About carrying on ...

It was a hot and sultry afternoon
Sometime at the end of June
We had collapsed ourselves in shade somewhere
To conclude our love affair
But it was too damn hot to speak that much
It felt easier to touch
So we forgot to fall apart that day
And the next day



It was a cold and angry sky above
When he decided he was through with love
The leaves were piles of skeletons
And he was only skin and bones
And then he went to the bridge so he could fall
And drop down far away from it all
But the water looked so black and deep
That he closed his eyes and he went to sleep
Til the next day



The snow fell hard from five to five
You had to drink to stay alive
But you were hoping it would kill you too
At least you'd have something changing you
Cause you were cold as the ice at your front door
You raised a trembling glass and shouted, "Fuck the war!"
And then you fell into oblivion
Lying on your bed with your shoes on
Til the next day


Baby close your eyes until tomorrow
It could bring joy it could bring sorrow
But it will come sure as light
Try not to dream a dream tonight
Imagine that you're standing here
And suddenly you disappear
A thread cut with a carving knife
That is what they call our life

Odd.

Sleeping in 1,40 cm of bed feels like sleeping in the open country.

Snakes and Ladders.

(I'm clearly a genius.)

Paper and Death

I am here in the festive exile that is my parents' house. It's actually not very festive at all. Somehow I'm not feeling it very much this year, and I am much too neurotic to feel peaceful. However, it's quite a pleasant neurosis, if there is such a thing.
So here's my brother playing Adeste Fideles on his bass, and I'm sitting in my room trying not to fall asleep over Kafka, or considering if I really want to watch Lord of the Rings (it's such a Christmassy thing to do). And all the while I'm going pleasantly mad inside.

Anyway let's have some pictures.

Me. Wearing the lovely scarf I got from Irina and Lisa. (It's got foxes on!)



One of the strangest (but coolest) presents I ever got. From Eva. Piggy.


The bed that I will purchase on Saturday, with the money my parents gave me.


Shame that I cannot afford all the complicated accessories that make it worthwhile. (Which is something I actually said to my parents last night. Naturally I was referring to sheets and pillows. Err.)

What an odd entry.

Would you like to come over and trash some furniture?

It's a boy!

There was a mutant baby pepper inside my orange bell pepper.
They will take over the world.

Með hjartað í buxunum ...

So many things were done yesterday. None of them can be spoken of.
With my heart in my mouth
With my heart in my pants
Hoppípolla ... Hopp í þér. Ég vill búa inn í þér.

Throw girl scouts at ticket touts. That way both parties suffer.

If I had one wish
I would invert all the colours
just for one day.

I just gave 35€ to an arsehole, just like that.
But, wtf! No regrets!

Of Fingernails and Bumper Rails

Significant. Other.

Currently drawing energy from ...

Ed Harcourt - Shadowboxing

Hanging off the bridge by a fingernail
Trapped in the harbour when the ship set sail
Boy you're one card short of the pack
Begging for your baby to take you back
Stubbed a cigarette out on his hand
Scrawls her name across the sand
But it disappears like King Canute
The tide didn't like his attitude

Always shadowboxing
Face up and throw your gloves in
Lose your imaginary friends
Always good for nothing
She can't ever love him
No man is ever innocent

Bouncing off the walls with no wish to land
Erase your fingerprints and your retina scan
'Cause there's no point in the life that he should lead
Chain his leg to a piano and sink through the weeds
Gone are all the dreams that last forever
He towed the line when never meant never
They had something better than the cynical beast
Weren't sucked in by the popular disease

Always shadowboxing
Face up and throw your gloves in
Lose your imaginary friends
Always good for nothing
She can't ever love him
No man is ever innocent

This song reminds me of being in England. Therefore it makes me feel nostalgically good, and simultaneously ancient. It was 2 years ago. Other people have changed their lives since then. I still feel the same. Everything is different, somehow, but it's not like I've yet got any laurels to rest on.

Dringlichkeit besteht immer.

Hahaha, I can't believe it. There's rumours now that there might be a Smiths reunion in the course of the following year.

Link To Article Thingy

Seems like the financial crisis is the best thing that could have happened to us. :)
What a strange world this is.

Shame that Jarvis is much to righteous to be motivated by monetary matters to initiate a reunion. If Pulp got back together that would solve all my problems. <3

Kevin, Hidden Topshop Model

Eva says, this is true friendship:



I say, friendship's got nothing to do with it. :)
In fact, it's sort of an unforgivable offense that it looks better on him than it ever will on me.

