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October 31, 2006
How Capitalist is Poland?
"Ulotki i reklamy prosz? wrzuca? do skrzynki" say the signs outside the doors of the flats on the leafy X. estate in Gda?sk. This means "please place advertisements and flyers in the box" but the receptacle into which the obliging postmen have placed the advertisements and flyers looks an awful lot like a wastepaper basket.
Some elements of capitalism are still foreign to the Poles. I'm not sure you coud get away with the above in the west -- or at least not without years of patient manoeuvring and exploiting data protection laws. Postmen would probably be sacked for "cheating" one of the post office's biggest customers: junk mailers.
You see it much less nowadays but ten, fifteen years ago it was common to see in shops blocks of butter cut in half for the benefit of customers who could not afford or did not want a whole pound of the stuff in one go. The half block of butter always cost half as much as the full block. The same was true of loaves of bread. Poles had evidently missed the crucial lesson of capitalism: the poor must always pay more than the rich. "Bulk purchase discount" I believe it is called in more polite circles, or "economies of scale." "Free to those that can afford it. Very expensive to those that can't" as Withnail put it.
Some capitalist lessons have been learnt poorly or perhaps over-eagerly. For example, today I saw loyalty cards advertised in the supermarket. Price five zloties. Who would pay for someone to spy on them? Poles, obviously. After all, their banks frequently charge them money to lodge cash into their own accounts. But the true capitalist does not disdain any sum of money, however small. Until recently many banks here would not let you save money with them (read: lend them money for a neglible interest rate) unless your income exceeded a certain threshold. Banks still make ridiculous demands on their customers that stem either from ignorance or arrogance. It's as if they don't want your custom and if you can't trust the banks to be capitalist, who can you?
Posted by hgrodsk at 02:34 PM | Comments (0)
October 28, 2006
Attention to Detail II (III? IV?)
Look, Polish novelists who stop by here. In case I'm not making myself clear enough: you have to re-read your books to make sure they make sense. Jack Kerouac can write a book in one non-stop draft, but you're not Jack Kerouac. Today's offender is Marek Krajewski, in his Festung Breslau. His attention to the cartography of World War Two Wroc?aw (the Breslau of the title) is remarkable. It turns out that the Lindner factory was opposite the former shelter for the homeless.
But not everything happens above ground. Two characters go into the underground world of Wroc?aw. I mean literally underground: in the novel there is a network of spacious corridors beneath the city streets; not narrow, fetid tunnels of stinking sewage but tunnels able to accomodate a motorcycle. It's not with the frankly fantastic idea of a second Wroc?aw existing beneath the ground (the tunnels conveniently follow the street plan) that the problem arises. Suspension of disbelief and all that, and besides, maybe it's true. What do I know? The problem is with the motorcycle. Noisy old contraptions, motorbikes, especially in enclosed spaces, like, say, underground tunnels. Krajewski realises this, writing:
...dojechali po dziesi?ciu minutach jazdy w og?uszaj?cym huku silnika, zwielokrotnionym przez puste korytarze.
...they got there after a ten minute journey accompanied by the deafening roar of the engine, multiplied by the empty corridor.
Go back just one page and you find the motorcyclist (still underground) kick-starting the engine and continuing unhindered his conversation with a third character.
I wonder if it's because of word processors. Perhaps the idea of first, second, third drafts has gone, replaced by one, rolling, continuous -- clearly inadequate -- re-write, during which the author never gets the necessary distance from his precious baby to see such glaring errors. Either that or editors are not being paid enough.
Posted by hgrodsk at 02:46 PM | Comments (0)
October 27, 2006
Capitalist Tools
Gazeta Wyborcza's motto is "Nam nie jest wszystko jedno," or "it's not all the same to us." The crusading force is strong in this one. There was the schools campaign (motto: the inspired "class with class"), which I am told was a nightmare of added paperwork for the teachers involved -- which was nearly all of them, like it or not. Then there was (is?) the "rodzi? po ludzku" (give birth like a human being -- I can't be bothered to translate it any better than that) campaign. The new one is "Przejrzyste wybory" (transparent elections) in which they invite candidates for election to "completely of their own free will" open themselves up to the scrutiny of voters. Just as teachers completely of their own free will opened up their classrooms to the nosey parkers of their local newspapers.
