Le testament d'Isa

Francis Cabrel: C'était l'hiver

Elle disait "j'ai déjà trop marché,
Mon cœur est déjà trop lourd de secrets,
Trop lourd de peines"
Elle disait "je ne continue plus,
Ce qui m'attend, je l'ai déjà vécu.
C'est plus la peine"
Elle disait que vivre était cruel
Elle ne croyait plus au soleil
Ni aux silences des églises
Même mes sourires lui faisaient peur
C'était l'hiver dans le fond de son cœur
Elle disait que vivre était cruel
Elle ne croyait plus au soleil
Ni aux silences des églises
Même mes sourires lui faisaient peur
C'était l'hiver dans le fond de son cœur
Le vent n'a jamais été plus froid
La pluie plus violente que ce soir-là
Le soir de ses vingt ans
Le soir où elle a éteint le feu
Derrière la façade de ses yeux
Dans un éclair blanc
Elle a sûrement rejoint le ciel
Elle brille à côté du soleil
Comme les nouvelles églises
Mais si depuis ce soir-là je pleure
C'est qu'il fait froid dans le fond de mon cœur
Elle a sûrement rejoint le ciel
Elle brille à côté du soleil
Comme les nouvelles églises
Mais si depuis ce soir-là je pleure
C'est qu'il fait froid dans le fond de mon cœur





Je pense à toi, cet instant même.

Academic cripple

I always thought that the strains of academic life would resume to phenomena such as writer's block, notorious self-doubt, lack of free time and private life, burn-out, childlessness and general psychological disbalance.

Little did I know that academics can also be physically crippled by their life-style. I mean of course we face what every person sitting in front of a computer or books the whole day faces, things like back problems, lack of exercise, etc. (Oh, and a friend of mine lacks vitamin D because she doesn't get enough sunlight.) But it gets even better: On Monday, I was diagnosed with tendosynovitis, which is also - as I just learned - very tellingly called typist's neuritis. So now I sit in front of my computer wearing a bandage on my left hand, and I am thus officially an academic cripple, both physically and psychologically speaking.

Guilty as charged

Guess I should have read this before going to the hairdresser.

One of the best music videos ever

MTV - Quo vadis?

