Bombay Beach

Have you heard of Bombay Beach?


Well, I saw it the other day and it was quite an experience. I found it ... well, puzzling. Somehow really disconcerting, because of all the conflicting feelings it expresses.
The blur of reality and non-reality and the instability of the boundary between them keeps nagging you all the time.
And you’re shocked at how horrible everything is and at the same time shocked that they seem to be coping somehow. And you keep wondering: Why do the lives of these fucked up people look and sound so beautiful, so poetic? Why do they have choreographies and soundtracks? You suddenly find yourself somehow envying the romanticism of their utter hopelessness. And at the same time it makes you feel sick inside because all the good things are probably fictitious addendums or results of the fictionalising.

When something makes you feel so weird, it’s probably good art. But I don’t even know if I liked it.

I am so over the early 19th century!

I’m really reluctant to write the historical context part of my dissertation because I just DO NOT WANT to repeat all those platitudes about changes happening around 1800 and lost securities and sudden self-consciousness and what not being the reason FOR EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENED. That sort of thing makes the most tiresome reading ever. Also everybody knows about it plus it can’t be really true, which is a weird combination of facts.
Ugh.
18 days left of this madness, and I better be finished in time.

Writing on Election Day.

I’ve been good today. Writing by hand hurts like hell after about three pages, but it really works wonders for introducing some much needed order and clarity into a chaotic manuscript (or more acurately, computoscript, actually!)

Also, a cat picture, because I can:

They were being the cutest the other day.

Oh yes, and a shout out to my non-existent American followers. It’s election day! Go do something about that. And remember that some things are meant for being played baseball with, and other things are meant for being voted for. They almost never overlap!

Chai child.

First snow today! But gone already.

I’m drinking very sugary chai, eating cake and procrastinating productively (clean and reorganise power-cord and usb-cable box and spice cabinet: check). What are Sundays for if not that?





My schedule says they’re for having already written at least 27 pages of the thesis.
My schedule is a buzz-kill.

The importance of profession for identity.

I know so many people whom I’ve never asked what they do for a living. Their profession never entered into my perception of them as persons, or into our ‘relationship’ which centered around other, more immediate concerns.

On the other hand here am I, and here are most of my peers, going slightly crazy about what they’re going to do for a living and how it will affect their lives - and that is, in more than just a financial sense. And I think quite justly so. I mean it’s obvious that you wouldn’t spend most of your time doing something that you thought wasn’t congruent with who (you think) you are.

But arguably, a job is not the same job when two different people do it. So you’re always you, whatever job you do, you’re simply you-doing-that-job.

And moreover, people are more than their jobs. (Arguably, some are less. But let’s curb the misanthropy for a while ...)


I don’t know what I’m getting at with these paragraphs ... Possibly preparing mentally for and rationalising doing that one job that will definitely not be me. Possibly just blathering.

BRB.

Dark kids die less unexpectedly.

Various Goals (Of Various Grades Of Feasibility)

1. Know and make all possible variations of lentil soup. (Here’s one that looks delish.)

2. Go for a walk. Autumn leaves and all.

3. Help make books. Like, dans la vie.

4. Hate less.

5. Knit a hat out of my cream coloured speckled yarn.

6. Read Russians and criticism of science.

7. Be kinda dark.

8. Travel to a different continent.

9. Figure out what the hell is going on with my taste in music. Make some music!

10. Build something. Out of wood and metal and stuff.

I sing songs to myself.

Some words:
Parsley. Mountain Goats. Cold morning. Tired. Other things. Breakability. Performative. Sentence. Season.



I’d really like to know why I so rarely do the things that make me so happy I could cry.

Hey, good-looking ...

Looking forward to my lunch date with this sexy tupperware container.

Hey butcher!

What
s
your
name?


Hey. Sometimes I wish I could just permanently regress to my teenage self and happily obsess about things (fictional or semi-fictional persons/events) to a frighteningly intense degree.

The relativism, scepticism and insecurity of my adult mind can get rather aggravating. Sometimes I'm afraid that I'll eventually bungee back and join some cult just because I'm so direly starved for faith (in the broader sense).


You can listen to this song, because it's in my brain right now. Please avoid watching the video. I'm sorry, I really couldn't find a less irksome one. I've always loved the way the apocalypse and or general carnage feature in Pulp lyrics. I'm quite apocalypse friendly in general. I guess it's a not-quite-part-of-this-world-thingy.

End of Estivation

Two days ago it was 30°C, but today, when I cycled to work, the tarmac on Bennoplatz was littered with the floury remains of chestnuts crushed by car tyres and the breeze nipped my knuckles and the tips of my ears. I saw a girl wearing a knitted hat, a parka and desert boots and the cawing of the crows had quite a different ring to it under a sky that now wasn't blue but approximately the colour of brushed aluminium.
Perhaps, I thought to myself, as I navigated through the oncoming traffic in Mariannengasse, I will have to buy gloves soon.

People are posting comments on social media sites, like: "Good weather, at last", no doubt in the hope to receive incredulous replies regarding their edgy and unconventional taste in weather.

Autumn seems to have hit the land, hard.

I seem to be okay with it, and the prospect that the library where I spend most of my time will no longer be sweltering and stuffy; and the fact that my bed is white and pink and infinitely comfy when the sky is grey and the rain is hitting the window panes; and the way hot black strong tea is always ready to be your instant comfort when you need it (a thing that only really works when there is actual, physical cold to be thawed); oh yes, and that there is an endless supply of free squash and pumpkins this year, waiting to be turned into delicious autumny soup. Simple comforts. Let's not get ahead of ourselves.
It is also a fact that it is much easier to turn oneself into a studious hermit, and to huddle, entrenched, behind stacks of books when the outside world seems less inviting a place than one's own study.

