Once upon a time, there was Yann Tiersen. And a carousel of broken dreams. And all those pieces of the broken mirror, all delicately stuck to musical notes, tralala-ing out of Yann’s soul. It’s limited, yet fair to say that Yann was revealed to us through his French tunes, his playful acordeon that followed Amelie Poulain and her destiny, stuck in the labyrinthical Paris. Still, life is not a succession of paralyzed images, but a progression of dynamic symbols and things that just are. And music is life and Yann, as a composer, tickled music a lot. So he decided to move on. And he decided to appeal to the masses and just thrill them with everything that he could be.

That is when Yann Tiersen came to Bucharest for the second time. The fourth of November, a rainy day, a bad omen, still, one that doesn’t prove anything else other than the fact that this is no normal concert review. We were there, with the illusioned masses, the family guys, the French illustrious folks and a pack of ciggaretes whose smoke diffused in the capital’s humid smog. Yann was there too, dressed like a grunge/punk rocker, shy in his attitude but not in his moves. It was all weird as, for a musical genius possessed by the instruments he could barely watch in reverence, Yann’s first target was to scare away all moral-fibered families that had hoped to escape the weekly routine with a light fairy-tale concert. In an indie progressive rock manner, Yann brought out the basses and started pinching the cords as if posessed, managing to get 15% of the public out of the room after his first three songs.

The second and final step (short one hour and a half concert) was reinventing the wheel. Yann brought out some of his most famous songs and reinterpreted them with the help of a violin-bass duet. The results were ravaging, in the you either love it hate it sense. What struck me at first was the fact that I could still sense Yann’s style there. It was really still him, more powerful, more active and somehow destructive. Psychedelic and maybe quite stoned for some. But then came the mirage part: the rockstar propaganda, the effort to mix so many styles in one tiny concentrated concert. And though I could count 10 instruments he got to use on stage, I did not get to see the famous accordeon. The very proof of his playful spirit. And I think that this, in the end, is highly symbolical.I have nothing with his new style, but I think people should never force their nature, or betray what defines them, be it some dirt in a jar, or a tiny and shy accordeon, more shy than the troubadour that uses it.

For many years as a kid, I was upset with God. It was something in the way the priest gripped my cheeks each time he would come to bless our home after Christmas or Easter. It was something in the smell of incense that choked my throat when I entered the church. And, although my grandmother tried to build a halo of legends around God with whispered bed-time stories, the continuous gossip of old ladies in the church halls made my skin crawl. I was the constant target of this blabber, as I didn’t use to cover my head and as my 8-year old clothes were ridiculously regarded as too voluptuous. But most of all, I was upset with God because of the war in Yugoslavia. I used to spend several hours looking outside the window at night and imagining fires and violence, until I would eventually fall asleep, tickled by a childish despair and by the smell of dry rags. It was hard for me to believe God had his ways. I blamed Him for indifference and sometimes even for inexistence.

Then, a strange event occurred, that would change my view of divinity forever. As a child, I had many dreams. Some were as insignificant as building a snow castle each December, or gathering dandelions, while others were close to impossible. My most eccentric dream haunted me each time I turned on the old television in my parents’ room. The former communist regime was not yet forgotten, and mass media were still a luxury. As a consequence, my childhood was intoxicated with TV channels aired directly from Britain, and most importantly, with British commercials of shiny, oversized plastic toys that could move and talk. There was this particular Barbie horse that could walk by itself when you pushed its tail that really caught my attention.Most of my dolls were dead rags that hardly resembled anything and that had buttons instead of eyes, so I was surprised that a toy could be so beautiful and seem so alive. I sometimes wondered why one couldn’t find toys like that on the Romanian market and at times I felt that I should have been born in Britain – I found it all a divine plot against me, as if at birth I had been catapulted into the wrong context. It was quite common for guests to see me suddenly drop on the floor and burst into tears, even if two minutes before I had been standing quietly in front of the TV, munching some cookies. It was a pretty weird scene, as I never demanded my parents to buy me the horse when crying, but rather ordered them to move to Britain. My poor mother had to temper me each time I started those inevitable cries. And one of her best methods to make me stop was to warn me that Santa and the Easter bunny wouldn’t bring me presents anymore, because I scare them away.

