Blog :: Chris Farmer

Surrendering to the Inevitable

Chris Farmer — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 18:00:38 GMT

This is terrible.As much as the city is being held in the grip of Nature and the adamantine grip of her snow, so do I - after having resisted for several days - feel inexorably pulled into the Snow Trap. I have to write about the snow. I do not WANT to write about the snow! I rebel against its banality in subject matter! I push against its encroaching walls! Yet here we are....I peruse the media, online and off, and find story after story after anecdote after amusing reflection on the snow. We are fascinated and terrified by it. We cancel everything as a result of it. We revel in it and we are repelled by it. There seem to be no half-measures concerning the snow. It affronts us and demands that we strike up an attitude toward it. Moving from place to place, our footfalls are gripped by it. Travelling by automotive contrivance, we have to spend hours clearing the carcass and breathing life back into it. And the snow ke

Of Women and Men

Chris Farmer — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 19:00:58 GMT

This is the trouble with crowdsourcing.I have been asked to write about the relationship between men and women. In order to do so, I am forced to call upon my many years experience as a male and attempt to relate the relative truths and gleanings from this experience into a form which will elucidate and provide the invaluable insight which this topic requires and deserves. The effort has been extreme, but I finally believe that I might impart this wisdom - the sum total of my understanding of the relationship between women and men. "?" This having been said, I do know a thing or two about women in the men's room. I know, for example, that they are not supposed to be there. One day last week, however, I had occasion to visit three different men's rooms in three different public places. And each time, there was a woman there. Hm... I hmmed to myself.In the prudish p

Drunk and Disorderly

Chris Farmer — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 15:00:41 GMT

There is nothing more sobering than being pulled over for walking under the influence.According to the brain scientists and rocket surgeons whom we have elected to public office in Belgrade ("we" being loosely applied here), it is NOT enough to switch off the music early. It is NOT enough to close the bars, cafes, and restaurants by midnight. It is NOT enough to curtail the sale of alcohol after a certain hour. Now, if we have a few too many, we will have to sleep in the bars until morning.Drunk driving is a serious business and should well be down-upon cracked. But the next stumbling steps seem a bit draconian. The intoxicated are banned from public transport. And the drunken staggers which mark many a weekend evening in the White City are now against the law and punishable by fines of up to EUR 300. In practical terms: if you have had too much and have the presence of mind to leave your car behind, you could stil

No Going Back Now

Chris Farmer — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 17:00:21 GMT

No matter what we do, the next step is always forward.It is a fact of our linear time-space continuum that the life in the world is a one way street. 2011 cannot be followed by 2010 (nor by 1526 as far as that goes) or anything other than 2012. Tonight we celebrate that passage in our odd and somewhat superfluous tradition marking the passage of time. Even as I write this, we could be celebrating the passage of 11.59 into 12.00...Happy New Afternoon, everyone! Should auld acquaintance et cetera et cetera!There will be chronicles of the past year playing across televisions and YouTube channels for most of the day and even into tomorrow and the next week, outtakes and clips where we look back and review our most recent history, getting ready all the while for the next year. Some of us would like to carry on into 2012 with the same tempo and leitmotif as has been playing until now. Others of us wou

Just for Show

Chris Farmer — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 21:00:31 GMT

Strolling through the walkways of one of our illustrious shopping malls last night, I was bludgeoned on the head. The instrument used to whack me was a nicely crafted bit of Consumer Nonsense such as often seems to happen to me. The attack was unprovoked (or not very much so) and left me in a bit of a daze for hours after. Let me explain....I was with friends who were shopping. This means that my role was to follow along and present the aspect of someone who was interested in the surrounding wares so as not to give the impression that was just idly following a shopper. It sounds much more complicated than it actually is. In an electronics emporium, I saw something that actually did catch my attention.A television at which I could not look.It was a new 3D television, made by a group of clever Japanese or Korean scientists in their secret laboratory. To look at it in its display, the average consumer gets a

Speak Warriors!