GW's faith in the efficacy of electoral politics is touching. Doing something more constructive than pestering your local bribe-taker with questions about the traffic jams on the road outside your house is not quite so indulgently viewed. At the moment Greek school teachers are out on strike and have been joined by their pupils. The teachers want more pay; the pupils want easier access to universities; students are unhappy with the favouritism shown by the government to private universities. Today's paper describes Greek prime minister Kostas Karamanlis as a conservative -- not a populist, even though he is reneging on a promise to raise the share of GDP spent on education to a princely 5%. If "populist" means anything, surely it means someone who makes promises not intended to be kept.* Reading between the lines of GW's report today (by Jacek Pawlicki) it is clear that Greek teachers, pupils and students are joining in a concerted effort to (re-)build what Poles call a "solidarne pa?stwo," a state based on solidarity. But they're doing it all wrong. Pawlicki warns that patience with the strikers is wearing thin: parents are "furious" at teachers for using children in the struggle (just as the gutter press and Dziennik were furious at doctors during the recent strike here). Pawlicki's article contains two direct quotes. One is, inevitably, from Kostas Karamanlis himself. The other is from a blogger who thinks the teachers deserve a kick up the arse for daring to look for more money.
The share of Greek GDP spent on education is kept low so that, among other things, state universities have a shortage of places, driving students into private diploma factories. This is what is happening in Poland now but the Poles are too cowed to do anything more than stump up the exorbitant fees, emigrate, or join in petty media campaigns to paper over the fissures in society. Those with some spirit left in them, like the miners and doctors, who realise that just just because Poland is a democracy doesn't mean you don't have to fight for your rights, are routinely denigrated in the quality papers.
* "Chcesz cukierka, id? do Gierka," they used to say when the target was not capitalism (it means "if you want a sweetie, ask [first secretary] Gierek".)
Posted by hgrodsk at 05:10 PM | Comments (0)
October 26, 2006
Sophistication
"This essay was commissioned by the guest editors of a special issue of the academic journal Social Text but rejected by the journal's editorial collective on the grounds it was theoretically unsophisticated that included a 'cheap shot' at professors." This message precedes an article by Robert Jensen, who is always worth reading, on academic freedom in Counterpunch. I suppose that can only be the same Social Text that was taken in by Alan Sokal, whose article for that magazine was famously theoretically sophisticated, but also nonsensical.
Posted by hgrodsk at 07:28 PM | Comments (0)
October 25, 2006
Excuses, excuses
On October 23rd the BBC news website reported that Sony was delaying the release of a new product in Europe until 2007, even though it is already on sale in Asia. The reason given was that the machines did not meet European safety standards. Today a second reason is given: "stock shortages of vital components." Perhaps if this story keeps on running, Sony will supply still more official reasons why it is keeping Europeans waiting for the product. Perhaps, if we wait long enough, Sony will get round to the "dog ate my homework sir."
The company which was exporting the Sony goods, Lik-Sang, has accused Sony of using its service to procure Sony products, apparently breaking the law in the process. Sony are hilariously accusing Lik Sang of contravening data protection laws by naming directors who bought the equipment. Attention all prosecutors: if you accuse me of a crime I can sue you for breaching my right to privacy.
Today's version of the story is here.
Posted by hgrodsk at 06:48 PM | Comments (0)
October 24, 2006
Election Sausage
Local elections are approaching and all over Poland (presumably -- I haven't been all over it myself) teams of workers are energetically engaged in infrastructural work. Roads are being resurfaced, roundabouts rationalised and parks prettified. It's not fooling anyone: "kie?basa wyborcza" (election sausage) is what Poles call this transparent bribery of the general public. My personal favourite flavour of kie?basa wyborcza is the "kostki brukowe" (small, fancy interlocking paving stones that cost several times as much to lay as just about anything else) which pop up in the most unlikely places around Poland: not just on salubrious tree-lined boulevards in the big cities, but at seemingly random intervals alongside devestated, seldom-trod country roads.
