Hold out, I know you feel it getting cold out
Without the blanket for your soul now
Before you know it you'll be frozen
You have to see this through
There's no one here but you
Don't go to sleep and cry because tomorrow
If you let it, it will swallow
You up and none of this will matter
Will matter anymore
---
Tracks 2, 4, and 6 are my favorite, but I also like 1 and 3 a lot.
28 June 2007
Assaying Religion, People, Metal
A very brave woman on Al-Jazeera, "discussing" Islam. Watch this before the link is disabled.
http://switch3.castup.net/cunet/gm.asp?ai=214&ar=1050wmv&ak=null
---
From Die Tageszeitung 28.06.2007, as posted on signandsight.com:
Filmmaker Werner Herzog, to whom the Munich Film Festival is currently dedicating a retrospective, talks in an interview about the quality he looks for an actor: "It's really only when someone is under extreme pressure, because for example they have to fight for their life, that you recognise what they're made of. It's similar with materials that physicists analyse. You have to expose a metal alloy to extreme pressure and extreme heat to find out about its composition. The same's true of people who're put to the test. Just like an ore that's assayed and refined in the forge."
---
Quote of the day:
Sarah: I'll be an old maid before you.
Me: How is that possible? I'm 6 months older.
http://switch3.castup.net/cunet/gm.asp?ai=214&ar=1050wmv&ak=null
---
From Die Tageszeitung 28.06.2007, as posted on signandsight.com:
Filmmaker Werner Herzog, to whom the Munich Film Festival is currently dedicating a retrospective, talks in an interview about the quality he looks for an actor: "It's really only when someone is under extreme pressure, because for example they have to fight for their life, that you recognise what they're made of. It's similar with materials that physicists analyse. You have to expose a metal alloy to extreme pressure and extreme heat to find out about its composition. The same's true of people who're put to the test. Just like an ore that's assayed and refined in the forge."
---
Quote of the day:
Sarah: I'll be an old maid before you.
Me: How is that possible? I'm 6 months older.
26 June 2007
Dear...
I hope you enjoy the:
1. sunshine while it lasts
2. bike riding
3. brown-bagged lunch
4. library browsing
5. frantic reading
because life could be a whole lot worse, and someday you might look back and think "Those FU Berlin days weren't really so bad - kind of relaxing, idyllic" in the split second before your pregnant 15-year-old daughter starts screaming about the empty refrigerator, your 7-year-old boy throws the remote control at the TV, missing and smashing a hole through the living room window, and your second ex-wife's new boyfriend, who is over to collect the 3-year-old, crashes, in his drunken stupor, into the glass case containing your mother's precious porcelain dishes handed down four generations, and just as the shelves start tipping, a cascade of painted white bone china like a mountain avalanche, your 3-year-old, momentarily dropped by the startled ex-wife's boyfriend, projectile vomits all over the newly polished hardwood floors, and as this cacophony is turning you into a Moses Herzog figure, a cocktail of paralyzing self-pity and enraged insanity, you glance out the window to see your ex-wife impatiently glaring at you from the passenger seat of the shiny blue Mustang parked in your shabby driveway, and you jolt into action, run to the door, and shout, "How dare you let this RAVING DRUNK MADMAN drive with little Bobby in the back seat!"
This is why all of you, dear readers, would be lucky to maintain email communication with me: I'm known to send wishes, possible predictions, and very long sentences at 10 in the morning, to unsuspecting homo sapiens.
1. sunshine while it lasts
2. bike riding
3. brown-bagged lunch
4. library browsing
5. frantic reading
because life could be a whole lot worse, and someday you might look back and think "Those FU Berlin days weren't really so bad - kind of relaxing, idyllic" in the split second before your pregnant 15-year-old daughter starts screaming about the empty refrigerator, your 7-year-old boy throws the remote control at the TV, missing and smashing a hole through the living room window, and your second ex-wife's new boyfriend, who is over to collect the 3-year-old, crashes, in his drunken stupor, into the glass case containing your mother's precious porcelain dishes handed down four generations, and just as the shelves start tipping, a cascade of painted white bone china like a mountain avalanche, your 3-year-old, momentarily dropped by the startled ex-wife's boyfriend, projectile vomits all over the newly polished hardwood floors, and as this cacophony is turning you into a Moses Herzog figure, a cocktail of paralyzing self-pity and enraged insanity, you glance out the window to see your ex-wife impatiently glaring at you from the passenger seat of the shiny blue Mustang parked in your shabby driveway, and you jolt into action, run to the door, and shout, "How dare you let this RAVING DRUNK MADMAN drive with little Bobby in the back seat!"
This is why all of you, dear readers, would be lucky to maintain email communication with me: I'm known to send wishes, possible predictions, and very long sentences at 10 in the morning, to unsuspecting homo sapiens.
