Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Dr Murks in a woolen pile

It is suddenly autumn. The witchcraft told "MUTABOR" and the cold wind, the driving rain, the thunder were here in one second. All the light dresses were quickly hidden in the bottom of the cloths chest. And warm sweaters were cleaned from the dust.
Dr Murks put on woolen socks, warm trousers, woolen cardigan, scarf, hat, gloves and thick jacket. The equipment needed to be resistant to the weather conditions. The metal-bottle was taken from the shelf and filled with rum and put to the pocket. That was all.
It gets dark already at 9pm, the time Dr Murks left home. Dr Murks walked on dim-lighted streets towards the city center. The big-big-big screen was put up there. They showed films. They showed films for anybody who teared to come to the town hall square for the cold evening. And there were many. There were a huge pile of woolen people, wearing woolen sweaters and holding woolen blankets around. They were sitting, watching, laughing and crying as the film developed. The huge pile of woolen people on the first days of falls.

Dr Murks gives a lift

Dr Murks went by bus from Tartu to Tallinn, the main highway, 180km, much traffic and high speed. A middle-aged man started to talk to Dr Murks. Odd enough as hardly ever any stranger starts a conversation to anybody else in a bus in this reserved country. But even more odd, as the man was using a bus for this direction for the first in his life. Confirmed driver. He was really exited. He was really discovering a new thing. He was really happy. Dr Murks was happy to spend 2,5h more qualitatively than ordinary reading, thinking and sleeping. The time went quickly. The man did not find the bus-drive as boring, slow and inconvenient as he was expecting. He told that sometimes he spends 2,5h on driving 10km from work to home at peak hours in Tallinn. At the same time he still prefer to go by car as there is no direct public transportation line from the region he lives to the region he works. The bus would take the same time. Unfortunately, it was true.
Some months later, last weekend Dr Murks was driving the first time the same highway. Driving as a driver. The speed limit was 110. Despite the limit, angry flows of cars passed quickly the small red transporter. The road was curvy and Dr Murks breath freely after every curve. The only pleasure was to pick up all hitchhikers from the road side, fortunately there was room for every. By the end of the trip Dr Murks was still convinced that it is no pleasure or convenience to drive a car when there is a possibility to take a bus or train. Even if it takes more time and needs more planning.
For conclusion. It is really hard to change somebodies everyday practices. People are the slaves of their hobbies, customs. The man is not making easy decision when going on a bus and Dr Murks sits on a drivers place with doubts.

Saturday, August 18, 2007

Dr Murks in the kitchen

Dr Murks woke up in the morning and sat by the kitchen table to read. Mr Seal came from his room and started to prepare breakfast. They changed some morning greetings and drank coffee. Read and talk. After a while Mdm Tsipe and Mdm Marichhen woke up, the birthday cake was taken from the fridge and more coffee and more chat. The cake was too sweet and some vegetable-wok was prepared. "Hmmm, would like to do something creative," told Mdm Marichhen, who was just visiting Tartu for the long weekend. Dr Murks and Marichhen went to explore the attic as neither of them had never been there. They found some useful stuff and decided to make some changes in the kitchen, the big Roundtable had waited for its place in the kitchen already since the beginning of the summer. It was the time to clean the room from useless furniture and make the space for this massive table. Siu-siu-siu-siu-siu. Mdm Kusta and Mdm Ave entered the flat to see the final construction-work. The lunch time was about to begin. In the morning Mr Seal had started the project of melting and cleaning the fridge. It means all the pelmenies, jam, fish, meat, butter, milk etc had to be eaten. Cook and chat and eat and eat and eat.

Wednesday, August 15, 2007

Dr Murks in a city machine

On Sunday Dr Murks found some bright spots in the city of Tallinn.
Living in Southern Estonia brainwashes everybody with the visions of arrogant, busy, capitalistic, ugly, stupid, etc Tallinn, the capital of Estonia. Some years ago Dr Murks did not visit the capital for many months, although the family and many friends lived there.. Then the city become as a field of study and Dr Murks started to see it as a functioning region, as flows of people, as a field for planners and architects to fulfill their (crazy) ideas. From this moment on, the city started to be much more interesting, much more inspiring... But still - the people seemed like part of the system, the events were supposed to happen due to the city as a big machine where everybody is just playing the part others expect..
On Sunday Dr Murks had a role as a living book in the Living Library. Whoever was interested on the topic could lend the book and listen, ask questions, comment, discuss.. Big success, big success. Dr Murks was loaned by quite cool people. And, as a good book supposed to, the discussions turned the opposite direction and the Book found out much more about the readers than probable the readers about the Book :). Hmmm, a girl from Udmurtia learning Estonian language and literature, a mother and a tougher who happened to be a mother and a sister of somebody Dr Murks knows and the talk turned around to discuss how he is doing, how is his life going etc.
And later Dr Murks visited a White Nights Film Festival. The films were projected on an electricity box by the street in the burgh named "The New World". It is not a new city district, built probable in the beginning of 20th century, but the streets names are: Planet, Comet, Little America, Dawn etc.Dr Murks ancestries used to live there in the 50s. Now the local community tries to enliven their region and signs on the streets ask everybody to join the Film Nights... All together maybe 20 people come, sit on a grass and listens Regina from Citylab to explain the content of the films. Chill, chill. Three films. Finally at midnight Dr Murks sits on a bike and rides back to the suburbs where the family is living. Empty streets, rare cars, rare walkers, rare street-cleaners, dark night.
The city machine turned to function much more interestingly than seen from the South.

