Just a few words of explanation: I didn’t go into hibernation, nor was I too busy. I actually did have a lot to say (having said that, I’m not trying to imply that it was important or interesting). I think I caught myself losing the Urban Richard Long spirit and a few posts I have written since then were just rubbish. I’m glad I had the decency to keep them unpublished. I moved further away from walking and photographing and started blabbering too much. This post is an attempt to put things back in order.

A long time ago I blogged about the experience of infinity and titled the post ‘Walk in the Sky’. Now, the post’s title seems ominously prophetic as I did experience such a walk just a few weeks ago. To make it even more Shakespearian, few days before embarking on the walk I had come across this in Hyde Park:

It’s a pavilion designed by Jean Nouvel for Serpentine Gallery’s annual architectural commission. We seem to be on the same page and in a true ‘metaphor meets reality’ style Nouvel visualises what I thought all along: sky is bloody brilliant. To be fair, he takes it a step further and in his vision, so is colour green.

Coming back to prophecies, they’re everywhere, as any self-respecting lunatic will tell you. However, to paraphrase a Nobel prize-winner Herbert Simon – a wealth of prophecies creates a poverty of attention. The only ones worth mentioning are the ones which turn out to be true yet completely not what we thought they will be. As with Macbeth killed by a man not born from a woman, or almost anything about Saleem Sinai’s life in Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children.

To cut to the cheese. I had foretold my own walk in the sky months before of actually planning it – and quite honestly without remembering the prophecy. That’s what made it beautiful. Almost as beautiful as the Isle of Skye.

‘The greatest joy in nature is the absence of man’, said Bliss Carman. Posters with the quotation are all over London tube. The poet meant nature in general, but given he was Canadian probably a desert was not on his mind. Yet, why wouldn’t it. In the 1962 movie ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ the protagonist, who btw. lived not far from where I work (see picture), says he is drawn to the desert because ‘it’s clean’.

It’s not really clear what Lawrence means, possibly clean as in Carman’s ‘absence of man’, or as in empty, or understood as unsoiled by politics with which he is fed up. What is clear is that he is strangely drawn into the desert, impressed by its size and power. It seems that he falls in love with the desert’s isolation and welcomes the challenge of desert life. His companions, Arabs, cannot understand why anyone would voluntarily choose such an unwelcoming habitat.

I don’t know if it’s the proximity of Lawrence’s house, but I felt the same pull of endless sands. Before Lawrence leaves for the desert a politician named Dryden warns him that ‘only two kinds of creatures get fun in the desert: Bedouins and gods’, and that Lawrence is neither. I don’t claim to be the latter but thought that maybe my urban nomad’s nature was calling me to the origins of the nomadic spirit. So I went. And words cannot describe what I saw.

I was trying to figure out why was I drawn to the desert and what made me love it so much. In the movie Prince Feisal tells Lawrence that ‘No Arab loves the desert. They love water and green trees. There is nothing in the desert and no man needs nothing.’ What I came to understand is that the greatest joy in the desert is not the absence of man but the presence of nothing else. Feisal is right saying that no man needs nothing. At the desert you realise that the only thing you really need is another person to share it with.

Saw a movie Young Victoria, which tells the story of the famous monarch cool enough to have her own tube station.

The movie is great if someone loves movies about picture-perfect characters. Ok, they also show Victoria’s mistakes, but even in her mistakes she is perfect – a mistake is a perfect opportunity for a perfect lesson of how to be a perfect queen in, what the movie’s authors probably thought, a perfect film. I guess you could call it ‘relatively light-hearted’ cinema – though, admittedly quite a good one.

But coming back to the part which I found interesting. There is a scene in which young Victoria is taking a ride with Albert when suddenly a random man takes out two pistols and fires at them. Albert protects Victoria with his own body and is wounded (the attempted assassination by 18 year-old Edward Oxford is a fact, but Albert’s wound is a cinematic fiction). The movie doesn’t focus on the fate of the assassin but one character says that the assassin was a crazy person. I found it very interesting, considering what has recently happened to Silvio Berlusconi. Berlusconi-owned media quickly reacted by saying that ‘the assailant was crazy’.

