Mark's Random Thoughts

For those who don’t know, I picked up a couple of works from an artist called Talantbek Chekirov. He is a superbly talented (or talantbeked) artist from Kygystan (some troubles out there at the moment so I don’t know how long we will be calling that country by that name).
Anyway, got the paintings framed and they look darn good… (I would put pics of the framed versions except the lighting was wrong)

Silver Glance

Graceful

Some notes about the artist – fully ripped from the Forest Gallery site (http://www.forestgallery.com – worth a visit, the staff are lovely posh and cute as foxes).

Talantbek Chekirov
An interesting new discovery in the sphere of ornamental art named Talantbek Chekirov was born on April 15, 1971 in the former Soviet republic of Kirghizia. His painting shows varied aspects of the beautiful and the decorative in art; his works are extracts of his rich and broadly situated ideas concerning the ideal notion of the beauty in painting. Therefore, it is of little surprise that such dissimilar genre as landscapes and the stylised antique nude paintings are represented in his work.
Talantbek Chekirov visited the State College of Art between 1986 and 1990. In this period, Chekirov acquired detailed knowledge, in the fields of plastic anatomy, graphics and composition, which highlights his work as an artisan. As regards Chekirovs paintings, one may unequivocally ascertain that now as before “art through proficiency” comes – in the manual as well as the creative sense. In 1990, Chekirov completed his education in the domain of the creative arts with majors in theatrical painting and constructive art.
Thereafter his path led him towards the world famous Bolschoi Theatre in Moscow, where he took over the artistic staging of the scenery between 1990 and 1992. During his travels through Europe from 1992 until 1994, he studied the most important works and artists that had been kept obscured from him during his studies at college. In recent years, close contacts in Germany moved the young painter to settle down at Bochum, Westfalen for the time being.

After a quick, mostly drunk, discussion with the twin thing I figured it might be acceptable to allow him to post blog entries too. There is a chance that we might act as sounding boards for the other (one good, one evil – none too sure which is which myself except I do appear to be holding the ‘go directly to heaven, do not pass go, have some cash card).

There is also the chance that I might log in as admin and randomly delete his posts, hahaha

So, we all have names. Mine as you might know is Mark G. Douglas.

There are though certain places that a pseudonym is more accepted (such as online games and forums). During numerous years of being online I have flitted through a number of such names, including:

TrueSilence: This one back from around the year 2000 – rarely used though.
OkiiSan: Started using this one while playing online games. The phrase was taken from the word ‘Ookii’ after an inference from a Japanese girl I met while travelling Asia.
Tripi/TripiTaka/TripiTarka: Various names used while playing cleric/healing characters in more recent games. The name was taken from the monk who travelled with Monkey in the series.

I was recently on a site though and switching through user names to try to hit upon one that suited the moment. I was making a coffee and then finally thought to use the name ‘Priestly Dow’. So let’s add one:

Priestly Dow: Back when I was 20 or so (some years back, back when real letters were still written by hand in real ink) I used this name as an alias to write some stories to a girl I knew. The name represented a fictional third party who worked as a detective and somehow knew I had met her. He joked around, told stories of himself and mentioned what a nice chap I was (how kind of him).

Did actually bring back some cool memories… from a time when I was naïve and thought the world a nice place.

There is a slight chance I might still use that name for publishing. That’ll be a way in the future though… gotta find somewhere I am comfortable enough to work

Having got it into my head to travel Europe while writing a novel, I obviously needed to sort out a few things. Some of these things, annoyingly, are taking longer than I had expected. That frustration along with some conflicting emotions has brought on a lethargic melancholia. I am also experiencing a restless boredom from being static and re-living the same daily routine time and again. My life has become like Groundhog Day (which oddly is set on my birthday).

Not helpful for writing, not helpful for doing much of anything

Of recent I have been acquainting (and sometimes re-acquainting) myself with some people across Europe. Some I have even planned to detour on the off chance of meeting up for a coffee or some such (ex work colleagues in Budapest for example). One such acquaintance played me like the fool I often am and got me to give my word that I would tell her when I arrived in the city where she lives. We then had a communications break-down (more on ambiguity below) and she stated she never wanted to hear from me again (I’m good with women, me – hehe).

Cannot go there without telling her. Cannot tell her. I figure I only get to keep my word by not going there.
As I say, played like a fool.
There are plenty of other cities and towns though, even if I had been thinking of visiting her’s for several years.

So, melancholic and a bit annoyed at the inherent ambiguity in English…
Perhaps I should be learning Esperanto to avoid this difficulty in future. Only downside is so very few people speak it and there must be a lack of jokes in a language without ambiguity.

Perhaps I should write the first ‘Esperanto Joke Book’

Not having written any code in PHP for several years I have decided to change this site into a standard blog.

I do intend to post as regularly as possible while I travel Europe. I might even add a few photos.