Monday, August 13, 2007

Dr Murks makes 23h walk

Start at 6am and end at 5am the next day. Through the thick forest, swamps and rivers, along gravel roads... To find the points marked on the map, to fulfill the tasks... Conquering the midday sun and 30 degrees heat, looking through the thick darkness at night blundering on sods, stumps and boles. Sleepwalking on straight and endless road. And finally - when the feet are so tender that only small-small steps are allowed - to see the moon stripe in the sky and the dawn light that is taking over. Uhuuuuuuuuu

Sunday, August 5, 2007

Dr Murks on a jumping ball

There are too many children! The world is changing to a child-earth. At least in Tartu. It seams that on average once a week Dr Murks hears a news of somebodies pregnancy or birth. On the events with friends there are often more children than grown-ups :S. The children are taking over!
All girls in the world in the minority of "baby-less", unite in the fate of NOT having children. Keep your identity! To not let anybody to teach you the words - beestings, diapers, playsuit etc. To not let them grab you into the club of parents. Though, the pressure is high, the pressure is high.

Hmm, at the same time. Dr Murks really likes to jump on a jumping ball and play horsemen and knights, lay and play on fresh-cut grass, hear and tell the fairy-tales... on these child-rich events. Maybe it is not even too bad that some people are called mothers...

Friday, August 3, 2007

Dr Murks is a handybilly

Dr Murks is sitting on sofa and lets his imagination fly to a wet trip in Karelia, on the other side of the arctic circle.

The team is: Svetka, Masha, Ljoha, Ksusha, Zhenja and Lena. The whole trip can be described with one sentence: "To plan or not to plan? - there is no question as in the end everything will anyway solve smoothly".
There should be a map for not getting lost on the lakes and rivers. In the case Ljoha did not think about it before there is also a change to make pictures of the maps of other tourists in the train. If Svetka makes face enough sad they finally feel pity and give the map as a present.

Everybody should make sure that байдарка (kayak) is in one peace and does not have дырки (holes).









Specially Masha and Svetka must needle and glue the one carefully before using it as the canvas is old and with the sun is shining through it.







Zenja and Ljoha and Svetka and... are happily making plans where to go. Specially because they found out that the original ideas include a 5km river with all together 80m downfall and stream to the opposite direction :S. The planning will take ages and it is never-ending as the no plan is finally fulfilled. There are always some surprises and keep the brain and mood fresh. Everybody is happily making new and new plans.

Meanwhile just relax and грести (oar). Collect the paper for penalty fare because nobody knew and could not imagine that the байдарка has to be registered :S. And милиция (police) can also wait on 10m2 islands. As least Lena knows that the fine will be expired in half a year and all are willing to wait for these 6 months.

Nevertheless, oaring is opened when the sun is up and also at 2am when the sunlight is still there.









At midnight there is a time to make a stop for обед (lunch) to stew some грибок (mushrooms) with гречка (buckwheat).






In addition to lake-oaring the crew has to cover some distance between the острый камень (sharp stones).








As on-going planning did not succeed arranging train tickets back to the City the hitchhiking trip is leading Svetka and Masha to a bigger town.




And later to a small wooden village Kovda by White Sea to meet the other members of the pack. Due to a different reasons they reach 8h earlier than the others. Much time to examine the village. It turns out that Kovda is a mecca of intelligence. On the picture the intelligence can be seen - a programmer, a philologist, a самовар (a type of teapot), Svetka and a geologist. As the Sea is famous for its high biodiversity - there was also a biology center on the other side of the river.

White Sea is full of different seaweed, shells, starfish, mammals... It is easy to get friends with the rock-star Camilla and her band.







Finally, not to undervalue the importance of a fire-place during a water-rich travel.

Thursday, August 2, 2007

Dr Murks is wearing Red Belt

Just like that. Amazing how just small details give so much confidence. Everything is musical!

Tomorrow :) will Dr Murks tell you about a famous rock-star Camilla and her band - Edmond, Edward, Edgar..

Wednesday, August 1, 2007

Dr Murks wishes to speak all languages

Communication is so difficult. It is easy to listen. It is easy to listen but it is annoying not to get everything that is said. It is hard to listen when half of the text is disappearing. But it is even harder to find the way to reply and be understood. It takes just ages to chose the correct words, not to make mistakes and finally say them out. It is just terrifying to see from the partners face that nothing is understood and the words are just fallen down to the ground or gone by the wind... But tomorrow will be everything made clear. Tomorrow, tomorrow, there is always tomorrow. Or not?