Lettin' go of 2008...

Superstition 2.0

Do you think it is possible to make an Email appear by looking into your mailbox like every 5 minutes?

Miscommunications 101

Interestingly enough, most people seem to interpret my indecisiveness about where and with whom I'll spend New Year's Eve as a lack of opportunities. Just to give you an example: my father went as far as inviting me to spend New Year's Eve with the family, meaning people I've hardly seen in the past couple of years, with whom I thus have no relationship of any kind and for whom I don't really care; least of all I care to spend New Year's Eve with any of them.

So, just for the record: My lack of enthusiasm for New Year's is simply what it is - a lack of enthusiasm whatsoever for celebrating this particular event. The only reason why I will ultimately drag my self (or myself) out to socialize on the 31st is because I know that if I'd do what I really feel like doing - namely, stay at home by myself -, I'd be completely drunk by 9pm and spend the rest of the evening listening to melancholic music, feeling terribly sorry for myself, and ultimately, around midnight, I'd start to pathetically drunk dial people I shouldn't really call.

Note to my future self

Tu mir bitte einen Gefallen, und wandere nächstes Jahr für die Zeit der Feiertage aus in ein Land, wo man weder die Bedeutung von Weihnachten noch von Neujahr kennt.

China ist ganz oben auf der Liste. China ist okay, dort nimmt man es zwar nicht so genau mit den Menschenrechten, dafür wird Neujahr erst irgendwann im Feber gefeiert, und man ist (hoffentlich!) zen-buddhistisch-taoistisch genug, um auf den ganzen christlich-kommerziellen Weihnachts-Klimbim zu verzichten. Wenn ich's mir recht überlege, hat Mao Weihnachten nicht abgeschafft, oder wie war das nochmal mit der Kulturrevolution? Als Alternative käme vielleicht Tasmanien in Frage, oder Dubai. Hja, Dubai ist gut, ein arabisches (sprich: nicht christliches) Märchenwunderland mit künstlichen millionen-dollar-schweren Inseln und 40 Grad im Schatten. Weihnachten am Strand unter Palmen und literweise Cocktails, das ließe sich eventuell ertragen.

In jedem Fall ist anything besser als diese Scheiß-Stadt mit diesem Scheiß-Weihnachts-Silvester-Glitter-Getue; diesem kollektiven Zwang zum Feiern und diesem Wir-sind-doch-alle-froh-und-besinnlich-Getaumel zwischen zwei Shopping-Trips. Argh, selbst wenn man prinzipiell gerne alleine ist, macht es einem dieser ganze verfluchte Scheiß wirklich schwer, Einsamkeit während der Feiertags-Jahreswechsel-Zeit irgendwie positiv zu besetzen. Ich fühle mich wie Scrooge, nur dass ich nicht von irgendwelchen verfluchten Geistern heimgesucht werde, und auch nicht heimgesucht werden will. Scheiße, sogar auf Arbeiten habe ich mehr Lust als auf diesen ganzen Mist.

In Summe: Auf Weihnachten und Neujahr wird nächstes Jahr GESCHISSEN. Amen.

Past, present and future

I've been keeping myself busy with thinking about luck, yet once again. (Although probably using an active phrase here is not quite accurate, and the passive form might be more appropriate: I've been kept busy; but that's another story.) More precisely, I've been wondering on the (grammatical) tense of luck, in other words: do we ever experience luck in the presence, or is it rather something we experience retroactively or prospectively, thinking "I was happy that moment, but I only realized that I was later on", or else: "I think/hope/know I'll be happy one day, under such and such circumstances, when this and that will happen". Maybe it is like in every (good) story, where most of the events gain their importance only in the light of things that follow, or in the light of things that went before. The presence of luck is thus something that is always divided, something experienced against the background of things that were or things to come.