The dress costs as much as the tickets for the blur gig.
I am, somehow, sublty, nearing a nervous breakdown.

Try, try again.

July 3rd, Hyde Park

See you at the mindreaders ball.

COLANDER

All I want for Christmas is a pink or yellow colander. Actually this is not true, I would rather prefer if people didn't give me kitchen supplies. I respect kitchen supplies, but they're somewhat unromantic.


The most romantic thing I can think of, at the moment, is being snowed in. If I was snowed in, though, I'd rather have a large cured hind leg of pork in the house.


Almost unrelatedly, don't you just love how xkcd crawls into your head, all? No? Just me then?

McStudio

For the last two days we've turned our rehearsal room into a little makeshift recording studio. Four songs were recorded, and these (rather crappy) photos were shot:



Matthi is fledging already!


Once more with feeling ...


Gregor. Tuning. As per.


Martin, a.k.a. the Wizard of Sounds.


We have cake, and a gallows.


I am sure that it is a violation of human rights to take photos of someone while they're playing a wind instrument.

My new favourite cover version.

It must be so much fun to play in The Arcade Fire.

One of us misread ...

Attention, this song might be misleading.



Who randomly books flights to Stockholm after thinking about it for only 5 minutes?

Oh yes.
Me!
If only I could shake off that distinct feeling of history repeating itself. Put me on the waiting list for a brainectomy.

I'm kind of tired cause you wouldn't let me sleep last night.
I'm a reasonable man but I can't believe whats on your mind,
and the past three weeks were the sadest weeks and the words you said oh made me weak.
I'm out of my mind, I'm about to crack.
So lets call this the comeback

I've been pushed around and I'm not gonna get pushed this time, yes this time is mine,
and I can't believe whats on your mind
and the past three weeks were the sadest weeks and the words you said oh made me weak.
I'm out of my mind, I'm about to crack. So lets call this the comeback

(Wait!) They don't love you like I love you.

Merry Christmas Happy Birthday Condolences.

I surround myself with beauty, I surround myself with you.

(stolen from Liz Wolfe's website.)


Ups and downs, ups and downs.
I wish things didn't make so much sense all the time.

With a humming in our ears, we play endlessly.

It's Sunday.
Sundays are generally thought more depressing than other days. Possibly because it's the end of another week, and you look back on what you did, and are underwhelmed. Possibly because most of your friends are unavailable, either asleep because they've been out partying on Saturday night, or they're somewhere doing things with their family or their boy- and girlfriends. You are surrounded by a vacuum of activity, and you don't have anybody to drink tea and light the candle on the Adventkranz with.* You don't even have an Adventkranz. Tomorrow is Monday and you don't quite feel up to it. If Sunday's weren't so awful you'd like another one between today and tomorrow. But in fact that would solve the problem, because it would turn today into a Saturday, and that would be fantastic.

To be honest, I don't feel like that now, and I haven't felt that way for a long time. Recently, I've found Saturdays more distressing that Sundays.
But then again, most of my distress seems to happen in a faraway country which I observe with the attentive but detached eye of a scientist.
Is this good?

I've been listening to this:
And I want to own it.

*HAHAHA ambiguity.

How can someone so young sing words so sad?

Today, on my way to university, I saw a woman with a knitted hat resembling a tomato. Now, I'm sure, some people can pull that sort of thing off, but it was infuriating on her. The rest of her outfit was really normal and dignified, and the tomato hat was a sort of what-the-fuck-element, in the negative sense.

Examination about Runes yesterday: A!
I'm finally getting some things done, it feels so fabulous.

I had actually planned to go to the shopping centre (mostly IKEA) today, to enrich my life with purchasable beauty, but Julia, who wanted to come with me, didn't have time.

Nevertheless I ended up having a sort of fabulous Thursday. So far I've only done things that felt worthwhile and that is ALWAYS a good thing.
Later today I will learn whether Kevin got the topshop dress in my size or whether I'll have to go on a diet. Meanwhile I'll either finish Madame Bovary or watch Nightwatching by Peter Greenaway, which is a film about this painting:



And I'm really curious about the story the film will make up for this painting, because it mentiones that title, which is completely misleading and not original. The painting actually didn't have anything to do with night. It was set in broad daylight (the members of this compagnie stepping out into the rays out of the shadow of some architecture). Over time the veneer darkened so much that it now looks like it is indeed a "nightwatch". (Isn't that exciting?)


