1) you are not permitted to speak to anyone.
2) you must avoid eye contact with others at all times.
3) you are to maintain a poker face -no emotion is permitted to be desplayed.
4) in elevators you are compelled to watch the floor numbers above your head.
if you doubt this, notice how you behave next time you go to a crowded cinema. as the usher directs you to your seat which is surrounded by a sea of unknown faces, notice how you will, like a preprogrammed robot, begin to obey the unwritten rules of behavior in corwded public spaces.
wheather we are in a crowded elevator, cinema, or bus, people around su ebcome non-persons -that is they do not exist as far as we are concerned.
also.
for new years, i helped a friends friend sell hot wine in downtown hamburg. i made 50 euros too. and i got to drink all the hot wine i could. which actually wasnt a whole lot.
i saw a battlezone firework showdown on a walkway overlooking the river where boats were anchored. garbage everwhere -from the fireworks you know. so many fireworks too. a lot. i also got to see rain. and dancing drunken germans singing some pretty strange songs. maybe a russian one too.
i am leaving this neat house -which is actually a converted barn to house. very very cool. incredible space in the top. very cool. and i visited another dudes neat house. it was made using the concrete ring which large animal farms would use to house the animals waste. it is pretty large. so this dude buys this ring and builds a house out of it. there is a rooftop garden, triangular and proper patio, three levels in the interior of the house, a stone oven with an attached stone sofa. the stone is heated up because it houses the fire and stays heated for a long time the way this is done is by using pipes. pipes carrying the smoke and the heat are placed inside of the stone sofa, winding down and back, along side the stove itself and exists through the ceiling. very very nice. an advanced technique would be to run these pipes through natural clay walls, floors, beds, small spaces to keep warm at night -such as a small room, the only room to be warmed at night- and perhaps the ceiling if the tactician were clever enough.
and so i am leaving to berlin.
some dude lives in a wagon. i do now know what that means yet, but i will meet him and see his wagon. another dude that i may get to run into is this guy that took the same journey as i -german to thailand- except that he went under russia, following the line that is made above the mediterranean sea. that is pretty respectable.
i also have a friend from olympia in berlin. she is taking a round the world trip and is also going to paris, bangkok, australia, new zealand, and -1 other perhaps.
i will reach russia relatively soon now. i need to be at the russian border the day my visa takes effect -the first of february. and, i have an estonian friend whom i want to see again and want to stay with him for 5 days or so. which leaves me about 3 weeks to explore a touch of poland, the adrspach teplice rocks in the czech republic, the moravian karst, also in the czech republic, and a few places in slovakia. heading up into poland again, then continuing through lithuania, latvia, and to tartu, estonia.
then russia.
**********
so my book keeps changing. it is difficult to write a book. i find myself realizing how much time i can spend on it, and indeed how long i have already spent on it. in a way, some concepts are found in writings that are several years old. and i wonder how much more it will continue to evolve and radicalize itself.
the general principles -thus far- include:
1. main character is completely dependent on another system. one that has been forced upon him, denying him the alternative tools to support oneself and become independent. he must trade his mind and his heart for this lifestyle. this makes him sad and agitated. he breaks the window which turns out to be a television screen and realizes he is in an immense building, with rows and rows and rows of rooms just like his.
2. he explores the building and discovers how he and everyone else is formed into what we are now. the character also breaks out of this massive prison.
3. seaches and searches and searches the world for something to get his mind and heart back because he has realized how incredibly essential it is. the character eventually finds it.
4. character returns to the giant prison building with the answer and seeks out the vault containing his insies.
5. finds it and must battle the giant mega demon that is resonsible for making such a disaster of things.
(the character either destroys his own personal sick eviled undoer or the character may take on the epic monster responsible for our all atrocities)
6. once achieved, character goes somewhere special on the earth and builds a natural house and plants food and starts living. and the character dies that way.
so that is it.
kind of.
i would love to hear what you think about this.
hope your new year was good.