And maybe occasionally, on Sundays, the grey will yield to something like this ...
That would indeed be quite ideal.

Attempt attempt.

I kinda hate that I’d kinda like to own this book.

Where are your kyne, people?

Initialisation Ritual.

This is where I occasionally work.
These are boxes full of photos of pictures.

What I do is I split the continuous information of pictures up into searchable, verbal information. Digitalisation.

(Quick, before you miss a turn.)
Input Input.

Digitalisation means fingering.



Today: Manuscript Illuminations.
Kiss.

Random stuff I write in the back of my notebook while researching.

You don’t really like discussing things, do you?



I wanted to write: “One thing I've learned is that I prefer working with words to working with images.”

But then I started to think about it some more, and I’m not really sure that that’s what it is.
One thing I can definitely say is that the way art history is done at my university, it is not something I want to pursue for much longer. In that comparison I’ll take the study of literature any time.

But it probably doesn’t simply boil down to words > pictures. Oh no. Cos that would be far too easy and where would we end up if I could ever decide anything?

All of you people knowing what they want – how do you do it?

Yoho, yoho, a fictional life for me ...

image source
Reality brings out the worst in people.
Discuss.

In other news ...

It feels good to get some work done after what seems like forever. It’s just baby steps but ... maybe this dissertation is happening after all.

Jubilee.

This is my dad. He turned 60 today.
Prost!

What’cha looking at?

Garden. Tomato.
Decay is everywhere, but it adds character.

ABC

Maybe the reason for my unhappiness is that I don’t eat more alphabet doughnuts?

Cat Gift

Live mice in the house, dead mice in the garden.

What’s for dinner?

... Pumpkin soup!
First homegrown Hokkaido is meeting its maker today.

The Status Quo As Of Now

Academic Panic Breakfast.

Increasingly, with this blog, I feel like I’m playing at a game I am really not good at, trying to impress people I don’t even like (and who couldn’t care less.)

Obviously I have to figure out some things. Don’t know what I am or trying to be.

I’ll report back when I know more.

Escapism.

Going through walks through the city and cycling through nature are just about the only things that make sense to me at the moment.

This has nothing to do with reality. Reality is not nice enough to show.

Summer in the city ...

It’s summer* and I’m in the city.
Why would anyone even think that is a good idea? Well, it isn’t, but I’m buried in work and work involves several ton-weighing tomes and the computer, so that I can’t just pack myself together and transfer to greener pastures. Therefore I have to endure my room turning into a sweltering 40°C hot-house come four o’clock (that’s when I get direct sunlight) and hardly cooling down at night. It’s not particularly conductive to productivity. But any emigration to air conditioned libraries would again require the transportation of tomes, so alas I am stuck.

It’s not that bad.
We can listen to this song together and dream of a world where business men on pogo sticks are a thing.

And here are some pictures from Thursday before last (which was Corpus Christi, and also maybe our third anniversary, egads!), when Max and I had the brilliant idea to go rowing on the Old Danube.

Rowing is a lot of fun. And you get to laugh condescendingly at the lazy people in motor boats.

So long!


* think tropical nights

All in one place.

I just found these pictures from New Years Eve.
That was a remarkable - and lovely - day due to the fact that all my old friends who now live in different countries were here, all in one place.

I miss them all the time.

What you say.

Can’t tell if it’s poetic or just plain inaccurate.

Primary personality trait: regretfulness.

“I can humiliate myself to your face. I can weep through my own midnights.”

Thinking about it, it’s actually rather surprising how much I like Xiu Xiu. I feel like I should be more annoyed by it, but I’m not. But it’s definitely not in the same vein as most of the things I listen to.
But then again, given the fact that I am mostly bored by what I usually listen to, maybe I’m on to some really great insight here. Heh.

I have some soul searching to do.
But I am a bit apprehensive of what I might find.

It’s not like this is irrelevant now.

Been rummaging through the music files.
This stuck out with its loveliness.



A small and quick and urgent song.

The ears of death.

So, as I see it, the problem constructs itself in equal portions out of the fact that there is always a tomorrow, and the fact that there are never enough tomorrows.

Interrail #10: Ghent

It goes on!
Ghent was a day trip while we were stationed in Antwerp. We went there on July 21st, which incidentially is the Belgian National Holiday. So everything was closed. Also, we arrived there the day after the Gentse Feesten. Or maybe during the festival. But the atmosphere definitely had a “morning after” vibe. That means there was rubbish everywhere and throughout the old town there was an unmistakable and very pungent aroma of beer, processed by the human body. If you know what I mean. It was the day Ghent had been turned into the Gents! (Oww!)
Given the fact that Ghent is known for its picturesque niceness, that was a bit un-nice. Bad timing, I guess.
We definitely made the best of it by fleeing the site of devastation and seeking the comfort of the local museum of modern art.
PICTURES!

Dirty, smelly Ghent.

It could’ve been so pretty.

Weeeird architecture.

A few bikes.

Random corner. With bikes.

Hier kwaak ik.

Kunst!

Broodthaers!

Storage depot!

Doing the art thing.

Inside installations.

Institution.


Right-o. Have a nice day!