In both cases, the movie and recent events in Italy, government is quick to sell it as a case of insanity, rather than a symptom of growing discontent in the society. In the movie the scene is preceded by angry mob attacking Buckingham Palace and breaking windows, while ‘No Berlusconi Day’ in Rome attended by 250.000 people preceded the attack in Italy.

The fate of Italian assailant is not yet known but Victoria’s would-be assassin was tried for high treason, found not guilty due to insanity and therefore sent to mental asylum. Though, in all fairness, the monarch’s need to sell it as a case of insanity saved Edward Oxford from a far more gruesome fate. High treason led to the worst possible punishment – being hanged, drawn and quartered. Until 1814 it involved being (following Wikipedia):

• Dragged on a hurdle (a wooden frame) to the place of execution. This is one possible meaning of drawn.
• Hanged by the neck for a short time or until almost dead (hanged).
• Disemboweled and emasculated and the genitalia and entrails burned before the condemned’s eyes (this is another meaning of drawn)
• The body beheaded, then divided into four parts (quartered)

A fate of, among others, William Wallace (a.k.a. Braveheart) who fought for Scotland’s independence or Guy Fawkes who plotted to bomb the parliament. Victoria’s assailant would have been slightly more lucky as in 1840 the punishment was more humane and included just hanging and chopping to pieces.

In Tower of London’s vicinity there’s a charming memento mori in the form of a pub called The Hung, Drawn and Quartered – lovely, no?

Not that the Tower of London looks any more pleasant. Apparently, after executions which happened there and in other parts of London mob would rush to touch mutilated bodies as this was supposed to bring luck.

I found it interesting that rulers separated by centuries react to discontent in surprisingly similar fashion. Insanity still remains a perfect justification for dissatisfaction while YouTube provides a cleaner, yet not much more moral medium for satisfying hunger for executions.

Luckily in London there is a much more moral and probably equally exciting way of  satisfying blood thirst. All one needs to do is head to ‘The Hung, Drawn and Quartered’ and order a platter of raw steak to go with some chopped livers. Yum!

“Fail. Try again. Fail better”

In the context of Zizek’s book it is understood as ‘call to arms’ for Marxists to continue the effort to once more rise from the ashes. Time is important, as financial crisis opened the window of opportunity for radical change and for Marxists to try again – despite a probable failure. But hopefully a better one. I’ve put the quotation as my facebook status (without any context) and the reply I’ve got is quite symptomatic. A friend countered with corporate humour – Dilbert:

“If at first you don’t succeed, try again. Then quit. No use being a fool about it.”

I found it ominously intriguing. When Marxism says “Try again. Fail better.” corporate culture says: “Try again. Then quit.”

It may seem that the ‘Fail better’ part is defeatist and shows hopelessness of the situation. But it is not. As Dupuy says: ‘[a catastrophe’s] actualization – the fact that it takes place – … retroactively creates its necessity’. Therefore to be prepared and avoid another catastrophe we need to act as if it was inevitable. One needs to think beyond ‘now’. Interestingly, there’s a strong parallel with bushido – samurai’s code. The main tenet of the way of the samurai is to live as if one was already dead – nicely showed in Jim Jarmusch’s ‘Ghost Dog’. As a side note, Jarmusch in his other movies was inspired by Beckett. Coming back to bushido, dying without achieving one’s aims is regarded as cowardice and is therefore the worst sin. So while ‘Fail better’ is about constant reinvention and struggle, ‘Then quit’ is a call for immediate seppuku of ideas contrary to corporate capitalism.

Since Samuel Beckett seems to be a sponsor of this post I have to mention a brilliant commission for Tate’s Turbine Hall by a Polish artist Miroslaw Balka.

