Berlin and Back in a Day

Sitting on a high speed train
I stretch my brain
Each ripple I watch unfold
Memories untold and flimsy hope
Crumbled dreams and dust of gold
Falling like postcards across my mind –
Germany rushing by

My Friend Autumn and I

I told you about Autumn being my friend this year. Another friend of mine - from the tropics - asked me to post some pictures of Autumn, as she has never seen what he looks like. OK, so here are some pictures of us inside our local park…

This is my friend Autumn. He really likes leaves, but thinks that green is boring. That’s why he changes their colours into various shades of yellow, red and brown. I often challenge him to do blue or pink, but that’s just a no-no: He usually says he’s an artist and that there are certain colours that just don’t go down well with his general appearance, political mission and interior personal landscape. It’s a long standing discussion between us…

This one he really liked – the technique is apparently called juxtaposition: “Wait until I bring in the wind and all the leaves mix --- everyone’s equal in a leaf-pile…”, he nods significantly while I quietly mumble a ‘smartass’ in his general direction, wishing that I could do something like that...

This guy lives in the park and just overheard my friend’s artistic comment. He said he had thought about this and other fundamental questions of life and death for a long time now and has eventually come to think that if Autumn really thinks so, he must really and actually exist; probably as an entirely separate substance from any body and therefore wholly distinct from the nature of anything physical, i.e. as an incorporeal, indivisible, non-spatial, unextended thing, which is entirely distinct from any object and would therefore not fail to be what it is even if every object in the world would cease to exist…
“Who’s existing now?” Autumn laughed, blasting two dozen leaves off some random, innocent tree - just because he can…

This is Schneeeule (pronounced "Shnoile") and she knows Autumn for quite some time now. She thinks he is generally ok, but she actually prefers the real thing --- Winter. “Not good,” I thought, because for sure this Winter is now out to kill my good friend sooner or later...

“I never really wanted to be a migratory bird. I just didn’t read the small print when I applied for a job as an entertainer in Europe and even though I don’t even care about Autumn or any of that seasonal nonsense, I could imitate it if you gave me a 10er. I’m saving up and working 24/7, hoping to someday wriggle out of my contract in order to fly back to my tropical home...” Those are the working conditions for professionally trained parrots inside our local city park. Truly shocking, but Autumn couldn’t have cared less…

This is me in front of the arboretum. Autumn just made some bad and politically incorrect joke about all those trees waiting to get their leaves stripped - just to take a stupid picture of me…

But usually he is good to be around with, especially now, while he’s still joyful and full of colours…

André Heller

I went out to buy a jumper for winter yesterday and came back with five forgotten LP records instead. It was a good tradeoff. I do have a soft spot for 60s-70s poetic songs (as in "chanson" or "Lied") with good lyrics. I consider this the crucial part of the first generation of pop song writing. Sung poetry can be such a drug, amplifying a thousand times what may be lost between bookends.

In the anglophone world there were Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin, Paul Simon, Leonard Cohen, etc. In the francophone world there were Francoise Hardy, Jacques Brel, Renaud, Jane Birkin, etc. For a long time, however, and for very good reasons I kept a safe distance to German-singing songwriters, because German folk music generally sucks. A lot.

But yesterday I discovered a few gems which I think deserve to be mentioned alongside a Paul Simon, Janis Joplin or Jacques Brel and over the next couple of weeks I shall explore and share more of it. So today enters André Heller, a true poet and versatile artist involved in music, poetry, theatre, football, performance, and and and...

Die Hundertjährige ("The 100 year old woman")
...a song about a 100 year old woman and beauty in dignity.

Jetzt wo alles besprochen ist ("Now that everything has been talked about")
...actually the truest song I know in the category "what to say to a former lover".

Denn ich will ("Since I want")
...a beautiful song about freedom in love.

Sei Poet ("Be a Poet")
...my absolute favorite. You may want to learn German for this.

Song to Whoever

For us to be in love, each day I must –

Nourish every passion in this German soul
Feed Love with other hearts and minds
Rekindle Anger with pins in my voodoo doll
Steal moments and play them to Wit on my shoulder
Carefully wrap it all in language and balance
Life dancing across the gorge of everytime
Chase my shadows and ghosts until they love life
Intrude and rage inside the sanctuary of relativism, then
Unplug my heart and shed its blood in thick drops of tears, to
Work for what will be beyond you and me
My mother-tongue I must break to make room for the kaleidoscope of exile

I must only live –
Fly with the owls, hunt with the cats, eat with the eagles and sleep amongst crocodiles
Jump from the stage of my life into the abyss
Knowing that the full embrace of your love will catch me

You must not change anything
For if you really are what glimpse I caught -
Just make me a part of your whole life

Thanks James for the "love or die" graffiti...

War in Mindanao

I recently discovered a very good documentary by Al Jazeera about the current crisis in Mindanao on Youtube. I think it gives a very good picture of some of the current threats to peace: It includes a situationer, as well as interviews with civilians, NGOs, Al Haj Murad Ebrahim of the MILF and Gen. Esperon of the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process. It is 22 Minutes long and you can find it

Here (Part 1)

and here (Part 2)


Nothanks, Philippine Daily Inquirer, for the strange cartoon above you published in early August...