The USA didn't win the Cold War with their military and/or scientific power, but by globally exporting a brown, sugary lemonade, a food chain that sells sandwiches, fries and icecream (called Sunday - seriously, isn't that the epitome of capitalism? an icecream that bears the promise of a work-free day), and music.
Accordingly, one of the secret weapons launched by the USA was a TV station called MTV. (For the younger generation's sake, let me say that MTV stands for Music TeleVision.) With young anchorpeople called VJs and the then stunning concept of showing only music video clips on television, MTV was targeted at the more or less innocent youth around the globe. By and by, you had a locally coloured MTV for every country (MTV Germany, MTV UK, MTV Kasachstan, you name it), adapted to the particular taste of every nation but americanized enough to be "cool" (simply using the expression VJ made you part of the in-crowd on the school yard; it was like a secret password).
Well, the Cold War is over, and we face what some people dare to call the "post-american era". You can now watch music videos galore, whenever you want to, and as often as you like, on the internet. So isn't it time we ask ourselves: MTV, quo vadis?
When you turn on MTV Germany these days (oh, but I believe everything is MTV Europe now, you know, very politically correct), you have to be really lucky or not have a job (and therefor be able to watch TV all day long) to actually catch a music video. What MTV airs mostly today are dating shows: starring the not so rich and formerly famous (Rock of love, I love New York [which is not, as one might think, about the city of New York], etc.), or starring everyman and everywoman (commonly known as "people like you and me").
My favourite dating show is called NEXT. The show basically resumes to the following description:
"Ever wish you could bail in the middle of a bad date? [Actually, I haven't, but never mind.] Well, NEXT is the MTV show that lets you do just that. We'll set you up on 5 dates. The minute you get annoyed, angry or just plain bored, simply kick 'em to the curb by saying "NEXT", and start over with someone new. Don't feel too bad for the ones you give the boot. They'll get cash for every minute they last and the one who makes it to the end gets a chance to turn the tables. They can choose to go on a second date with you or take the money and run. So be careful what you do, because sooner or later you could be the one hearing the word NEXT." (For this summary and more info click here)
What I particularly like about this show is that its makers are either utterly sarcastic and ironic about its content, or just think the viewers of the show have an IQ that barely raises above room temperature (probably both). Every participant of NEXT is introduced with a short wanted-poster-style summary, suggesting, of course, that our so highly cherished unique individuality is basically reducable to three characteristics.
Brad, 22
- likes to crush the pimples on his ass;
- would never do belly-dance when drunk ever again;
- can't wait to move into a house with a dog and a cat.
Charlene, 18
- likes an occasional threesome;
- works in a bikini-store;
- once thought she wasn't going to have sex before marriage.
But it gets even better: The voice-over writer is particularly fond of all too obvious puns, like for example:
Brad likes to crush the pimples on his ass, but he sure hopes that Charlene will have a crush on him.
or
Charlene likes an occasional threesome, but there's more than some three guys waiting to be her number one.
(Geez, I hope someone from MTV reads this and hires me as a writer for the show.)
But it gets even better: Before the usual commercial break (where they're mostly trying to sell you cell-phone-ring tones at outrageous prices), you can hear the punningly wonderful sentence: Stay tuned, 'cos there's more coming up NEXT!
(Btw: In case you were wondering - judging from my viewer experience, I'd say NEXT is 90-95% heterosexual. You do get the odd Gay/Lesbian episode; during the only one I saw, the girls waiting in the bus for their date started making out together, suggesting of course that queers have a totally liberated and unchained sexual appetite that they are ready to satisfy any minute, no matter where or with whom and preferably in front of a camera.)
So yes, you've guessed right: Michel Houellebecq would probably thank the MTV producers for this more than illustrative example that sexuality - just like money - is a system of social hierarchy; working and overlapping with the general capitalist economical logic. NEXT openly advertises the association between the two, and that you can be a looser/winner in both (sexual and monetary domain), or either one ("don't feel bad if you dump someone, at least the person will get money for it"). But in any case, if you're a stinky, kinky nerd, you neither get the money nor a date (you probably won't even get selected for the show).
NEXT also works with some of the principles of what I'd like to call chat-interaction: If you're on NEXT, no need to give reasons, be polite or respectful. You just dump the person you're not interested in from one second to the other (you just have to say the magic word "NEXT"!), and of course the dumped person can then get back on you by socializing with the other kicked-out daters and swearing in front of the camera (Charlene, you're ugly as hell and have an ass like an old mamma. - Brad, you suck!) No confrontations, no need to respect a lot of the common rules of face-to-face communication; it's a bit like being in a chatroom, though it's - of course - much more REAL (at least for the participants).
I know I sound like a grandma when I say this, but back in the days when I was a kid, you had to actually have an argument when you didn't like somebody (even if it was "because") and tell it to their face, or go through all of the sometimes very distressful periods between hope and doubt when you liked somebody. Oh, and yes, you could actually watch music videos on MTV.

PS: Did you ever wonder why there are only Porn and Telephone-sex ads on Sports channels after 10pm? Stay tuned, 'cos there's more coming up NEXT.

Things I learned this week

- Life is easier when you can sleep. It get's even easier when you can sleep for more than 5 hours on end.
- Capitalism is being able to buy 250g of smoked salmon for 1.99 Euros.
- A haircut might not change you, but it sure feels that way (same goes for buying bright yellow shoes with heels).
- Everyone can open a bank account at the Deutsche Bank. All you need is a valid passport and a piece of paper that attests where you live. (And that little piece of paper of course thereby attests that you're a creditable citizen who has enough money to pay for an appartment.)
- Last minute travels to a third world country are next to impossible.
- My psychoanalyst has a private life.
- There is hardly anything reasonable or fairly interesting on TV after 10pm. (Often times not even before that.) This is not, in any case, going to stop you from watching.
- I can switch the country code on my laptop to play DVDs of the region 2 only 4 times.
- The stuff on your tongue tells something about your general state of health.
- My next-door neighbours are actually real people. And they even come out during the day and do not only enjoy themselves in their nightly activities.
- Frankfurt does have a queer community. It also has a nightlife.
- Psycho is the most scary movie ever made.

- Insomnia + fucked up ex = purgatory.

- Insomnia + fucked up ex + a lively fantasy = hell.
- Shoes are an essential part of every outfit.
- Every third rate celebrity that had a one hit wonder in the 80ies has their own date show on MTV. (And most other shows on MTV are dating shows as well, but this time with people "like you and me".)

Solve my problem?

I went to get a new haircut today and fell for the hairdresser. Is it very obvious to return there like every two weeks to get my hair trimmed?