That particular day, my parents were out shopping, and I was left to share my burning emigration desire with the blank walls. The burdening solitude echoed a divine presence in my mind and, for the first time in my life, I felt the sudden impulse of sitting on the floor and talking to God. It was not a prayer, I felt. It was just as talking face to face to a person in a café, over a steamy coffee. I explained to Him why I wanted that toy horse so much and, with every spoken word, I realized that I could overcome my desire. I concluded with the certainty that if I were to see and touch that toy, I would surely lose my interest in it. As if God had agreed upon the deal, a shimmering light hit the nearest roof outside and reflected inside the narrow hallway where I was sitting, filling it with a still grace.

My father used to repair televisions for extra money. Most of the time, he would take me along, knowing how much I liked to discover the intricate contraptions behind the overwhelming screen of the TV.That afternoon, after my discussion with God, we went to visit a rich family whose children had most of the toys I saw on TV. And in a quiet corner, the horse was waiting for me, with a glowing stare. I picked it up and its silky hair made my hands shiver. I examined its small nostrils and the beautiful curve of its neck and then I gently pressed its tail. Exactly like in the commercial, it obeyed, and started moving across the room, bumping into every chair or object in its way. The sound of each step it made covered my echoing heartbeats. For a second, it was as if that horse generated my every breath and thought. Then it suddenly stopped and I came to realize that there was no difference between my imitations of toys and this Barbie horse. In fact, they were more human and close to my heart, as this horse almost looked alien in its still grace. From that moment on, it meant nothing to me.

I cannot doubt the existence of God since then. He became, in my eyes, sensible towards the small details that round up one’s life, even towards the superficial dreams of a little girl that watches too many commercials.

so they say

Is the root of all evil

Today

…If only I had a penny for every wet money dream I witness in people’s eyes. I myself would be filthy rich by now. And utterly poor in spirit I might say. I wish I could bathe in pennies till I become one with the metal pennies are made of. Then I would walk down the filthy streets, delicately screeching the pavement with my precious nature. And hookers and beggars would look up to my shiny indifference, shyily whispering: save us. And I would put on a glassy glare and say:NO.

I’d shower the streets with gold, until everyone drowns into a golden silence. Businessmen and low-lives alike, with their hand in their pants, would savor a golden vigor mortis. Thirsty ladies would pluck out the precious diamonds in their eyes. And by seven o’clock the streets would be cleansed, just as the aisles lay in silence after all automated consumers have drained them of their lollypops. Like locusts. I put a coin into Rosie’s sweet mouth. I tell her to chew, and see if she can swallow. She’s mad with money and she sure can’t resist this raw temptation. But teeth keep falling on the floor like tears.

Sorry Rosie… today isn’t a good day for business, lav.

Running to the theater is sometimes such a blessing. Sit in the front row and observe that conventional universe. Actors messing all around in an absurd notion .. in motion. I just realised how much i love Eugen Ionesco. While seeing his play “The bald singer” I had the grotesque feeling of slipping away. As if I was no longer there.. as if the unveiled theatrical mechanism, its absurdity, has taken over my emptiness too. I would have burst in a supreme laughter if I hadn’t remembered I wasn’t alone.. I would have walked up the stage, enraged, in a Saturnalic feeling of lust and desire. I would have stripped naked, strangled some blood from the universal vein, I would have felt alive as if my hunt had just begun. My hunt for sense.. Having lost everything, I would have had nothing else to do but to find a new beginning. And as in all beginnings, this would have made me a creator. But there was enough light for my scenarios not to flow. I did not applaud. I did not stand up. I did not blink. In that noiseless nonsense inside my head  I oculd see the bald singer using the same comb, over and over, plowing my brain, plowing my sighs.
And yes.. My name is Sherlock Holmes….