And it's all on the never never a friend who is running for election as a counsellor told me.
Posted by hgrodsk at 03:28 PM | Comments (0)
October 23, 2006
Feelings, nothing more than feelings
From the BBC news website today on Sony's decision to prosecute people who import certain goods into Europe: "Critics of Sony's approach feel that the electronics giant is preventing gamers in Europe from getting their hands on Play Station 3s early, even if they have to pay a hefty premium." Critics of Sony don't think. They feel.
Posted by hgrodsk at 11:19 PM | Comments (0)
October 17, 2006
Dirty Reality
Dirty Realism is the term critics use to describe the writings of Marek Nowakowski. He writes about people "on the margins" -- drunkards, pimps, criminals, cat torturers, anal rapists and so on -- Polish writers seemingly unable to discern the vast mass of people that lie in between the intelligentsia and the dregs. One collection of short stories is entitled Ch?opak z go??biem na g?owie (The Boy with the Pigeon on his Head) and consists almost entirely of beatings, failure, degradation and man's inhumanity to man. Some of the stories, I should say at once, are very good, like "Sezon" (Season), in which the narrator reveals that he has done a bit of bird himself.
But after a while the catalogue of misery starts to read like -- well, a catalogue. It becomes laughably predictable. The 27th story is the unintentionally hilarious "Odmieniec" (roughly, The Misfit). It opens with a typical busy Warsaw street scene, into which wanders the misfit of the title: a young man (probably a bleedin' stew-dent) with long hair.
After 26 stories mostly about people getting screwed over in dear old Warsaw (what characters used to live there! They're all gone now, all gone) you can guess more or less what happens in the 27th. Long-hair is saved from a beating (but not from a manhandling and a public humiliation) at the hands of three regular salt-of-the-margins types only by the chance appearance of the fuzz. But here's where the critics' label shows its inadequacy: the first line of the story is "This happened in the afternoon in the busiest part of town in front of a modern department store." So a young man is roughed up in broad daylight in the busiest part of town and nobody lifts a finger to intervene. Dirty the stories may be, but how realistic is this unrelieved misery?
This kind of thing hardly ever happens in my gated complex.
Posted by hgrodsk at 09:01 PM | Comments (0)
October 16, 2006
Devil, details, etc.
Traktat o ?uskaniu fasoli (Treatise on shelling beans) is the title of Wies?aw My?liwski's latest book. It takes that most self-indulgence-prone form of a monologue (delivered to a stranger). In one passage from the essay -- errr, novel -- the narrator describes an incident from his childhood. Children can be so cruel some times, and this being Polish literature, this is most definitely one of those times. The children play a "game" in which the loser has to do whatever he is told by the winners. Note the cunning here (My?liwski certainly does): there is no one winner, only one loser. The consequences of losing are so awful that one child jumps through a (closed) window and another takes refuge by diving into the latrine, almost drowning in his fellows' fecal matter in the process. Happy, happy days! The great romantic poet, Adam Mickiewicz, wrote a wistful verse once in which he described his childhood as "sielskie, anielskie" (idyllic, angelic) and it would seem Polish writers ever since have been trying to outdo each other in showing how well hard and unromantic their childhoods were in comparison with that of their national poet. Back to My?liwski:
In other words, the point of the game was not to win, as is the object of all other games.All other games? This comes directly after discussing, among other games, two-player games, in some of which winning means not losing, i.e exactly the same as in My?liwski's "unique" game. Only a lot more fun.
Posted by hgrodsk at 07:14 PM | Comments (0)
Astroturf
A soap maker named Unilever is trying to start a debate about beauty in Poland. The back page of this weekend's Gazeta Wyborcza is entirely given over to an advertis-- sorry, a manifesto about "real beauty." (Fair play to GW: it is clearly marked advertisement.) Straight away there is something suspiciously close to a tautology: "The canon of womanly beauty has for too long been shaped by the image (wizerunek) of emaciated models." Thinness is the canon, a canon, which, I suspect, is shaped not by images or visions but by real people: designers, advertisers, manufacturers of beauty products and so forth. (One of the people featured in the "debate" on their website is a stylist and designer.)