À la recherche de la madeleine perdue

So I saw a documentary about Marcel Proust yesterday (I watch a lot of TV these days. A LOT. Like if there was a fairly interesting series, film or documentary on German TV these days, I probably saw it). Marcel Proust wrote "À la recherche du temps perdu", which really is a cycle of novels containing: over 3000 pages, 200 characters, and over 1 million words (I wonder who counted the words. Maybe they just did an approximate estimation based on the number of pages.).
What is also interesting about Marcel Proust and his major oeuvre is that he basically sat down (or rather: lied down) and wrote it in the last 15 odd years or so of his life. He would have the weirdest life rhythm; getting up only at sunset and writing the whole night through. Suffering from asthma since he was a child, he would drink 17 cups of coffee every day (or night?) to "fortify" his health. (Interestingly enough, Balzac is known to be a great coffee drinker as well. So there seems to be a direct correlation between the amount of consumed coffee and the amount of written pages. Of course, they just simply gained time to write more by being awake much longer. But maybe it is also heightening your creativity? When do the brain researchers finally solve this mystery, I ask? [Come to think of it: I hardly sleep these days, but doesn't do my creativity any good. I just walk around like a zombie all day and toss around in bed at night.])
What Proust did (at least I like to look at it that way), was to live intensively for 35 years, and then completely withdraw from the world and just write, write, write (which is a very extreme case of what a lot of authors say, that you can't live and write at the same time). And boy, he had the means to live (and also: he had the means to write!). He was a regular guest at the most fancy salons of Paris, and apparently he liked gossip so much, and was so well known for it, that there was the expression "proustier" for gossiping. Although he did already write essays, colums and stories at the time (among them an essay about St. Beuve with 800 pages!), nobody really took his writing serious. And even the first novel of the "Recherche" was hard to publish: He got a rejection from most of the famous publishers. A certain Monsieur Humblot, working for the publisher Ollendorff at the time, said in his evaluation of the manuscript: "Maybe I don't get it, but I can't understand why someone would need 30 pages to describe how he is tossing around in bed at night before he falls asleep." (Geez, can you imagine going down in literary history for that kind of misjudgment? André Gide, who also worked for a publisher at the time and rejected Proust, thought it was the biggest mistake of his life.) The editor who did finally consent to publish it had, ironically enough, simply not read the book before. Which is just to say: Sometimes ignorance can be very beneficiary.

Decadence

So I decided that I am entitled to treat myself. Got a Shiatsu-Massage today (and apparently I really needed it since one look at my tongue made the Shiatsu-lady scream out in horror. Don't ask me how she could see it, but she saw on my tongue that I was having a hard time these days.). I went to a Spa and got a pedicure and a foot massage, so now me feet smell like tigre balm and are as soft as a baby's ass.
Now off for ice cream in the sun and maybe a beer later on.
You know, the little pleasures of life, that kinda thing.

Lamentatio

Si seulement je pouvais dormir, me plonger dans l'oubli d'une nuit noire, sans conscience.
[Soudain je me rappelle de cette phrase d'une cantate de Bach:
Komm, oh Tod, du Schlafes Bruder.
La beauté récomfortante de cette métonymie: le someil est le frère de la mort.]

In the end - part II

The problem is of course that it does matter.

The cold song

What Power art thou,
Who from below,
Hast made me rise,
Unwillingly and slow,
From beds of everlasting snow.

See'st thou not how stiff,
how stiff,
And wondrous old,
Far far unfit to bear the bitter cold.

I can scarcely move,
Or draw my breath,
I can scarcely move,
Or draw my breath.

Let me, let me,
Let me, let me,
Freeze again...
Let me, let me,
Freeze again to death.

Wie krank ist das denn?

So I just spent like an hour cleaning my fridge. Not only throwing away stuff that looked like a biological experiment of mushroom cultures, but also whiping and spraying even the tiny ridges and all the compartments and little plastic shelves. I must be going nuts.

J'ai envie de me creuser un nid au fin fond de rien du tout.

In the end - it doesn't really matter

It starts with one thing
I don't know why
It doesn't even matter how hard you try keep that in mind
I designed this rhyme
To explain in due time
All I know
Time is a valuable thing
Watch it fly by as the pendulum swings
Watch it count down to the end of the day
The clock ticks life away
It's so unreal
Didn't look out below
Watch the time go right out the window
Trying to hold on, but didn't even know
Wasted it all just to watch you go
I kept everything inside and even though I tried, it all fell apart
What it meant to me will eventually be a memory of a time when

I tried so hard
And got so far
But in the end
It doesn't even matter
I had to fall
To lose it all
But in the end
It doesn't even matter

