Solaris Lives...

It is I, Glimmung. Be not deceived!

Comments

[Glimmung]

A new thread was called for, the others are too long.

Did you notice the two visitors to the "European Cinema" thread? Too bad dimarec and viragpali are not here to respond. Perhaps mondrian5 will visit - I wrote to him just after I wrote to you two, I also found a christmas email from him in an "undeliverable" box at Earthlink. It has problems sometimes if an email has a large attachment.

I guess Glimmung has blown that whole "omniscient" reputation. I feel really horrible for missing everyone's mail for several months.

[Yeti]

All is well here in the Himalayas...

Gryka, I haven't caught the new Dr. Who. I have a dislike for the unlike. My latest TV indulgence has been "Lost". I'm addicted.

I recently learned that Chicago has the largest Polish population outside of Warsaw. Is that true?

Glad to see you're both still out there...

[Gryka]

Well, there was a time when Chicago had THE largest population of Poles anywhere. It was a short time thou. Then Warsaw increased in size by swallowing neighboring villages – and becoming yet again the city with the slightly largest Polish population. ;o)

Of course it's a wrong comparison. The complex of cities in Upper Silesia in Poland has lot more than 3 million people, while each of its cities (countless and one next to another) is not bigger than 350,000. The Tri-city in the North (Gdansk, Gdynia & Sopot) is also much larger. And there're other large urban conglomerates. On the other hand, most Poles live in Chicagoland, not in Chicago. So if compared to the urban areas, as we should, Chicagoland would be waaay at the bottom of page. But it's a fashion of the media to dress up things slightly...

I'm stunned by another piece of statistics: 2 million Poles are expected in Rome for the funeral! At once! I think we are witnessing the largest movement of humans since the great Slavic expansion of 5-6 century C.E. OK, post WWII movements might have been bigger, but if we speak of voluntary movements – this is incredible. Btw., 2 million people that's 5% of the entire population of Poland. I had to talk my mother out of going. Believe me it was tough!

I've seen the first and the last(? -yesterday) episode of Lost. I tried to watch the shows in-between but I could never stay awake for longer than 15 minutes. But the Iraqi(?) guy is so damn handsome! Iraqis are a handsome nation but he's not their ethnic type. I wonder where the actor is from... He's the first Arab on TV, that I've seen, who's ...human.

P.S.: Doctor Who is available in the USA thru bittorrent only (not entirely legal). Still no news on when and if they are going to show it here. Good show thou ...ahm, so I'm told. :o)

What's going on with you Yeti? How is Littlefoot? And Bigfoot?

[Gryka]

Glimmung, somewhere on the net you can find Java omniscient debugger. Maybe it could help you improve your godly skills? ;o)

How are you?

[Yeti]

Interesting thing about the Pope's funeral, you'd think that would be the perfect place for someone to drop a bomb. I'm glad to see nothing like that has happened.

It's ALL about Littlefoot these days. Running around the front yard has become a favorite pastime. We've been trying to encourage Littlefoot to solve the whole square peg-square hole and round-peg round hole puzzles, but frustration quickly sets in. Inevitably, the round peg it trying to go into the square hole, and after about 6 or 7 seconds of this, the puzzle is thrown down and it's off to the next toy. We do have a wooden clown head with 5 wooden balls in it that are about the size of billiard balls. One of my favorite things to do is spin them and let them move strangly across the wood floor, going back and forth as their rotation propells them. Littlefoot likes this, but once again, the attention span of a 1 yr old is not very long, and so watching turns into throwing, and then it's on to the next toy.

I've been spending a lot of time on a forum about Melville. I was intrigued when I stumbled onto it, as many of the contributors are literature professors and authors. Needless to say, it's a rather cerebral forum, and I'm quickly outgunned. But it's fun dropping a few Yeti bombs on them once in a while to keep them on their toes. They've got a very wide range of views, from one woman who is a lesbian feminazi ex-radio host, to a geeky astronomer, to a religious fanatic. Very fun to see all the egoes clash when something big comes up in the news. But they do try very hard to stay "on topic" there. My reading time has diminished considerably now that Littlefoot has arrived. As I said, it's ALL about Littlefoot.

As for LOST, I'm not sure who the arabian actor is, but yes, the character of Saed is very human. You're right. He's a very handsome man. I too find arabian people to be a good-looking group. Indians as well. There is something about the big dark eyes of Indian women and their long dark hair. Tough to find one with good teeth, though. Of course, the same can be said about British women too... (chuckle, chuckle)..

Anyway, I think Lost is Much better than Angel...

So tell me about the big Columbus get-together!

[Gryka]

I have a terrible cold. I'm sitting here in front of the PC with half full box of tissues, sick and miserable, trying to catch up with my correspondence. And the weather outside is nice again! Why me? (She whines but there is some truth to her whining, it's spring after all...)

What you wrote about the possibility of an attack: yes, it was possible – everything is possible – but very unlikely. 1. The Catholic Church is not at war with the extremists of the Moslem world (unlike the US of A), 2. This was a spontaneous event – an attack like that requires time to be organized and it relies on stability of security protocols, which changed immediately after pope's death. An Italian-American friend of mine told me a joke that he heard from his friends in Rome after the unregistered plane was stopped at the Rome's airport (turned out to be a mistake, of course). It goes like this: "So, they – the police and military – surrounded the plane, boarded it and they found inside ...Faith with an armed bomb of Charity strapped to her." :o)

I'm glad you had a nice experience with the Internet community. It's exactly the opposite of mine. Since the world does not engage in political discourse anymore – the exchanges are now purely ideological – the new way of talking seeps into every crevice of our non-political conversations. It's seems that the antagonistic exchanges are the way of life now.

Have you read 'The Magic Mountain' by Thomas Mann? I ask because 'Lost' is a retelling of the book, well, it's trying to be... You know that Angel is being shown in reruns these days. I know all the episodes so well but I still watch it. I'm not sure that I would want to see 'Lost' again. But I'll try to focus on it more. With my cold it might not be so easy this week (it's on tonight, isn't it?)...

Oh, I checked the name of the actor playing the Iraqi – Naveen Andrews – you were right, he's British of Indian ancestry. And now I know where I remembered him from: Kama Sutra (very lousy, but then why expect more...)

Columbus, aaah! I'll write next time, I vaguely remember writing about it once. Did you get my email? I got thru a dozen or so tissues just now. I hate being miserable.

I love your stories about Littlefoot. I mothered my sister (she's 10 years younger) and I vividly remember her growing, changing. And the discoveries she was making along the way... Kids are brilliant. Why don't we, adults, play with our stuff outside of the rules? Where is our creativity? Wait until she starts playing with words...

Couple days ago my older cat, Ignatz, escaped. He does it all the time these days. He used to wonder the neighborhood quite freely. We don't let him now because he has hyperthyroidism and needs medication for it – he has to be at home on time to take the meds and cats don't carry watches. So he took to escaping his prison. And I took to following him thru the alleys yelling "Ignatz!, Ignatz!" This time I came across a neighbor's girl, perhaps 4-5 years old. She asked me if Ignatz was a dog. I said he was a cat and I asked if she saw him – "a little red cat?" I prompted. "Yeah", she answered immediately and pointed behind her, "he went that way." From the way she pointed it was clear that she was trying to be veeery helpful. Yeah, thaaat way... I found him in opposite direction of course. :o) Enjoy the future Yeti! :o)

Glimmung – do say something! I was just joking about the omniscient debugger. Really...