But the most interesting thing about this odious document is its use and abuse of the simple little word "we." The second sentence says women all over the world have been giving clear signals that they want a change. Furthermore, "A my je w tym popieramy" (And we support them in this ). Here, "we" ("my") clearly means Unilever. (I say "clearly," but actually the word "Unilever" does not appear anywhere in the adv-- sorry, manifesto.) However, the advertesto continues "Jeste?my przekonane, ?e..." The grammatical form here ("przekonane", not "przekonani") indicates that "we" refers to women, i.e. not to Unilever. And so it goes: "we" want to live genuinely, "we" want to regain our self-confidence, "we" want to feel beautiful regardless of our age.
The cynicism of this marketing ploy is betrayed in every sentence. "We believe that every centimetre of our body, from top to bottom, deserves less criticism and more love." In this sentence is an implied criticism, and a harsh one at that: you (not "we") don't love yourself enough. If you really loved yourself you would buy our soap.
"We want to regain self-confidence and self respect" implies: you lack these qualities. Buy our soap.
"We want to be able to say 'I like myself the way I am'" implies: you do not like yourself the way you are. Buy our soap.
"Standing before the mirror we want to be able to laugh and treat our wrinkles and imperfections with approbation and a smile" implies: you do not now like to look at yourself in the mirror. You have imperfections. Buy our soap.
"We want to learn to accept our womanhood" implies: you think you might be a man. Buy our soap.
"We want to live genuinely" implies: you are living a lie. Buy our soap.
"Join the debate." Buy our soap.
Fatso.
Posted by hgrodsk at 01:10 AM | Comments (0)
October 14, 2006
Theatre of the Absurd
I suppose it is only fitting in this, the centenary year of Samuel Beckett's birth, that Poland take the last (?) few decisive steps to total absurdity. A Polish friend asked me last night if I had heard that Giertych wanted to stop the teaching of Darwinism in schools. Huh? Then I remembered: no that's not Roman Giertych (minister of education) but his father, Maciej, a Franco-admiring MEP and crackpot. All he did was use the EU facilities to "debate" the theory of evolution.
But no, it's worse than some MEP (virtually powerless and totally ineffectual by (intelligent) design) spouting off about monkeys and God. Poland's deputy minister for education, Miros?aw Orzechowski, says in today's Gazeta Wyborcza, and I quote, lest I be accused of making this shit up:
Teoria ewolucji to k?amstwo.The theory of evolution is a lie.
Grim, bleak and all though he may have been, Beckett was at times quite funny.
Posted by hgrodsk at 01:36 PM | Comments (0)
October 13, 2006
The Devil is in the Detail
It's a good thing I'm not a proper book reviewer, editor, or proof reader or anything. I would be unbearable. Reading Reisefieber by Miko?aj ?ozi?ski, for instance, I keep running into annoying lapses. Who the hell cares if the narrator (when working as a journalist) takes his lunch break at two in the afternoon? I do: he starts work at eight. I can't take seriously the soul searching of someone who only stops to eat after six hours, i.e. (since this is France of the 7 hour working day) about one hour before knocking off time. And that the narrator makes a living now by doing "small" translations from French and Swedish? Is it possible to support oneself in Paris by doing "small" translations? It isn't in Dublin, or not unless you do an awful lot of them. And then there's Astrid, who before going out washes her hands and only notices they are still wet when she is in the lift. Does her flat have no door handles? The lift no buttons? The narrator, like the author, is a writer (indeed, he resembles ?ozi?ski in many -- purely superficial, of course -- ways) whose friends often ask him how the book is going (aren't non-writers so annoying?) Some ask him what it will be about, to which he replies that it will be a "modern novel." Fortunately, he thinks, no one has had the interest or the courage to ask him what this means. Real friends -- the kind you might find outside the pages of a novel -- would put up a better show of interest. If you wanted your plebian non-writer mates to stop bugging you with questions about the book you wouldn't pique their curiosity by calling it a "modern novel." And besides, the question asked is "what's the book about" ("o czym to b?dzie") not "what kind of a book is it."