22 June 2007
Moments That Expose My Apathy and Laziness
This man utterly puts me and my aspirations to shame. Some people are unbelievable.
3quarksdaily.blogs.com/3quarksdaily/2007/06/getting-better-.html
www.gawande.com/bio.htm
Writes a friend in response: "Yes, you should be utterly ashamed of your pathetic, inactive, lethargic, useless, careless, spiritless existence."
I know, I know.
3quarksdaily.blogs.com/3quarksdaily/2007/06/getting-better-.html
www.gawande.com/bio.htm
Writes a friend in response: "Yes, you should be utterly ashamed of your pathetic, inactive, lethargic, useless, careless, spiritless existence."
I know, I know.
21 June 2007
One of the Worst
Today was a really bad day.
A really really bad day.
I want to go home. Where is home?
A really really bad day.
I want to go home. Where is home?
18 June 2007
The Piano Problem
There's only one solution: record record record. Otherwise, I'll sound bad forever.
Today's count:
--Prelude: 11
--Fugue: 6
Today's count:
--Prelude: 11
--Fugue: 6
16 June 2007
Father's Day
TWO POEMS AND A REFLECTION**
I. "HE SPEAKS IN YOUR VOICE, AMERICAN"
I understand
my father
more
after reading DeLillo's account
of Bobby Thomson's 1951 homer
than I ever did
living in the same house
for 18 years
How could I have been
so blind?
II. "AND THERE'S A SHINE IN HIS EYE THAT'S HALFWAY HOPEFUL"
At my age,
23,
my father had already survived
the bug-infested
snake-swarmed
lonely
damp
dangerous
jungles
of Vietnam
What right have I
to give up?
--
**In the cool pallid summer dusk,
I saw my dad weep over his dad
and realized that someday
I'll be the one in the twilight,
weeping
(posted also on medusaskitchen.blogspot.com, June 16)
I. "HE SPEAKS IN YOUR VOICE, AMERICAN"
I understand
my father
more
after reading DeLillo's account
of Bobby Thomson's 1951 homer
than I ever did
living in the same house
for 18 years
How could I have been
so blind?
II. "AND THERE'S A SHINE IN HIS EYE THAT'S HALFWAY HOPEFUL"
At my age,
23,
my father had already survived
the bug-infested
snake-swarmed
lonely
damp
dangerous
jungles
of Vietnam
What right have I
to give up?
--
**In the cool pallid summer dusk,
I saw my dad weep over his dad
and realized that someday
I'll be the one in the twilight,
weeping
(posted also on medusaskitchen.blogspot.com, June 16)
12 June 2007
"He was thinking continually, but nothing clear resulted."
I don't know what to do. I can't concentrate on anything, not even my book when I was trying to read at a cafe this morning. I'm completely immobilized. What am I going to do?
"Readiness to answer all questions is the infallible sign of stupidity." - from Herzog
--
What they really think. From Dutch magazine Trouw, as posted on signandsight.com, European Feuilletons:
Trouw dedicates its culture section to "The power of the image." There's a excerpt from Al Gore's new book, "Assault on Reason" as well as a pointed critique of it by Henri Beunders, a history professor from Rotterdam. "An American book must naturally have an alarming beginning and an optimistic end, otherwise it won't sell. His understanding of 'the old media' is just as narrow as his grasp of the Internet is naive. He writes, 'Web democracy is arming itself. You can feel it. We, the people, are still the key to the survival of democracy in America.' What naivety! As if 'the people' always want what's best. In 1914, 1982 (the Falklands War) and 1991 (the Gulf War) 'the people' marched joyfully into war. In the thirties the Germans begged Hitler: 'Free us from freedom.'"
"Readiness to answer all questions is the infallible sign of stupidity." - from Herzog
--
What they really think. From Dutch magazine Trouw, as posted on signandsight.com, European Feuilletons:
Trouw dedicates its culture section to "The power of the image." There's a excerpt from Al Gore's new book, "Assault on Reason" as well as a pointed critique of it by Henri Beunders, a history professor from Rotterdam. "An American book must naturally have an alarming beginning and an optimistic end, otherwise it won't sell. His understanding of 'the old media' is just as narrow as his grasp of the Internet is naive. He writes, 'Web democracy is arming itself. You can feel it. We, the people, are still the key to the survival of democracy in America.' What naivety! As if 'the people' always want what's best. In 1914, 1982 (the Falklands War) and 1991 (the Gulf War) 'the people' marched joyfully into war. In the thirties the Germans begged Hitler: 'Free us from freedom.'"