Unrelatedly: The Smiths! !!!

Well, God, it's like this:

1. All of its short life it gives of itself ... giving and giving, and slowly diminishing.

2.

God, let me tell you one thing: this Topshop Beauty must be mine. It must never be hers!

3. I have one request, concerning my own death. Let it not be in winter, and let it come unexpectedly.

Love or a stomach disorder?

"Snow" by Emmy the Great


I created a language today
To describe how bored I am
It's been zega and dogging
For mena, wish, shan

As the pleasure grows I understand
I won't see the ground again
I thought that respite was at hand
Winter chokes the daffodils

I ate the neighbour's cat last night
But I had to, darling
If I leave this room, my bones will shatter
Do you want to see me starving?

I made a macaroni necklace
I played with my toolbox
I found a firework in the basement
I set it off.

If you had a heart, you'd call me
And let me know the time
As I would try and sleep if only
I knew that night was nigh.

Will you come and read to me soon?
I can't see a thing
Sometimes a breeze will shift the blinds
Wretched light creeps in

But mostly I am alone with the shadows
And I think my great dead aunt as well
I've been talking to a pencil
I think I love him, please don't tell him.

I created a language today
But it's not for you to know
I used it to write you
This letter, which I buried in the snow

And when you find it all
The daffodils will be free
Say hello to them for me
As I won't see the ground again

Fuzzy around the edges.

There, there is no one.





Badhead always was the one that made me cry.

The Snow

Well, you should have said something.

Friends. The people you pay in cake to disappoint you.

I don't actually feel this.
I am just sad. And absolutely nobody is here.

Happy face is allowed.

Whilst Coldplay are retiring ...




Something stirs in my midriff, seeing that. Is my soul, perhaps, not quite dead yet?

Catch fire, toaster!

"satisfired", the state of being happy and content even though your work situation has just been terminated without your consent




Wa-fucking-hey! About time you smelled the stew. This is not an idiom but it should be.

The Smiths!

Oh, how could I forget?!





I decree today that life is simply taking and not giving
England is mine and it owes me a living
Ask me why and I'll spit in your eye
Ask me why and I'll spit in your eye
But we cannot cling to the old dreams any more
No we cannot clings to those dreams
Does the body rule the mind
or does the mind rule the body
I don't know
Under the iron bridge we kissed
And although I ended up with sore lips
It just wasn't like the old days any more
No it wasn't like those days
Am I still ill?
Am I still ill?
Does the body rule the mind
or does the mind rule the body?
I don't know.
Ask me why and I'll die
Ask me why and I'll die
And if you must go to work tomorrow
Well if I were you I wouldn't bother
There are brighter sides to life
And I should know because I've seen them
But not often
Under the iron bridge we kissed
And although I ended up with sore lips
It just wasn't like the old days any more
No it wasn't like those days
Am I still ill?
Am I still ill?

Largely unrelated.

I am most anxious to enlist everyone who can speak or write to join in checking this mad, wicked folly of "Women's Rights," with all its attendant horrors... Were women to "unsex" themselves by claiming equality with men, they would become the most hateful, heathen, and disgusting of beings and would surely perish without male protection.
Queen Victoria, 1870

Haha!

Geeks bearing gifts ...

I got a B on my Muses exam. That's just about acceptable, I'd say.

I don't have many words, but I have things to look at.

Carl Spitzweg, The poor poet

(The resemblance to the way I've nested myself into my bed with my scripts and books in order to study for the exam on Monday is uncanny. I wish I had a green stove and I am tempted to hang an umbrella under my ceiling!)

Carl Spitzweg, The hypochondriac

Carl Spitzweg, The bookworm

Carl Spitzweg, The butterfly hunter

Just to bring a little cheery, cheeky atmosphere into these grey metropolitan days, and relativise our own biedermeier graveness/quaintness with satirical images of it!
It's a fact that nothing ever really changes. It's just hard to make up one's mind if that's a good or a bad thing.
It's so puzzling where music comes from. The emergence of amazing music from nigh unexpected sources has revolutionary potential.
How can I let the scales grow again?

Questionable.

Back in summer.


Back with curls.

As far as I'm concerned ...

You can either live life, or dream life. The former will feel spectacular at the moment you're experiencing it, but it will hollow you out and leave you with a stale taste, and empty hands. The latter will mean you're bored most of the time, but will leave you with a beautiful catalogue of glittering, fake memories which will be hard to refute.