By way of contrast, here's Tadeusz Ró?ewicz (59 years ?ozi?ski's senior) in the stage directions to his Akt przerwany: "On the shelf lie a few grey hairs, which cannot be seen from the auditorium."
That's more like it.
(You can find this play ("The Interrupted Act") in a collection called "The Card Index" and Other Plays, translated by Adam Czerniawski, published by Calder and Boyars, London, 1969.)
Posted by hgrodsk at 11:38 PM | Comments (0)
October 12, 2006
Gun Law and Justice
"It's War," says today's Dziennik, referring to further political revelations, machinations and deteriorations of relations in parliamentary politics which I won't go into here. But there is one intriguing item in the article: once, many years ago, Donald Tusk made fun of Jaros?aw Kaczy?ski's voice. Kaczy?ski repsonded by pulling a (legally held) gun on Tusk! I don't use exclamation marks lightly and I had to re-read the sentence several times but yes, Kaczy?ski actually aimed a real gun at Tusk! Could I have misunderstood? It seems not: later on the journalist (Piotr Zaremba) speculates if today Kaczy?ski might have pulled the trigger.
W odpowiedzi Kaczy?ski wyci?ga spod marynarki pistolet... i mierzy w Tuska.In reply, Kaczy?ski took out a gun from under his jacket... and aimed it at Tusk.
At least Kazimiera Szczuka was only censured and her TV network fined for mocking someone's voice.
Posted by hgrodsk at 01:50 PM | Comments (0)
October 11, 2006
Pray and Save
"Everyone knows the key to building wealth is through saving and investing" begins one of those newsoid articles that internet portals use to pad out their pages. Written by God knows who at the behest of God knows what financial institution, the opening line at least has the merit of ditching that ridiculous myth about how hard work is the key to wealth. The lie put in its place is that investing money is the key: "investing" is what is really meant by people who talk about "saving" and how the state and your employer is going to screw you over with a starvation pension when you retire. You can place your trust in your employer, the state or a banker gambling what's left of your savings after deducting his administration fees on the stock market. Some choice!
Posted by hgrodsk at 10:12 AM | Comments (0)
October 10, 2006
Marketing
I came across an ad in a current affairs magazine today. Here it goes: "Most women put quality first! 100% fewer hot flushes, 94% less excessive sweating, 98% less sleeplessness. [brandname]. Active extract SE 2000. Choose [brandname] medicine whose [sic] effectiveness and safety have been confirmed by scientific research!"
Phew, I thought. Those other medicines that had the side effects of excessive sweating, hot flushes and sleeplessness must have been awful. I wonder what it is that they (and [brandname]) cure?
I know what you're thinking: of course those aren't the side effects: they're the symptoms (of menopause) that the medicine treats. But I cheated: I didn't tell you that the ad features a big picture of a woman aged about 28. Threw me right off the menopausal track. I was under the impression women stopped having periods in their 40s and, more usually, 50s.
And how about that SE2000, eh?
Posted by hgrodsk at 09:48 PM | Comments (0)
October 08, 2006
Give and Take
The EU and the US have come to a new agreement on the "sharing" of passenger information on transatlantic flights (or the west-bound ones anyway). The negotiations were carried on under some duress - err, with a degree of urgency - because the previous agreement on spying on (among other things) the meal preferences of Europeans had to lapse on October 1st due to the small problem of it being illegal. However, the Americans were insisting, levying fines on airlines who did not break European law and supply the information to various US agencies.
So hats off to our steely European negotiators. They stuck to their Euroguns and heroically won major concessions from the world's number one superpower: under the terms of the new agreement the US will not take the information; it will be given it.
Posted by hgrodsk at 11:39 PM | Comments (0)
October 07, 2006
Pretty Pictures
Last week's Polityka has an article on that most intrusive of the arts: architecture. Like their fellow members of the ??e-elity at the Gazeta Wyborcza, they seem think it a terrible shame that Poles are so backward looking. They just don't appreciate the efforts made by thrusting, forward-looking engineers -- errr, I mean architects of course. I have not read the illustrated article - hence the title - so stop reading if you think I should have read it before commenting.