On an even broader scope, you might ask yourself if we can ever really experience presence, or the present. The time span of the present is an instant, or rather: the blink of an eye (interestingly enough, German has a different word for instant: the look of an eye, instead of a blink). The funny or weird thing about the notion "blink of an eye" being that you cannot really experience it. Most of the time, our brain blanks out this precise moment - the blink - (and when you consciously concentrate on the blinking, you don't see anything during the blink, of course), constructing a treacherous continuity of consciousness and thus time, we perceive time as a flow rather than a succession of cut-into-pieces moments. Come to think about it, maybe photography is a more accurate "representation" of our life and ourselves after all, in comparison to movies (which is just the short version for moving images, thus moving instants). With all its constructedness, the capturing of one single, subjective, constricted moment might actually be the closet we can get to our perception of the present.

"... nous nes sommes pas assez subtils pour apercevoir l'écoulement probablement absolu du devenir; le permanent n'existe que grâce à nos organes grossiers qui résument et ramènent les choses à des plans communs, alors que rien n'existe sous cette frome. L'arbre est à chaque instant une chose neuve; nous affirmons la forme parce que nous ne saisissons pas la subtilité d'un mouvement absolu."

Friedrich Nietzsche

Ninth lesson of academic logic

Holidays for academics look like this:

You pack a suitcase with a third of the books you own or you've borrowed from the library along with your laptop, you drag them where ever you're headed to. Unpack books and laptop at your destination, and let them sit somewhere they can be easily seen. While never touching them once during your stay, they will sit there reminding you of all the work you should do or need to do, and thus create a constant, nagging level of bad conscience. Pack everything again at the end of your vacation, go back home and suffer from more bad conscience.

Conclusion: A "real" holiday is when you're sick, and even though you're sick, you'll have a bad conscience for not doing anything remotely connected to your research.

Was es ist

Die Banane krumm
und die Erde rund

Der Himmel blau
und der Schnee weiß

Die Nacht finster
und der Tag hell

Das Meer weit
und der Berg hoch

Die Worte treffend
(und) die Dinge da

Alles ist, was es ist,
wenn du bei mir bist.

'Tis the season to be jolly...

Did I mention I hate Christmas and the whole holiday season? I think it was invented by Christianity to torture people and make every sensible person over 6 years of age feel depressed and/or angry. Is there anybody out there who wants to go to a third-rate bar with me and get totally wasted on Christmas Eve ?

Let's call a spade a spade

Dear Alanis Morisette,

"meeting the man of my dreams, and then meeting his beautiful wife" isn't ironic, not even a little too ironic, it basically sucks - don't you think?

Truly yours

Down-to-earth.

Quotes of the day

Schlimm sind die Nachmittage. Zwischen vier und zehn habe ich den meisten Hunger. Ich schlafe lächelnd ein, weil ich weiß, morgen früh wird er ganz klein geworden sein. Morgens ist der Tod ein Säugling.

[...]

Außerdem: Was ist schon ein Park? Die Abwesenheit einer wirklichen Landschaft.

Terézia Mora Alle Tage

Machine Routine

Get up at 7.30 am. Brush your teeth. Shower. Drink one glass of multivitamin juice and make breakfast. Eat breakfast. Smoke a cigarette. Prepare lunch. Put in contact lenses and hair gel. Pick up newspaper on your way out. Take the subway to the office. Get coffee. Turn on computer and check mails. Read books while looking into your mails every 5 minutes and have a cigarette every hour. Eat lunch. Read some more. Take subway home. Have dinner in front TV. Do the dishes. Clean up bits and pieces lying around the appartment. Skype with or call a friend. Brush teeth and wash face. Go to bed around 11. Read a book. Sleep. Fuck up your emotional life and get into a total mess along the way.

Still not quite done with the Stoicism business

Dear Moirae,

it'd actually be quite helpful if you could give some advance warning for some of your doings, so I could somewhat prepare for the surprises you have up your sleeves. I'd really appreciate that, thanks!

Yours confused.

I have a dream

If anybody ever asked me to choreograph a music video (not that anyone ever will, but still, you wanna be prepared for those kinda things), I'd like to do a choreo to M.J.'s Smooth Criminal using only heads. A portrait of the dancer as a big head, so to speak.