How It Is – a giant box filled with almost complete darkness. An absolute must-see, or rather must-can’t-see. Check out the photo and you’ll know what I mean.

What does this work have to do with Beckett? It’s titled ‘How It Is’ – the title taken from Beckett’s novel as according to Balka they share a similar sense of minimalism.

I have taken these shots on a recent walk along Thames and was thinking of temporal inconsistency – breaking away from ‘now’, not only in the context of a catastrophe – at least not a world-threatening one – but more prosaically in the context of peeing.

Peeing is, of course, very important when you walk a lot and the ever-present issue is ‘where?’. I always have reservations before walking into a pub/restaurant to pee. Even if I have been there before. Assuming you have the same, I find it interesting that we struggle to break away from ‘now’ and feel it’s not appropriate to use a toilet without being a customer ‘now’. But what if you’ve been a customer before? And probably will be one in the future? I think we struggle to see ourselves in the totality of time and put too much emphasis on ‘now’. So in a radical spirit I say: let’s stop! Past actualization and future probability means we have paid our toilet dues and will continue to pay them in the future! Let’s take our moral reservations and flush them with vengeance! In my personal call to arms I say:

If you have ever ‘Failed’ your bladder because of misguided morality fuelled by limitations in perception of time ‘Try again!’. As if you knew next time you’ll ‘Fail better’.

This is the true way of the walking samurai.

I’ve read in a London guidebook that you should not do this because in the advanced and sophisticated British society emancipated liberal women would feel offended. You would imply, according to the guidebook, ‘Me powerful Tarzan, you weak Jane’ – an offensive statement of course. Seriously, would women feel offended?

Continuing on the topic of giving your seat to someone I’ve heard a great group conversation just few days ago. The issue was whom should you give your seat to. The group agreed on disabled, elderly and other usual suspects. It got interesting when one person asked what about nuns. Silence was broken by: no, unless she’s pregnant!

Putting jokes aside, as of late I’ve been reading ‘First as Tragedy than as Farce’ by a Marxist philosopher Zizek who argues, following other philosophers, that modern-day colonization happens not only via political-economic medium but also on a moral and linguistic level. Liberal West haunted by remorse beats itself in its chest and loudly says: we’ve done horrible things and we need to help developing countries to develop as we hindered their progress before by exploiting their peoples and resources. According to Zizek, by accepting the role of victims developing countries make a mistake because in this way they accept Western mercy and a divisive language. Western countries made a smooth transition from: ‘Us powerful – you weak and conquered’, to ‘Us powerful in our mercy – you humble in your acceptance of our much-needed help’. The cycle of dependency continues.

It struck me that on a personal level giving your seat to someone can be seen as a barbaric macho gesture while on a political level not helping is seen as disgusting. Obviously, the person seating on the tube did not cause another passenger’s disability (at least most of the time), pregnancy (also highly improbable, especially with nuns), and certainly did not ‘make’ someone old or female. But neither did a vast majority of Western citizens cause colonization and yet the feeling of guilt lingers. On the flip side, a Marxist would say a country should not accept the role of a victim, should proudly say that whatever happened in the past belongs to the past and should without hesitation talk about positive and negative sides of colonization. At the same time communist societies are famous for their immense courtesy (as empty as it may be) and it is unthinkable not to give one’s seat to a woman.

I’m still struggling to decide which sort of consistency I should choose: seat is mine and independent poor countries reject international aid, or I stand and the cycle of colonial dependency continues.  Zizek as a fervent supporter of psychoanalysis would probably say that on a subconscious level my inability to decide is the Real reason why I choose the easiest solution: to walk.

Coming back to my astrowalk. The most amazing thing is the experience of infinity. Probably the most palpable experience of infinity you can have without doing magic mushrooms. I mean infinity, not space. Though I have never done it I guess skydiving is not really about infinity, it’s about movement in space. So is bungee jumping. Flying above the clouds without being able to clearly say where sky begins is just beautiful. Nothing substitutes the experience, but photos are still better than words, so here goes.