Spoiler alert: if you don’t have the slightest idea what is going on in the game industry you might want to skip this post. Or maybe I am wrong.  You might find Zero Punctuation destressing anyway. Why is that? Because Ben “Yahtzee” Croshaw comes fully charged with loads of British accent and British spicy criticism (he gets picky on them games, yes he does). Although he is actually Australian. Ironically? This is not the only shot of irony you’ll get throughout his special video reviews, trust me on that. In the five minutes in which he shoots his fast forward review at you, you might actually forget that games are not what they used to be. That being a gamer is less of an honor, less of an “I’m special” case and more of a couch potato disease these days.

There’s a huge possibility that you won’t taste his jokes if you’re not a hard core gamer. Some of you sensible sorts might even find his language a bit too harsh and you might get bored of following his fast forward speeches. But if those are not a problem, you might benefit from a fresh approach on gaming. And one that leaves no survivors behind. A thing that all game reviewers should do, I must mention… no matter the cost, you hear me ?

On my first trip to Italy, I wanted to greet Venice as a holy place. I somehow saw myself as a profane being, ready to plunge into the secrets of a city I could not understand, whose name only reminded me of an overwhelming culture and Renaissance busts. The floating city of Venice was, in my imagination, the same with the ancient city of Atlantis and I expected to see Venice too sink under the seas the very moment I would get to its lands. At the same time, my Venice was full of Romeos and Juliets cuddling all throughout the city, in the gondolas and on every narrow bridge. I was quite sure their tears of joy actually added up to the water that would eventually sink the city. That is why, when I got the chance to approach Venice, I was grateful to the fact that I managed to see it before it totally disappeared.

But I soon got to find out that my personal myths concerning Venice were far from reality. I imagined I would enter the city alone, on one small raft or boat, accompanied by a mute dark gondolier and that my trip by sea would be close to crossing the Styx, a sort of experience of initiation. On the contrary, I got stuck on a two story boat where all tourists were psyched of taking Kodak moments while approaching the shore. As soon as the boat hit the San Marco Square they poured out like insects, making me feel like a hungry bird trapped in an aviary. And my feeling of unsafety was greatly increased by the pigeons diseasing every granite tile of the plaza. They were demons describing a brownian movement, only tempered by the crumbs of bread tourists chose to spread around the plaza. Some tourists, more daring than others, let the pigeons eat from their very hands and that’s when all the birds usually went mad and attacked the person’s head and limbs.

For me, the real Venice was close to a wetter Hell- each tourist slaughtered by the pigeons was a metaphorical sacrifice to the myth of the demigod Prometheus, whose liver was meant to be eaten by the eagles for eternity, just because he offered the secret of fire to the human species. And the stench that was rising from the canals reminded me of rotten pomegranate and old lipstick. Everything in the city was consumed, dusted. The city itself was an old courtesan that no one could love anymore. Under the glittery shops, whose counters were full of carnivalesque masks, laid a tired stillness. And water invaded everything, you could feel its dampness in your lungs. It was also troubling to see the old dwellings of rich Renaissance families bearing their washed coat of arms being eaten up by the mercury-like water. At the balconies of many of these imposing houses draperies were left blowing in the wind, as if waiting for their ethereal owners to return.

Two hours in Venice and I already felt the mould forming on my soul. I feared looking down in the canal, I had the feeling that other tourists were paying for their sins down there, as if struggling to get out of a tar pit. You could see no vegetation in Venice, the only spots of green were twisted vines trying to suffocate whole balconies, all in vain. As the night came down, the city itself started to boil, as if animated by the cursed waters beneath it. The turmoil made people’s faces fade away and the jazzy tunes jingling from the nearby restaurants seemed almost ritualistic. What really struck me at night was the emptiness of the San Marco Square- with all the pigeons gone to sleep, people seemed feeble and bored, awaiting other forms of punishment. I was lost in a labyrinth of strangers, feeling even lonelier because of the constant noise. Another thing just as surprising about Venice was the fact that although the city was surrounded by water, there were actually few fountains in the city where you could chase away your thirst. That was another proof that the water of the city was somehow tainted… I refused to eat or drink anything belonging to that sad place.

I left Venice during the evening, dazzled by the fact that it resembled nothing in the colorful postcards. Not even the warm sunset or the dreamy gondolier. It was just a city of masks and faces, a city of strangers and glass.