Chris Farmer — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 16:00:57 GMT

TlhIngan maH! Kai kassai!In my continuing quest to learn the Serbian language (a quest which is often interrupted and curtailed by intervening events, obligations, and Tuesdays), I have come to realize that I have overlooked an essential part of learning this language that has nothing to do with my six-word vocabulary, my mastery of one tense and one grammatical case, or my inability to deal with multiple declensions.Attitude. If you have never heard of Star Trek, the Klingon Empire, or Kahless the Unforgettable, you may want to open a new tab and do some research before continuing. The fact is that, as a spoken language, Serbian must be enunciated and bellowed out like Klingon. Sentences are marked by exclamation marks. Words declaratively expressed in CAPITAL LETTERS! The Klingon does not brook the mealy-mouthed, the overly polite, the sycophantic, or the obsequious. In fact, the language may not even co

Going Mediaeval

Chris Farmer — Sat, 26 Nov 2011 15:00:19 GMT

When the loan officer at the bank offers you a load of carrots instead of cash, you will know that this is a Crisis.Business is booming for the Prognosticators of Doom these days. All I am hearing from all sides is that the End is Near, speeches about the Demise of Consumerism abound, and that we are sliding into a time of feudal lords, manor houses, indentured servitude and mediaeval bartering. At a gathering which I attended last night, I was able to hear heads of topics such as: "Europe will fail before Serbia gets in." "What will happen after the euro is gone?" "2012 will be worst year ever in this Crisis."The battle does not go well, it seems. People are disillusioned with the economic and political leadership around the world which has not been equal to the depth of the Crisis. An attitude of helplessness seems to have seeped into conversations and thought. Helplessness. Hopeles

Dunbar's Number

Chris Farmer — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 00:00:43 GMT

According to what I could discover (and I am sure there is some overly-befriended Facebooker out there who may correct me) the maximum amount of friends you can have on Facebook is five thousand. Five thousand fellow humans whom we call our friends.5,000? Really?Scrolling through the ever-changing Facebook interface, one sees people with extraordinarily high friend counts. Personally, I have only seen one with more than 3,000, but I am willing to accept that at least one user (if not many more) has pushed the envelope to its furthest extreme.Ask most people in the real (i.e., geological) world how many friends they have and they will usually pitch relatively low numbers at you. They will say something like, "Of TRUE friends, only a few." I think we have all heard this before; and a lot of us may have also said this. I have.But only to five thousand of my closest friends.We want to sh

Empathy Pains

Chris Farmer — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 15:00:16 GMT

"If I weren't the president of the republic, maybe I would be dissatisfied and embittered too." So said Boris Tadic this week, reminding us of our obligation to vote and thereby give voice to our dissatisfaction and bitterness that we all feel because we are not president of the republic.Hm...I was reminded by one reader that I should pay attention to the CONTEXT in which this enormity was stated, that perhaps I was overreacting to something misquoted, misconstrued, or misplaced and out of context. But I am sorry: the sentence is utterly indefensible. Never mind that I cannot vote here - there are still a few semantic bones to be picked in this bit of presidential glibness. The implication is very clear that the president IS indeed satisfied and not bitter because he is president. What other way is there to read this? By extension, he implies that maybe having a cool job (like being president of t

Popping Twinkies

Chris Farmer — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 12:00:57 GMT

It is insidious. It is erosive. It is pervasive.I find myself thinking in quips and quotes and bons mots. I am unable to sustain a thought for more than about three seconds before looking for new sensory inputs. I am deathly afraid that I may lose my train of thought and not even be able to finish this blog post. I might substitute a YouTube video instead. I might just encapsulate the whole thing in a three word sentence. Facebook is slowly robbing me of my already challenged attention span. Think of one's typical Facebook behavior. You log on. You check what anyone said about your posts. You check a half a dozen other posts. Or a hundred. Each check takes about two to three seconds. You may find something to "Like" and even to read. You scan it. And you move on. Next!I notice that my sentences are even getting shorter. No more dependent clauses, fewer parenthetical asides, less waxing adjecti