A city romance for two moping expatriates -
Eyes meeting across a crowded city square.
Cigarettes hanging from mouths being flicked onto kerbsides.
Mutual, mute recognition.

Two facts I'm trying to get my head round with difficulty:

1. Just because you care about nothing but knowledge, it does not make you an intelligent person.
2. Just because you're incredibly social and likeable, it does not make you a nice person.

Again a manifestation of the axiom that things are not only not what they seem, they're also not what they are. I am not sure how.

Extended Reading on Ida Pfeiffer

For Alex:
I've found out that some of her works are available in English on Project Gutenberg:
'Ave a look!
Obviously it's very unromantic to read books online, but maybe quite handy to get a first taste. In any case, yes, there are translations! :)

Victory!

MY LAURELS! MIIIIINE!!
Muahahaha.



And I shall call it ... La Nouvelle Domesticité!

I write uneducated lovesongs.

Historical Schmistorical!
Oh why am I so underwhelmed?
Oh why am I so disenthused?

Maybe because 1 day of cleaning and 1 day of 7 machines full of laundry do your head in and kill any emergent original thought in the bud?

I found a radio amongst the debris of my flatmate's room, and spent the afternoon listening to Ö1. Radio is good for you.
So belatedly, I caught up on the latest news on the election and Mr. Obama's triumph (finding it slightly ridiculous how the entire world is behaving like an amorous teenage fangirl towards him - it's sad how extraordinary we find the fact that a halfway reasonable and sensible person gets elected for an important political office ... shouldn't that be the norm?)
Also, I learned something about Ida Pfeiffer, who seems to have been an admirable person. She was a woman from Biedermeier Vienna who travelled the world, and wrote about it. It sounds almost boring written down like this, but it was obviously an immense achievement, considering her time, her sex, her circumstances. She also was friends with Alexander von Humboldt. :)

Zeitgenossen beschrieben Ida Pfeiffer als eine kleine, schmale Person von leicht gebeugter Haltung, mit langsamen, kontrollierten Bewegungen. Sie verfügte über eine robuste Gesundheit und war ungewöhnlich ausdauernd. Sie urteilte nüchtern und fasste, wenn nötig, rasche Entschlüsse. Im persönlichen Umgang war sie so zurückhaltend, dass es schon genauerer Kenntnis bedurfte, um ihre abenteuerlichen Reisen glaubhaft zu finden. Obwohl sie viele Jahre ihres Lebens auf höchst unkonventionelle Art verbrachte, hatte sie über die eigentliche Rolle der Frau in der Gesellschaft absolut konventionelle Ansichten. Auf gelegentliche Gesprächspartner wirkte sie „wie eine tüchtige Hausfrau, die über ihre häuslichen Angelegenheiten nie hinausgekommen war“.

Whatever that means, it sounds strangely appealing. I like it when people do amazing things without making a great fuss about it.

Unrelatedly, I like the band. But it's all so relative, and nothing special is in my life or in my person compared to all you beautiful birds of paradise, who effortlessly know how to think and act and love like you were born simply to be adored.

Brilliant.

Well, I wish I was as switch-on-and-off-able as some people seem to think I am.

Flowchart for the Afterlife

Early Modern Christian Art is fun!

These dreams are made of twine.

Shite-poetry written during the Ladytron concert. My mind was elsewhere, it seems.

How do you break the rules when there are no rules?
How do you find your way when you're neither here nor there?
When nothing matters, who will mind when it breaks?
You've got no grip on me as long as I can't touch you.
Are we truly two ends of a spectrum, between us only Foucault on a power slide?
Oscillating mildly with no definite direction, no ambition to sign this with our blood?
My blood is ink
Your pulse is metre
These sheets are pages
What could be sweeter?
We're going into press tonight, with illiterate delights.
Written down means left unspoken.
Boneless spines too can be broken.

It's no good, of course. I don't mind though. Let your criticism be harsh and cruel.


Why does Michel Foucault look so much like Moby?

Bona-Party ...

I have to say, I dig this song:




And this one too:




But I'm not going to the concert.


"You know politics, I know party-chicks."

Bloomsbury.

If only ...





They lived in squares, wrote in circles and loved in triangles.

This metaphor fits very well ...

1. Lipstick!? Wahh!
2. Thomas de Quincy!
3. The Dance!

Make me an offer I can't turn down.

