into the darkness and laugh at how utterly stupid and pointless it all is.

Hope that helps!

07:40 / 22.07.05

When I broke my wrist I sent off for a plastic/neoprene Special Sack ("Limb-O") to cover it up in the shower. The mail order people sent ages sending it to me so I rang up and they put another one in the post. That day, the original one arrived. I took the new spare one to the hospital for my next check up, still in the envelope, as I thought someone else might want it.

About three weeks later, I got a handwritten letter from a lovely lady thanking me for the limb-O and explaining what a difference it had made (she'd had a horrible car accident and had broken one wrist and the other hand). I look at the letter all the time (it's in the pile to go on my 'inspirational' pinboard, which I have been meaning to buy for a couple of years). Some people are just downright fucking decent.

paranoidwriter waves hello

08:30 / 22.07.05

Nice story, Psych Safeling. Thanks.

Here's another one:

I have a beautiful friend who is half Egyptian with caramel skin, hair like living shadow, and an unnaturally powerful singing voice. Recently, she told me a story about a particular tube journey she had taken in London a few days after the events of 07/07/05. She said she had noticed some people giving her suspicious looks as she pulled a book out of her rucksack, but that thankfully a woman seated opposite her seemed to pick up on the vibe and had smiled at her reassuringly. My friend had already noted that the woman was wearing a beautiful necklace made of shells, and as a way to say thanks, my friend mimed across the aisle how pretty she thought the necklace was before tucking into her novel.

A few stops later, my friend felt a tap on her shoulder, looked up, and saw the woman about to disembark. The woman smiled, forced something into my friend's hand, and waved goodbye before disappearing amongst the crowds of commuters on the platform. My friend, a little dazed, opened her hand and ( yes, you guessed it) sitting snugly in her palm was the shell necklace; a necklace which she has worn every day since.

When I heard that story, it definitely helped the medicine go down. I hope it does something similar for anyone who needs and happens to read it.

08:32 / 22.07.05

Well, if the existance of Barbelith itself isn't good evidence of a Humanity capable of raising itself a little bit higher, then how about some violin music? Chuck a CD of the Four Seasons on and remember that Irish fellow's line about gutters, stars, and the general location of the human race in relation to them.

08:41 / 22.07.05

if the existance of Barbelith itself isn't good evidence of a Humanity capable of raising itself a little bit higher

Wow, you really need to stick around to see some of the fights.

Following the stories above. years ago, I wrote to Channel Four to tell them how much I enjoyed their production of Jan Svankmajer's Alice. I wrote quite a long letter, because I was young, and excitable. Some fantastic person sent me back a copy of an obscure animation journal filled with interviews with Svankmajer, Brothers Quay and others, and a promotional poster. How nice was that?

Another time, I was at the Notting Hill carnival with a visiting yank mate of my sisters. He'd been given his first E and spent the afternoon rather blissed out. We sat in a pub eventually and got chatting to a few people including one lady who was a local. She asked him if he had a girlfriend, he responded in the affirmative, and she nipped back to her flat and brought back this bizarre crystal heart-shaped paperweight, said "here you go, for you to give to her" and off she went into the night.

08:41 / 22.07.05

i was on the bus the other week and being kind of old-timey offered a lady my seat. she didn't want it, but she did give me, the misses and ggm a choccy caramel sweet! each! lovely they were! howzaboutthatthen?

Goodness Gracious Meme

12:02 / 22.07.05

Yes! I'd just come here to post that. A lovely moment.

12:16 / 22.07.05

So please people, huggles aside, remind me that there actually is something worthwhile and decent about mankind.
I don't know about all of mankind. I think it's more like vampires and pirates. Most of them suck, but you can find some cool ones here and there.

13:10 / 22.07.05

There was a guy on my bus this morning who was cheerfully handing out fresh glazed donuts to total strangers.

Sometimes it's the little things...

Besides, if we didn't have some redeeming qualitites, dogs wouldn't have anything to do with us. They know about character.

All Acting Regiment

13:43 / 22.07.05

Once when playing Age Of Empires my village had been invaded by Viking beserkers. They'd come east through the valley and come straight in to my farming area. They were in a perfect position to kill all my villagers.

Then they suddenly stopped. Wow, I thought. They've refused to kill innocent villagers.

Actually my computer had just frozen but still.

16:09 / 22.07.05

May I politely invite you to sign up for the Barbelith Dance Card? I promise to send random happy-making things in the mail simply for the fun and pleasure of giving other people fun and pleasure...

04:35 / 23.07.05

the stars are lovely at night. and what a moon these last two nights!

i have several wrens that skitter about my office door in the sun each day. i leave them crumbs and have finally managed to have the lovely cleaning person not sweep them away each day. i watch the birds, in the sun. life is beautiful then.

Scrambled Password Bogus Email

15:47 / 24.07.05

Good buskers.

Much more welcome than suicide bombers.

Less searchable M0rd4nt

16:28 / 24.07.05

*huggles Anna*

09:51 / 29.07.05

I like the sound of this

Stealth genius-hunters. I expect the MacArthur foundation fund is amassed profit from arms peddling, or something, but I like that someone is looking out for our mental wellbeing. Oh, and I'm not an American, so I can't automatically resent it because no-one's awarded it to ME.

Ex

10:08 / 29.07.05

More on food distribution:
When stupidly stranded at a train station at midnight in December after a work Christmas party (in a town in East Sussex which only sold orange lipstick and leg support tubes) I spotted a Pizza Hut takeaway.
I was, as ever, poor, and asked the chap serving what I could buy that would allow me to sit in the corner for an hour until my next train. (Now I think about it, it all sounds a bit 'Little Match Girl'. Or possibly 'Little Tank Girl'.)
He indicated through eyebrow gestures and shoulder twitches that I should just sit there. It was still arsing cold. Towards the end of the hour, he gave me an monstrous vast pizza that a customer had failed to pick up. I was able to warm my hands on the box, on my way back to the train, and distribute slices among the bewildered passengers.
Amazing how many people won't accept free food from a bald, shaking woman in a cocktail dress on a midnight train.

I'm sure there have been heartwarming moments in my life that didn't involve food, but it's universal, isn't it? A chap on the train last month let me read the new Judith Butler in exchange for a squint at the Norton Anthology of Afro-American Literature. That was as good as free pizza, but a bit more specific.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

11:34 / 29.07.05

Once I was walking through Dalston, having just taken my last three quid out of the bank, trying to do the maths to figure out if I could buy Biscuits enough food to last until payday and get myself a beer, when a woman ran up behind me, desperately trying to catch my attention. I turned around and she was waving a tenner. "No, I can't have dropped that", I said, "I didn't have a tenner on me to start with".
"No, you didn't drop it... I just have to give it to you", she said, pressed the note into my hand, said "God bless you" and buggered off. I bought dogfood and a sixpack and gave the rest of my money to a beggar. It was nice.

And yesterday I was paying my credit card bill (not in my own bank, so there was a tenner charge). After filling in the counterfoil and doing the stampy stampy thing, the woman behind the counter handed me back a tenner and said "I'm waiving the charge. Have a good day."

I mean, I know I can look like a tramp sometimes (once I was sat in a Tube station with biscuits waiting for a friend to turn up, when a lady came up and gave me a quid. I gave her it back, told her I wasn't begging but that she shouldn't be embarrassed, because had I been I would have really appreciated it, and that she should give it to someone who actually needed it. (Okay, five minutes later I found myself desperately needing to make a phone call and having no change in those pre-mobile days, and cursing my honesty, but still...)

Okay, that last one was probably due to my not exactly looking too classy on occasion, but y'know, it cheered me up.