The article has examples of good modern architecture in Poland and abroad. From abroad we have the tumorous bladder that is the Kunsthaus in Graz. From Ireland we have a science fiction confection from Daniel Liebeskind - not built yet and unfortunately giving ammunition to those who say architecture is just drawing nice pictures of buildings and letting engineers figure out how to make them. Still, that's all a matter of taste. What isn't, though, is the amazing coincidence that all the good buildings in Poland pictured (except one interior shot) are the same: big glass boxes. By a truly amazing coincidence, one of those glass boxes houses the publishers of Gazeta Wyborcza.
Unrelated item: in the latest Polityka there is a photograph of the sign at the Polish military base in Afghanistan: "Camp White Eagle," the manly soldiers proudly proclaim.
Posted by hgrodsk at 07:10 PM | Comments (1)
Useful Idiots
It appears I have been going too easy on Gazeta Wyborcza. Here's Tony Judt on Adam Michnik, its editor: "Today, America�s liberal armchair warriors are the �useful idiots� of the War on Terror. In fairness, America�s bellicose intellectuals are not alone. In Europe, Adam Michnik, the hero of the Polish intellectual resistance to Communism, has become an outspoken admirer of the embarrassingly Islamophobic Oriana Fallaci..." Refreshing to see a Western European who is aware of the existence of Eastern Europe. Judt's article is at The London Review of Books.
Judt was supposed to give a talk at the Polish Consul in New York but it was called off at short notice. According to Judt this was after pressure from Jewish organisations. Judt is critical of Israel and is as a result sometimes accused of anti-Semitism. In reporting this incident, Gazeta Wyborcza (October 6th) scrambled to find a Judt quote which might seem to justify such charges. This was what they came up with:
The very idea of a Jewish state, a state in which Jews and the Jewish religion have exceptional privileges from which non-Jewish citizens are permanently excluded comes from a different era. In short: Israel is an anachronism.Chilling indeed: can Judt really be saying that establishing religion is out of date?
The church was disestablished in Ireland in 1869.
Posted by hgrodsk at 06:48 PM | Comments (0)
October 04, 2006
Life's Poor Pageantry
A few words on the political situation here. The coalition is broken and PiS is looking around for MPs it can persuade to jump ship and join them. How to persuade them? Well, with the promise of jobs of course - a secretary of stateship for you, for instance. A PiS official was secretly filmed making such an offer to a Renata Beger of Samoobrona, the party that left/was pushed out of the coalition. He also made vague (or concrete, depending on whether you have the patience to read the transcripts) promises to use (tax-payers'? PiS? - read the transcript if you can stand it) money to pay the fines that Samoobrona deputies have to pay to the party leader if they leave. Yes, you read that correctly: Samoobrona introduced something more fearful than the mere party whip to keep discipline, though there is some doubt over the legality of the arrangement.
So in short, nothing has changed:
Well-known dictator posing in port with young and old in traditional garb.
Well-known democrat posing in port with young and old in traditional garb.
Posted by hgrodsk at 03:54 PM | Comments (0)
October 02, 2006
Instasaint
Taking pot shots at holy cows without even troubling to study the deeper philosophical issues involved -- especially where a recently deceased and well-loved public figure is involved -- is a cheap and nasty way of drumming up some publicity, which has a long and dishonorable history. So here goes: two of the most respectable newspapers have joined in the campaign to make Karol Wojty?a a saint (posters saying "Santo Subito" have been a common sight for the last year in Poland). It seems, however, that to be sainted it is not enough to be an all round good guy. It's not enough to lay down one's life for one's fellow man or woman; not enough to shelter Jews from Nazis; not enough to act as a human shield against surgical strikes (or bulldozers for that matter); not enough to stick by the principles of a revealed faith in the teeth of people calling for "modernisation." You also have to break the laws of physics. So now people are burrowing into the Pope's past to find "evidence" of miracles. Serious newspapers are reporting this wild goose chase. [Self-censorship follows: it had something to do with infantilism.]
Posted by hgrodsk at 06:09 PM | Comments (0)