One thing, I don't know why
It doesn’t even matter how hard you try, keep that in mind
I designed this rhyme to remind myself how
I tried so hard
In spite of the way you were mocking me
Acting like I was part of your property
Remembering all the times you fought with me
I'm surprised it got so (far)
Things aren't the way they were before
You wouldn't even recognize me anymore
Not that you knew me back then
But it all comes back to me (in the end)
You kept everything inside and even though I tried, it all fell apart
What it meant to me will eventually be a memory of a time when

I tried so hard
And got so far
But in the end
It doesn't even matter
I had to fall
To lose it all
But in the end
It doesn't even matter

I’ve put my trust in you
Pushed as far as I can go
And for all this
There's only one thing you should know

I’ve put my trust in you
Pushed as far as I can go
And for all this
There's only one thing you should know

I tried so hard
And got so far
But in the end
It doesn't even matter
I had to fall
To lose it all
But in the end
It doesn't even matter

Untitled

J'ai envie de hurler. De pousser un cri qui pars du fin fond de mon intestin; qui se gonfle de l'air de mes poumons; qui s'accentu d'un son acide et dissontant par mes cordes vocales pour s'éclater - comme un fruit pourri - sur ma langue et mes lèvres en quittant mon corps. Un cri qui, par sa puissance, sa ferocité est tellement percant qu'il blesse comme un couteau tranchant, coupant la chair qui n'est plus qu'un morceau de beurre fondu par le soleil.

Life as a soap

I could very well do with a little less drama in my life. Seriously, the proverb "things that don't kill you make you stronger" is just bullshit, if you ask me. I could be very happy without all the things that failed to kill me; I could very well do without all the wounds, scars-in-the-making and scar tissues; without being "marked" by life. I have nothing against an easy-going life; things going smoothly; not having to deal with the sometimes unbearable impingement of other people's actions on me.
On a less self-depressive note, I wonder how come that when something unbelievable happens to me (whether it is a good or a bad thing, but particularly when it is a bad thing), I feel as if I am in a dream or in a movie. This is what I say: "I can't believe this is really happening; I feel like I'm in a movie."
Maybe it is just a way to express the surreal, uncanny feeling of not being able to grasp, to understand - emotionally and rationally - what is going on. In those moments, you realize what Freud meant when he said that we always only experience things retroactively; it is because life is just too big, too confused, too overwhelming to understand in a single moment; to make sense of it.
(Which is what we humans always want to do: make sense. Even when there is no sense. You get hurt. You suffer. Is there any sense to it? Did you somehow deserve it? Maybe this is why the proverb "the things that don't kill you make you stronger" makes me so angry. As if there was something to learn from pain. As if there was something to gain from it, like a utilitarianism of pain. You got hurt, but hey, at least you're gonna get something out of it. As if there was something to make out of the suffering. I refuse this. I refuse to make sense out of my suffering. I sometimes very childlishly - call it melodramatically - dig into the suffering; psychosomatically feeling emotional pain as if it was bodily pain [but is there really any difference between the two?]. You got hurt. And you got hurt again. And again. Does it make you stronger? Sure doesn't feel that way. Sure still feels like a full blow of a fist hitting your groin. Sure still feels like someone spitting in your face. Only now I can say: Oh, I know this feeling. I remember. Maybe this is what the proverb eventually means to say: strenght is just a habitude of pain; it's a recognition [in the sense of: I know this] of suffering. I think it was Levinas who said the most unethical responses to another person's suffering was either to say you understand or to trying to make "sense" and thereby relativize it.)
Maybe it is also because when something "bigger than life" (which really means: "bigger than your life") happens, I feel like something is done to me (rather than I am doing something, actively). So to say "I feel like I am in a movie" is to express this inaction, this passivity, this pouring down of events on me; like actors in a movie being directed; like the feeling when you're in a dream and you can't get out; things just happen - you don't understand how or why. You do things - but you don't understand how or why. The best you can do is to somehow act mechanically; without thinking; without realizing this is happening to you - right now, right this moment, it is really you. If someone told you this story - but it is your story, don't you get it yet, it really is your story -, if someone told you this story, you'd shake your head with a slight laughter of disbelief. This can't be true, is it? It must be a movie - fiction, an ingenious work of thoughts and a dramatical plot written so as to entertain other people and make them shake their head in slight disbelief.
In short: my life is like a bad soap today. But hey: One day I might look back, shake my head with a slight laughter of disbelief and say: I can't believe this really happened to me.

Either - or

So it seems true after all: you can't live and write at the same time. It's either one or the other.
Getting run over by life these days.

Promise to my future self.

I will get you out of this.