It reminded my of El Salar in Bolivia – one of the most amazing places on Earth. Maybe the reason why it’s so breathtaking is exactly because it is like flying in a sense that one can really feel infinity. There is simply nothing on the horizon.

I consider the walk to end once we went below the clouds again – yet another spectacular sight.

Unfortunately, all things come to an end. Even infinity.

Last post was far too long and far too word-heavy so this time it will be mostly about photos. During last two weeks I found some interesting things on my daily London walks and also had a chance to do an astrowalk (which will come in the next post). But first some more down-to-earth stuff. I found this desolate plaza just behind the old town hall which has a metaphysical loneliness to it – in other words reminded me of de Chirico’s empty plazas filled with overwhelming structures. It’s a shame Tate doesn’t have too many de Chirico’s as they are super-impressive. There is something ominous in those paintings – maybe the sheer size of the structures against tiny people, or distorted perspective, or shades falling from different angles. I felt the London plaza had a similar quality, though without the surreal elements, obviously.

Another discovery involved aliens. This otherwise ordinary phone booth has a cool thing to it. As you can see it has an alien face – you can see its eyes, forehead and mouth. What is even cooler it reflects light and since I was there late in the day I managed to catch it in a few different shades depending on the source of light – car’s headlights, bikers back light etc. I wonder who made it, what for and how. I was particularly happy with the discovery as you can only see the alien from a particular angle.

Since this post seems to be sponsored by the word ‘series’ I’ll wrap it up with another spooky combination. On the same walk I stopped at Charing Cross to enjoy people watching. Tried to catch the ghost-like fluctuations of crowds rushing home (with an obligatory British stopover at a pub, which temporarily transforms them into red-eyed zombies filling the tube everyday after 6).

Sinister plazas, aliens on phone booths, ghosts at train stations – definitely an extraordinary city.

He posed a series of interesting questions. The one which proved most thought-provoking was an example of a market for refugees. In the hypothetical scenario a large number of civilians try to flee their unnamed troubled country (though it could just as well be Sudan or Afghanistan or any other war ridden country) and are temporarily in a refugee camp. There is a problem who will take them. Given the problem the international community agrees to set quotas and so the richest and biggest country will take – say 1000, than another country 800 and another one just 50. The important bit is that, as with carbon allowances, a country can buy itself out of meeting its quota. In other words it can pay another country to take the extra number of refugees. Now… the question is: is that just and moral? And therefore, should this sort of policy be implemented…
The problem made me think about this sculpture in a small park next to the Parliament – The Burghers of Calais by Rodin. An elaborate story is available on wiki, but to make a long story short – Edward the III occupied Calais until starvation crept into the city. Then he told them, either give us six volunteers to execute or we kill you all. The sculpture represents the heroic six.

