If it helps answer your questions some, my goth girl friends have gone on to-
+ work as an assistant editor at a large publishing company
+ develop an independent fetish/clubwear brand
+ do PR for a high-end (mainstream) fashion label
+ do sales for a feminist sex shop franchise while volunteering at an independent bookstore/coffee shop specializing in counterculture literature
+ work as an IB for JP Morgan
+ own and regularly practice at a veterinary clinic while freelancing as a translator
+ work as a digital user interface engineer for a Silicon Valley company

None of them have completely surrendered their gothic tendencies, but most have reigned them in. One friend likes to joke about being a poseur for making it out of adolescence alive, and ditching Crowley to worship at the House of Starbucks.

I have noticed the role of the extraordinary scientist in both works, as you said. Their research was in both cases initiated by the circumstances of their private lives.

And the idea of the brain as a mirror is terrifyingly great.

*gasp*

Мастер и Маргарита was made into TV! I never knew that! Many thanks for informing me!

I just checked it out on RuTube. (How could I ever live without RuTube?) The ball scene looks interesting -

http://rutube.ru/tracks/861176.html?v=81500db332658b42c912d8ee1b37aebc

There are too many things to say about the book. Perhaps I will find an opportunity to write more about it in greater length. I am always searching for reading materials in Russian and it is high time that I reread the book in the original.

I have never lived in the sort of system that the book makes fun of. The book was recommended to me many years ago by a Russian mathematician, as it was also one of his all-time favorite books. I have not spoken to him for many years. I wonder what he would make of the TV adaptation? (He told me that he never watched TV, and being one of the hardest men to please I have ever known, I came to be under the general impression that it would probably be easier to drag a cow up to the top of a tree than to make him watch TV.)

Still, I have to say that it is just one of those books that I prefer to see animated than acted out by real actors.

Sure, it’s one of my all-time favorites. Manuscripts don’t burn! In case you didn’t know, they made it into a rather faithful live action TV mini-series a few years ago in Russia. (Even kept the nudity, somewhat to my surprise.) I’m not sure if it’s available in anything but Russian, but as I recall you’re no stranger to the language.

I’m a little curious about what you thought of the book, as it’s rare (for me, anyway) to find people familiar with it who don’t have the kind of system it satirizes in their memories or historic background. Or would present-day China also be a good place for a foreign professor to present a lecture debunking black magic?

P.S.:may I ask? has your mail changed? how can we contact you? because I’ve send you sth but don’t know, if you got it.

Noted with thanks.

exlurker:

Oh, that is a very pretty flash comic. I especially like the contrast of light and darkness – the light looks so pretty. Many thanks for that!

ado:

I am inclined to agree about the soulmate part – the goth girls I knew were certainly like that. They always seemed to yearn for some understanding and sympathetic soul. In a way, I thought they were setting up themselves for abuse by vain and manipulative guys who preyed on that yearning.

Some years ago I lived in France around the Bretagne area, and every morning you had this eerie atmosphere, alone in the fog of the early hours of the day and the bell of the nearest church ringing…for sure it can wake some wild fantasies.

Not really related, but I came across this flash comic the other day and was reminded of your post for some reason.

http://yuumei.deviantart.com/art/Knite-Chapter-1-151132545

The thing is, I have been asking friends from N. America / Europe who have come to work on this side of the Pacific several questions recently:

Whatever happened to the goths they used to know at high school/university? How do they fare in the current economic environment and what kind of jobs do they get? Do goths go on being goths in middle-age?

It seems that either the goths tend to commit suicide, or get out of it after a really bad slump of alcohol, drugs and general self-destruction to lead a normal life, even if normal life seems to be… a jaded existence of McJob (goths tend not to have the stellar grades to make it to the lucrative and prestigious corporate jobs).

It is just strange and a little sad for me to observe all these otherwise intelligent and sensitive people wobbling in self-hate and to whom there seems to be no future. You seldom see that sort of pessimism/nihilism on this side of the Pacific – here people are more upbeat and confident that the future will be even better than today.

It has been years and years since I last laid eyes on a goth.

I really enjoyed your little anecdote about the goth girl though…reminds me of a few people in that city I knew as well. Reading it now it has a Murakami-esque vibe to but I can’t put my finger on exactly why. Thanks for sharing anyway – it brought back some good memories.