Critical Moments

Bush warning over bail-out delay
US President George W Bush has warned the global climate is at a “critical moment” and vowed to get his climate change rescue plan through Congress. He said the consequences would be “painful and lasting” if the $700bn (£380bn) deal was not passed.

Bush warning over bail-out delay
US President George W Bush has warned the level of global inequality is at a “critical moment” and vowed to get his wealth distribution rescue plan through Congress. He said the consequences would be “painful and lasting” if the $700bn (£380bn) deal was not passed.

Bush warning over bail-out delay
US President George W Bush has warned the level of AIDS/HIV, tuberculosis and malaria prevalence is at a “critical moment” and vowed to get his human security rescue plan through Congress. He said the consequences would be “painful and lasting” if the $700bn (£380bn) deal was not passed.

Bush warning over bail-out delay
US President George W Bush has warned the level of human rights protection is at a “critical moment” and vowed to get his rescue plan for human rights defenders and victims through Congress. He said the consequences would be “painful and lasting” if the $700bn (£380bn) deal was not passed.

"Bush warning over bail-out delay
US President George W Bush has warned the US economy is at a "critical moment", and vowed to get his Wall Street rescue plan through Congress. He said the consequences would be "painful and lasting" if the $700bn (£380bn) deal rejected by the US House of Representatives was not passed."
www.bbc.co.uk, Sept 30, 2008

Danke, Gymnasium Bensheim, für die gute Grafik.

Wetland Sunset

Myra startled as a stumbling Leonard crashed sleepingly through the dark living room, fumbling for the ringing phone and breaking glass in the process. She jumped at the corresponding noise but was soon calmed by his brief and calm conversation – “how exactly does it feel, human life,” she wondered. Myra yawned while stretching her back, preparing herself to ponder this thought on the comfortable sofa: How was it that life for Leonard seemed to be fleeting, like rain on a sunny day or sudden gusts of wind slowly stripping the trees in autumn? And yet, it was commandeering, imposing its twists and turns on everyday life in all their briefness or extraordinary drama. But why, she thought while straightening a spot of messy fur on her back, does he antagonise it and still embrace its wonders once they had become apparent to him anyway? She had suspected all along that he got some kind of satisfaction out of this struggle and premeditated that she would observe him, tomorrow, to resolve this mystery. Her dream turned into an eagle-winged tigress, hunting like an owl through the dark and starry night.

***

His favourite radio station brought him back into the world in the morning. He knew the commentators by their voices, enjoyed the interviews and discussions on current events and was never annoyed by the musical intersections. The radio, just like the bakery around the corner, was what he loved about home: This he had known before, but cherished ever since he had come back from his recent trip to the opposite end of the planet. At the moment home was still new to him and he considered himself lucky for what he had and that was that. Moreover, he had started to get this deep sense of satisfaction from his work: Someone had said it, and it had stuck – “there are struggles much bigger than us”. He really wanted to be a part in some of them.

***

Myra had long woken up, cleaned her fur and sharpened her claws. Now she was hungry. Leonard had not come back home all day and outside the moon already rose from behind the next row of houses. Houses - Myra took them for granted, just like the trees, grass or garbage cans in the backyard. At the moment, she was concerned with other things, though. She hadn’t had a chance to check on Leonard today and was hungry, very hungry.
In the morning he had seemed strangely at ease, even playing the paper-mouse-on-string game she was crazy about. And when he had ruffled her, he had done it just right, there had not even been the slightest sense of ---
she heard the key in the door. All her suspicions about human life were confirmed even before she saw the woman enter the flat. Myra watched her come in from the opposite end of the living-room. She didn’t look hostile, rather at odds with herself, the world - just about everything. Her eyes were wet: This she had seen with Leonard before and it fitted perfectly what she had wanted to find out about yesterday! Yet, it did not matter much now, for now she was just a very, very hungry cat.
The woman sat down next to her, staring a hole into something on the opposite wall, the keys weakly dangling in her left hand. “Let’s see if this will make a difference,” Myra thought and brushed around the legs, purring and mewling. Oh, she really was hungry now…

***

A few hours earlier a glorious day full of jokes, flirts and laughter had come to an end for Leonard. He and his friend Fran were then enjoying the sunset, overlooking the meadows, flowers, birds and trees alongside the little lake inside their local city park.
“I’m really glad I caught your call last night – broke something while picking it up, though,” Leonard said. “Oh, where I come from that is a lucky charm,” Fran replied. “Ha! Where I come from it is actually a sign for clumsiness,” laughed Leonard. “I don’t think so,” Fran said, now looking straight at him “I haven’t seen you this happy in a long, long time. Now, you spill the beans what’s going on with you, will you!”
Leonard smiled. The sun was still warm and setting and everything looked strangely beautiful and surreal. In fact, the sun was a giant orange and the meadow a mysterious carpet painted by Monet. At first he did not notice the fist clenching his heart, but when he did, the pain was already too strong to speak. The world around him turned into something else, like an artist’s impression or an incredibly witty remark. He wanted to laugh, but his mind broke into confetti.

On a gorgeous late-summer evening Leonard's good friend Fran called the ambulance.


Thank you, Jan Schmuckal, for Wetland Sunset.