Offbeat

The power of narration

You've wrapped me in;
wrapped me into your scintillantingly witty story.
Tied around your finger (the pinkie)
I was
delicately interwoven (while listening)
into the fabric of your words.
A letter
among others
or
maybe just a semicolon...


Du hast mich eingewickelt;
eingeblättert in deine funkelnde Geschichte.
Um den Finger gewickelt (den kleinen)
war ich
unbemerkt eingesponnen (zuhörend)
in das Netz deiner Worte
Ein Buchstabe
zwischen anderen
oder vielleicht
nur ein Strichpunkt...

Quote of the day

We name and talk of a problematic "transvestism," the desire to dress in the clothes of the other sex. We do not usually name and speak of the strong desire to dress in the clothes of one's own sex. [...] We name and speak of a troublesome "transsexualism," the feeling of being the other sex, the desire to inhabit the body of that other sex. We do not name and talk much about the feeling of being the same sex - the sex we think we are, the sex most of us desire to stay. But does not our feeling relatively comfortable with out sex, and our intense drive to maintain the integrity of our sex, indicate something that needs to be explained, as much as "transsexualism"?

Jonathan Katz The Invention of Heterosexuality

Why Marx was right

I have a project. A project not connected to my work, for a change. I want to make all (or most) of this year's Christmas presents myself (maybe like my mini-tribute to/against the financial crisis). Among other things, I started crocheting, believe it or not. After the first try outs where I almost got a heartattack because I was so annoyed that nothing worked out, internet provided me with a solution in the shape of a crocheting manual (which was like learning a new language again; all this new vocabulary like air loop, fix loop, tralalla). Now the monotonous movement of my fingers gives me a sense of enormous well-being (to speak with Blur), I feel strangely calm and satisfied.

In other words, I am starting to re-discover the pleasure of work made by my own hands. And I am secretly chuckling when thinking that of course all the people I give self-crocheted stuff to will have to wear it, no matter how odd they look.

Des homma scho so gern...

... Gender Studies studieren, und dann zum 200. Mal Sissy im Fernsehn schaun und gerührt sein. Hjaaaa, die Macht der Mythen und Medien...

I ask myself

When did I not become the person I could have become?

Epiphany

Im Rahmen der Möglichkeiten
sind wir ein hoffnungsloser Fall
...
Wir sind ein reichlich schlechter Scherz/
Unser Schmerz und unsre Wunden
sind unser größtes Kapital
Es ist als trügen wir
etwas in uns
das einer andern Welt
entsprungen ist
Kante Zombi

One moment, all of a sudden, pierces through; making you feel and/or realize, in a single and immediately lost (always already lost) instant, all the love you have to give, haphazardly and without aim.

Some people might just call that: being drunk.

Quote of the day

Das Gute an einer wechselvollen Jugend ist, sagte Konstantin eines Tages zur Fensterscheibe, dass uns jetzt praktisch nichts mehr passieren kann. Uns kann nichts mehr passieren, murmelte er in den Nebel. Das heißt, sagte er nach einer kleinen Pause, es kann uns alles passieren. Es passiert alles. Es wird alles passieren. Natürlich. Was möglich ist, passiert. Darum geht es nicht. Worum es geht, ist, dass uns, während uns das annähernd Nichtigste in unserer Existenz bedrohen kann, uns das annähernd Grausamste kaum mehr in der Seele zu erschüttern vermag.

Terézia Mora Alle Tage

I miss you girl

You said it, Siggi!

Human civilization rests upon two pillars, of which one is the control of natural forces and the other the restriction of our instincts. The ruler's throne rests upon fettered slaves. Among the instinctual component which are thus brought into service, the sexual instincts, in the narrow sense of the word, are conspicuous for their strength and savagery. Woe if they should be set loose! The throne would be overturned and the ruler trampled under foot.

Sigmund Freud The Resistance to Psychoanalysis

My motto for the next 2-3 years.

Abgeben statt aufgeben.

Fab's words of wisdom

Natürlich ist Sehnsucht eine Sucht wie jede andere auch. Fragt sich nur, ob es eine Sucht nach dem Sehnen oder eine Sucht nach dem Herbeigesehnten ist.