Tag Archive for 'freedom'

Kaoma - Lambada

Published by
Fran
 in memory. 2 Comments

After the wall came down and David Hasselhoff conquered the Eastern German charts with “I have been looking for freedom”, this was the second tape I posessed.

After the freedom was there because walls dividing a country were pulled down, my mom and me danced Lambada in our living room, out to the courtyard, embracing the opportunities the changes had brought. A piece of the world that had seemed so far a year ago manifested itself now in our frontyard. A piece of Brazil in Eastern Germany in the sweltering heat of the summer in 1990.

Fran

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My life as a tiger

Published by
boris kislitsin
 in memory. 5 Comments

Once there was a Bengal tiger in Russian zoo. It was born and spent most of his life in a small cage. He had just enough space to make a couple of steps, jump, make a couple of steps and jump again. Then the tiger had to turn around and repeat the same routine in opposite direction. I have read somewhere that usually in wild a grown up tiger needs something like 16 to 20 sq.km of habitat, otherwise it get stressed. I wonder how much space a human being needs. Anyway, that’s not the point. The point is, that particular tiger lived in a cage the size of 16 or 20 sq.m, and, obviously, was very stressed. When such an animal as tiger get stressed, it feels uneasy, and can’t rest. That tiger was restless. All it did from dusk till down is pacing the cage. 2 steps, jump, 2 more steps, another jump, turn, 2 steps, jump, 2 more steps, jump, turn around, 2 steps, jump… You have the picture. Naturally, tiger’s living conditions had to be improved. The story goes in the time just after the collapse of the Soviet Union and total collapse of everything on the 1/8th of planet’s landmass, circa middle 1990’s. As it happens in times like this, some people used the situation to the full, and made crazy fortunes. If you ever tried to get from 0 to 100 in just above 3 sec., let’s say on a powerful motobike, you can figure out how it is. Somebody, let’s call him Mr.S., made it from living in a shared with few our families run down apartment in sleepy suburbs to amassing a fortune Imelda Markos could only dream of, comparing to each a budget of a middle size African country is just a pocket money, in a couple of years time. So one day this Mr.S. visited zoo by chance. He spent a good deal of time in front of this cage with Bengal tiger, watching it moves. Maybe he was in nostalgic mood, maybe this cage reminded him the apartment he grown up in, or probably deep down he was a very sensitive person. Some say he was bored, some he was drunk. Whatever the reason, Mr.S. was touched. He went to the zoo director straight away, and asked him, how much money zoo needs to improve tiger’s living conditions. I know this story from the first hands, as a friend of mine, non compromise poet and alcoholic, worked there as a zookeeper, as it was one of very few jobs he could fit himself in. Next day the construction has begun, and soon everything was ready for the grand opening. They set an artificial landscape, so tiger could have a little lake to bath, a cave for him to hide and a little forest resembling jungle; that small provincial zoo somethat tripled in size. In attendance of TV crew, press and Mr.S., they brought in crane and lifted the cage.

Continue reading ‘My life as a tiger’

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Getting outta here

Published by
boris kislitsin
 in dream. 0 Comments

Conducting my research for a story I finally set my mind to write, I came across these 2 statements:

1) scientists believe human brain is likely to be most complex object nature created within the Solar system

2) the very probability of life, keeping in mind endless ifs of  our mundane existence in the Universe is nothing short of miraculous, well below 0,00000000001%. (Let’s leave alone question how we can evaluate the probability of these events, especially when we discuss complex systems and probabilities on such a scale: the age of Universe is currently being estimated at 13.7 billion years +/-200 million years and size is as  3.56×1080 cubic meters).

Of course, downscaling the case, on the top where are some other probabilities, e.g. one chance in probably few hundred thousand my parents would meet and got married;  assuming they were capable of conceiving me, my being is the result of the union of one of few million sperms with particular ovum out of a few hundreds, etc…

There are, of course, endless probabilities exist even now, as they do at any given moment: that Internet will be created, this memories-dreams bank of whatever called Memorycemetery will be set, that you will find out about it, and will read this post, and will think: what the heck?! Continue reading ‘Getting outta here’

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Mices, fluorescent dogs and memory tricks

Published by
boris kislitsin
 in memory. 1 Comment

I have read recently about an experiment conducted on mices (yep, once again!:(). The researchers tried to figure out how mices store their memories. Memories are subjective, but if we will anchor memories to certain events, they can be easily pinpointed.

To put it simple, mices had to go through some painful experiences. Afterwards the conditions of those experiences were recreated, so mices would expect they would be hurt again. However bad it sounds, they found that neurons are in charge of storing memories. More painful events recorded by bigger number of neurons. As the result, the more neurons would store the information about a particular event, the more vivid and strong memory is. It is an interesting thing to know, though it brings up some questions. Let’s say, we know what a lifecycle of a cell in our body is limited, from few seconds to 7 years max., and cells regenerate constantly.  How the information stored by neurons going through regeneration process could passed? How do we “select” what to remember? A couple of days ago I broke my toe. It broke in the same place as few years ago, in circumstances deserving a separate post, but that event was largely forgotten by me until it happenned again.

I went through quite a few painful experiences in my life, including broken bones etc., but they will not top my memories list. Sometimes when psychological experiments conducted, eg in Roershach test, they ask you to give the first word which comes to your mind.

 OK, I’ll do that with my memories now, without any logic and order:

Continue reading ‘Mices, fluorescent dogs and memory tricks’

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