I have got used to changing places, countries, and places within countries. I moved a lot. Every time I moved I had to leave things behind. Every time you move you have to redefine what is important. When I was leaving London for good, I counted how many places I’ve changed for nearly 5 years living there. I counted 14; most probably I’ve forgot some of them. 14 times I had to pack and unpack things in a new place. Moving within one place is one thing. You can carry or move most of your staff with you. Moving things by hand, by underground and on the bus, moving things in a friend’s car, moving things in a hired van, moving things in a track for moving horses; finally moving things in supermarket trolleys with friends also can make a nice memory.
There were 3 of us, and we were broke. So we pushed our trolleys all the way down from Hackney to Angel, sharing a bottle of Teacher’s to warm up in a pissing November rain. We were artists; most of the staff we moved (and had) were paintings. Generally, if you want to paint, everything will do. Walls, doors, pieces of wood, carton boxes… Most of this you leave behind when you move.
Finally leaving London for good I had to pack everything what is important. I thought it’s funny to define importance of things by their weight: 20 kilos of necessary things and memories in total. … I had to damp or give away everything exceeding those 20 kilos, including many paintings once again. The dearest ones I stripped off from frames and rolled though; never to be stretched again as a matter of fact: because I never settled down. I remember places by things left behind. I’m not attached to things; on the contrary. I just try don’t keep anything what I don’t need. My wife told me as while visiting her friend in Sardinia, she was shown a wardrobe full of T shirts and clothes her friend used to wear since high school: that was her way to keep track of her life. So I keep my track by abandon things.
Sometimes we don’t have chance to pack things; rather we left with what we have. A few days ago I left my home in the morning in rush with a feeling I’m not coming back. Details are irrelevant, what is important is what all I had was my handbag with which I headed to work. Continue reading ‘Things we belong to’
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Today I received a letter from my friend. He wrote: I’d love to write something for MemoryCemetery, but memories are boring. Let me disagree with that. Memories are boring, for sure, on the condition they are of a boring and unimaginative life. A few years ago I wrote a short novel, called ”A girl from Taliban, Coca Cola and the last days of my creation”. As you could probably see from my other posts, I’m interested in black holes. So this story (or at least parts of it) set in a black hole. This world also should like a black hole from the other side, right? Though the novel’s plot was generally made up, it was partially based on my memories and experiencies of living in London. My life is not so eventful these days, as it was back then. I broke my toe few days ago though, in the place there it was broke before. I remembered writing about this experience in the story, and it happened again just a day after I wrote about memory loops and loops of memory. No wonder it looked like a loop for me, so I took out my old dusty harddrive and refreshed in my memory what actually happened 4 years ago. Here’s this accident account, and I swear it’s all true. The story goes like this:
…Few years back I was about to paint a portrait of D. Beckham, as he is a national hero, cultural phenomena and looks like a nice guy, even if he spends a lot on the staff I probably wouldn’t. It is not my business what he makes of his life. I do not care what he does with money either: he can as well burn them. I wouldn’t mind. My wife once met another herself in a dream. So I wonder if D.Beckham has met any of himself. I see at least ten people a day wearing a T-shirt with his name whenever I go out. They call it “replica” shirt. For one Beckham there should be at least ten millions “replicas” in the world. Imagine all of them gather together at a football pitch the same time… Which one is original?
I painted maybe five or six replica Beckhams with pink or acid green bodies and different haircuts. I still can draw him with closed eyes. Beckham usually looked like this:
Illustration 1. Usual replica Beckham.
But, this time I wanted to paint the “original” Beckham.
Continue reading ‘Me and David Beckham’
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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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I still remember strongly that night I met Muriel first time, It was at one of the squat parties in Hackney. At that time I was pretty sick in 2, 3 months pregnant with my son that made me super sensitive with noise and smell and all surroundings. It was a massive party with lots of people and loud music. Then all I could see from my position ( i was sitting on the floor feeling up onto somewhere else) was so many feet moving like a massive snake following music. Then suddenly from out of nowhere, just in front of me, a sketchbook was dropped. It was as if its meant to be picked up by me. sure, i picked up. then, WOW!
I was struck by all drawings which contained inside. those strong colour and lines and eyes…..eyes…..I was suddenly back to reality…then within a second i thought i have to find this person, this artist, i want to know this soul that could produce such beautiful art.
As soon as I found her, I realized that was only tip of the massive iceberg. As I knew her more and more, I was totally amazed by all her life story, her vision of life, philosophy that I get hyper reactive everytime I met her. We became closer in the days to come.
Every time I saw her she would give something special or find impressive words which stayed on my mind the next few days. Even after I left London and only we exchanged by e mails, she still inspires me deeply.
I love her a lot, and very lucky to meet her in this life. There are some very important people we meet in our lifes who influence us. Muriel is such a special one for me.
Mayuko
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