Aftershocks and Lessons

Chris Farmer — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 23:00:04 GMT

When something happens to change the world, we do not really know about it until the world changes.Ten years ago, on 9/11, I was in Paris. I was sorting out lots of sportswear overstock and trying to place it enticingly in front of my client's eyes. My client's eyes, however, were glued to the television. I was annoyed. I had just arrived from Rome (he from Belgrade) the night before, we had one day to make this deal, and he was watching TV. I grumbled."Something happened in New York," he said.I managed to pull him back to the here and now of the show room, prying his eyes away from the artless and unlikely footage of planes crashing into tall buildings, and we managed to wrap up the deal. Throughout the rest of the day, I kept hearing snatches of talk about New York, the Twin Towers, and planes, but I did not pay much attention. I slept. The next morning, September 12, I was back

Stirring the Election Pot

Chris Farmer — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 17:00:35 GMT

September is now upon us. We are getting back to work after a long and protracted holiday (even if we did not take one, everyone else seems to have done so). Streets are busier. Shops are crowding up slowly again. Supermarkets may even begin to stock the shelves once more. The fall season - in a way very different from the burgeoning of spring - is all about new beginnings. Schemes hatched on the beach will be either evaluated or binned. Board rooms are being dusted down and ready to contain corporate posteriors once again.And it is high time to think about politics.Elections are coming again and the campaign clamor is about to begin clamoring for our attention. We have the usual suspects to root for and to despise - depending on which side of the fence toward which we wobble. Same old song and dance. What is needed is something to stir the pot.With this in mind, I am accepting nominations to run for President of Se

Barack's Bargain Basement

Chris Farmer — Sun, 31 Jul 2011 17:00:30 GMT

Make me an offer!

If the United States goes bankrupt this afternoon, when will they hold the garage sale?On the front lawn of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, lines of Sherman tanks on each side ($120,000,000.99 or best offer), the tables have been laid out. Dolly Madison's silverware ($35,000, slightly used), Eleanor Roosevelt's collection of erotic hat pins (Never before seen! Make me an offer!), and the famous Big Stick of Theodore Roosevelt ($18.75, genuine replica) are all on display. Barker Barack is walking among the tables holding a megaphone, while Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner follows behind with the original adding machine of Alexander Hamilton (which he picked up for $225 and a collection of old Confederacy currency) toting up the sales. $14 trillion to go? Well, Mr. President, let's hope the weather holds.There is a chair built for the heavy President Taft, until recently kept in Waverly, Iowa,

The Story of Vook and the Great Big Whale

Chris Farmer — Sat, 23 Jul 2011 16:00:25 GMT

ow, a long time ago, in beginning of the Age of Information, there lived a boy named Vook. He had a nice shiny suit of clothes, always brushed his teeth before bed, and was very proud of the things that he could say.Everyone across the land would smile and beam when they heard him speak. He could say "no" when most folk would have said "yes." He would not just play with anyone - and he would tell them the reasons. Vook was the apple of his Papa B.'s eye. Papa B. would send him out into the world and ask him what he saw. And Vook, proud and pleased, would come back and tell him all about it.But Vook was a very stubborn boy and would not change his mind once it was set. If people asked him, he would sometimes say: "I don't wanna" and hold his breath. Papa B. told him his stubborn head would one day get into trouble, but Vook would not listen.[img_assist|title=|url=722/vuk01.13722.jp

Vuktor, Vooktoria

Chris Farmer — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 22:00:26 GMT

Clearly this is just not my week.I really just wanted to mind my own business and get on with the summer, but then Vuk Jeremic decides he wants to censor the social media. I mean - come on, people! - how can this just be glossed over in passing? I was supposed to be writing about the heat and my first trip to the beach at Ada (in a suit no less - don't ask). I was supposed to be returning to my old curmudgeonly self after having offended at least half the country because of my stance on the Novakiada (and can we please not start it up again?). But then two things happened in rapid succession which threw a government-sized wrench in the works.One was Vuk and the other was "Vook."In a piece I submitted to Politika, a reference to Vuk Jeremic as the "Kindergartener of Foreign Affairs" was unceremoniously excised. And because they were standing side by side, a reference to Tadic was also removed