The sad and depressing list of concerts I am considering to attend this winter:

3. 11. 08 - Paper Bird, Szene Wien
6. 11. 08 - Supergrass, Flex
13. 11. 08 - Rotifer, Haus der Musik
17. 11. 08 - Cold War Kids, Arena
20. 11. 08 - The Futureheads, Flex
22. 11. 08 - Okkervil River, Porgy & Bess
4. 12. 08 - Tindersticks, Arena
13. 01. 09 - The Notwist, Arena

I think I might have grown boring.

Cardio-Cornucopia, or, State of the Heart

He gives it back. They all drink lemonade. The end.

What's eating me is a mystery.

Listening to the Long Blondes equals red alert.
When the the WTFs outnumber the Wows, this might be a sign that it's time to get out.


Band Name: The Alarm Belles

Passive/Agressive much?

Sign on the door leading to the yard of our house:

D'aw, rats!

In other news, I appear to have joined a band.

Phantom/Ghost.

Relax, it's only a ghost.
I have proof I was there. Here is the only picture that I seem to have been able to take inbetween my outbreaks of the enthusies:



I like how minimalistic the picture is. And, having just finished Arthur and George, I cannot help but draw a connection to early 20th century Spiritualist seances. Just look at Thies Mynther's bodiless head floating in midair! Dirk von Lowtzow as a medium, indeed! Ah, such Poppycock!

And here's my ticket:


Have I mentioned that at the Brut, they served all willing people a slice of a "Leichenschmaus" which consisted of a "man" dressed in a suit, lying on a table, who was modelled entirely of Leberkäse, apart from his innards, which were potato salad? I found the display positively sickening, especially after having watched Peter Greenaways "The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover" two days previously. Urgh. Aparently I do mind cannibalism! Who'd have thought so?

I have feelings of great tendresse towards this ball of wool which I have bought today:




(The yellow light does not really do the colour justice.)

I might knit something confoundingly delicious out of it, but I haven't made up my mind yet, if I will keep it to myself to go with my new nailpolish, or if I will use it to make one or the other Christmas present. One will have to wait and see how things turn out!

Alone and palely loitering with intent.

How fucking great are Phantom/Ghost?
Almost shamefully I have to admit that I hadn't even heard of this project until about 2 or 3 days ago, when Eva told me about the concert that was to take place in the course of the "Themenwochenende" at the Brut theatre. I thought, I'd better tag along, after all I do like Dirk von Lowtzow, and when I saw Tocotronic last year I really couldn't relish it as much as I should have (for reasons that shall, for the time being, remain unexplained.) But how much better this is than Tocotronic?! At least, it is so much more me:
There is this beautiful, and slightly awkward boy-man with the funny voice on a stage, moving in a way that is at once comic and hypnotising, backed only by his friend playing the grand piano. And they play songs that would not sound out of place in a 19th century English drawing room. And the lyrics are taken verbatim or inspired heavily by poetry, literature and classic movies. And they play a song from the Buffy musical!! And!!
I haven't felt this excited during a concert for a long long time - and I think I can even say that the Divine Comedy did not impress me that much (although, of course, one has to take into account that the expectations were so much higher there)

Now, doing my "homework", I am apalled at how long they have been in existence without my knowledge, and naturally I will have to get all the albums, and see them again as soon as possible.
Jesus, there should be more music out there like this. I am terribly, terribly happy to have found this. :) Thank you.

PS: Life signs from nicedayforamood! Wahey. The day is getting better and better.
PPS: I got an A on my seminar paper ... I don't understand. I need an explanation.

"Der ikonoklastische Versuch einer metaphernfreien Sprache muß scheitern."

Oh Rose, thou art sick!

Oh Rose, thou art sick!
The invisible worm
That flies in the night,
in the howling storm

Has found out thy bed
Of crimson joy.
And with his dark secret love,
does thy life destroy.

William Blake

We virtually have consumption. Another event in a long chain of Victorian happenings. Oh, Victorianism! The sweet irony that you should enpassionate me so but never descend to my level to satiate my desires. (The poet sighs.)

This book has been rocking my day a bit:




Everything everything.
Julian Barnes is taking considerable time to get started. Although that is probably narrative technique to make the book appear more Victorian. Lol.
Eventually I will not contain myself any more, and burst open like Bradley Headstone in Our Mutual Friend. Only I will not attempt to murder, I will rape the novel! Rape the book!

I am writing allegorically! Both the surface meaning and the underlying meaning are equally true. Ain't life grand?