10 June 2007
08 June 2007
Riding Bitch
Last night I dreamt
of slick black streets
reflecting the glittering fluorescents
of New York,
a flaming tar mirror
over which we motorcycle-burned,
pillion style,
my body melting into yours
(medusaskitchen.blogspot.com, June 9, with photograph)
of slick black streets
reflecting the glittering fluorescents
of New York,
a flaming tar mirror
over which we motorcycle-burned,
pillion style,
my body melting into yours
(medusaskitchen.blogspot.com, June 9, with photograph)
05 June 2007
Baby Steps
Setting: Cafe in East Berlin, 10:30am, morning after the bombshell
Me: drawing; Friend: writing
[Silence; ambient cafe noises]
Me: (turning suddenly to friend in outburst of despair) OH F#&%! What am I going to do?!?
Friend: (ponders for a moment) Well, in a little while you'll eat lunch. It's not much, and beyond that I don't know. But it's something.
---
Epiphany: What is any relationship - be it friendship, marriage, or anything in between - if not a promise, spoken or unspoken, to catch you when you fall?
Me: drawing; Friend: writing
[Silence; ambient cafe noises]
Me: (turning suddenly to friend in outburst of despair) OH F#&%! What am I going to do?!?
Friend: (ponders for a moment) Well, in a little while you'll eat lunch. It's not much, and beyond that I don't know. But it's something.
---
Epiphany: What is any relationship - be it friendship, marriage, or anything in between - if not a promise, spoken or unspoken, to catch you when you fall?
A Day I'd Like to Erase
Today I practiced 7 hours straight. Then I had a not-lesson. Afterwards, I learned how to do a headstand, had a discussion about Snow White, and pondered my very vague future.
Basically, I'm f***ed. Totally, totally f***ed.
At least medusaskitchen.blogspot.com posted more poetry of mine today (along with a photo) - June 4.
Basically, I'm f***ed. Totally, totally f***ed.
At least medusaskitchen.blogspot.com posted more poetry of mine today (along with a photo) - June 4.
03 June 2007
Stress
You know something's wrong when:
- your jaw is so tight from clenching that you can barely open it
- your knuckles are sore, creaky even
- you feel shooting pain in your back as each new knot begins to form
- you pop pain killers in vain hopes they'll relax you
- your friend, out of pity and alarm, starts demonstrating stretching exercises in the middle of a restaurant, over brunch
- in spite of all your efforts, 8 hours just isn't enough
- your jaw is so tight from clenching that you can barely open it
- your knuckles are sore, creaky even
- you feel shooting pain in your back as each new knot begins to form
- you pop pain killers in vain hopes they'll relax you
- your friend, out of pity and alarm, starts demonstrating stretching exercises in the middle of a restaurant, over brunch
- in spite of all your efforts, 8 hours just isn't enough
01 June 2007
Self-Destruction
from Die Welt, 1 June 07, Feuilletons:
With German cyclists falling into disrepute, Uwe Wittstock puts them in noble company: "Writers and artists in particular are no strangers to the idea that total devotion to a passion, the struggle to fulfil a talent has very little to do with well-being but much more with self-destruction – and not uncommonly alleged or actual performance-enhancing drugs are involved. Novalis raved in his 'Hymns to the Night' about 'the brown juices of the poppy.' From absinth to opium, no hallucinogen was left un-sampled by Baudelaire and Verlaine. Georg Trakl followed suit and died from an overdose. Klaus Mann used to fire himself up with heroin and found it a hard habit to shake. Ernst Jünger experimented with mescalin and LSD, Walter Benjamin swore by hashish. 'The collapse of the ego, the sweetness, the deeply desired, all this you give me' Gottfried Benn wrote in praise of cocaine."
---
In other news:
CSVio: If I were there in person, I guarantee you'd be having a whole lot more fun than chatting on the internet
CSVio: It'd be the greatest ten minutes of your life....
CSVio: Or, at least, of mine
With German cyclists falling into disrepute, Uwe Wittstock puts them in noble company: "Writers and artists in particular are no strangers to the idea that total devotion to a passion, the struggle to fulfil a talent has very little to do with well-being but much more with self-destruction – and not uncommonly alleged or actual performance-enhancing drugs are involved. Novalis raved in his 'Hymns to the Night' about 'the brown juices of the poppy.' From absinth to opium, no hallucinogen was left un-sampled by Baudelaire and Verlaine. Georg Trakl followed suit and died from an overdose. Klaus Mann used to fire himself up with heroin and found it a hard habit to shake. Ernst Jünger experimented with mescalin and LSD, Walter Benjamin swore by hashish. 'The collapse of the ego, the sweetness, the deeply desired, all this you give me' Gottfried Benn wrote in praise of cocaine."
---
In other news:
CSVio: If I were there in person, I guarantee you'd be having a whole lot more fun than chatting on the internet
CSVio: It'd be the greatest ten minutes of your life....
CSVio: Or, at least, of mine
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