People watching the sculpture seem to contemplate the fate of the chained six. Doesn’t it seem as the burghers of Calais are like the refugees and the observers are us contemplating the issue of market for refugees?
Coming back to the moral question, I think a more popular answer, also shared by the cartoon/professor, was that market for refugees is deeply immoral as it is essentially trading people – it reminded some of slavery. It is also immoral that a country may buy itself out of a moral obligation. It is hard to argue against these points. Market for refugees is immoral, using money to avoid obligations is immoral. However, these arguments are strong only when uttered in a clean, safe and pain-free setting of lecture halls. The problem forces a clash between morality as an idea and morality as a feeling. Unfortunately, a setting where these sorts of disputes happen is more conducive to emphasis on the ideological level. It is easy to preach morality when the issue is out-of-sight. Would the answer be the same if we were to face the refugees? Would anyone volunteer to go to a refugee camp and tell the people there that they need to stay in the camp until the war is over and then go back to their homes – homes which are probably already gone because of our moral values? Good luck.
A crucial insight here is that policy should not be rejected on purely moral grounds. In the real world, as opposed to a perfect world, there are trade-offs and difficult choices. In the case of the market for refugees I’m not preaching utilitarianism or inhumane pragmatism. The market for refugees is a good solution not because it raises overall utility (though it does, as marginal utility of moving refugees to a new home is very high) or because it solves the inconvenient problem of photos of thousands of horribly poor people cramped behind a fence appearing in our colourful magazines.
It is a good solution because it makes the ones who are the worst off significantly better off without seriously harming anyone else (to some extent it harms the tax payers in a country off loading its obligations but the sum per capita would probably amount to much less than what government officials spend on gardening and porn movies – in other words so small that no one would have a reason to complain). Do you think the refugees told that they were supposed to go to Sweden but are instead going to Slovenia would say: this is outrages, we will not be traded like a Marxian sack of potatoes? My bet is they would be happy to accept a clean start whether it’s in Sweden or Slovenia. The policy is also just as no one is really making a profit by selling refugees – the sums involved could probably be too small to really make it a fully fledged business. Therefore, I think the Rawlsian concept of justice is the best lighthouse when making these sorts of decisions. The good of the worst off should be of primary concern – not whether a decision pinches somebody’s morality.
The problem of morality reminded me of The Outsider by Albert Camus. In the story a detached man who killed another man is sent to death. However, the main reason behind the verdict is not the crime itself, but the fact that witnesses had seen that the convict did not cry at his mother’s funeral. He must be then a person devoid of feelings and morality and so deserves to die.
The two cases are different as in the first one morality of some barres the others from a decent life and in the second one morality sends someone to death. But the mechanism at work is similar in both cases – morality overrides facts and clouds a solution just in an imperfect world. In both cases, a very egoistic, absurd solutions wins.
Camus championed absurdism (though he is famous as an existentialist) and in The Outsider he commented on human condition and not offered a blueprint for policies. Unfortunately, absurd is all too present in serious life-influencing debates.

P.S. There is an additional link between Camus and important decisions. Camus’ fellow existentialist, Jean Paul Sartre, is one of only two people to decline the Nobel Prize – the other one being a Vietnamese general Le Duc Tho. If I was a president, maybe even a black president, I probably wouldn’t follow French philosophers or Vietnamese generals when it comes to policy-making but I would remember them next time someone throws a prize at me – no peace no prize – simple.

But…. Blackfriars Bridge (which you can see on the pic above -  a protagonist of one of the coolest bloody stories from London) is currently being redeveloped and there is a ‘loooong’ detour to get to Tate. On the detour I bumped into some cool places. The first one is an interesting art work under railway tracks.

A cheap description of the photo would be to say this is the essence of London. Colours, diversity and incessant rush. However, what got me interested more is the fact that works of art build indiscriminately from hundreds of colours – i.e. without emphasise on any one of them – tend to give an overall ‘reddish’ impression. It hardly is a unique observation; Renaissance painters knew it, traffic lights designers know it, lipstick producers will continue to abuse it – for some evolutionary reason red just draws human attention more than any other colour. Still, I found the reddish/pinkish ambience of the work interesting.
Another thing that amazed me was this ad for a pizzeria:

As of late I spot faces in objects – as disturbing as it sounds. On the bright side better to spot faces then other human parts. So for example I saw a combo of a bench and a building looking like a sad old man or spotted an alien-like face in a spilled beer, and also saw a hungry character about to eat something in a small alley just of Strand.

It does look like a face peeking from behind a corner, right?
As I was mostly following my favourite route had the opportunity to take some more shots of the London Eye. The first one is taken from a standard perspective, but in hdr technique – which tends to produce nice colourful pictures.

On another one the Eye forms a halo/laurel wreath above the Battle of Britain heroes.

So yes, it’s nearly Sunday, my lovelies. So smile and have a great day!