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December: Easiness, Celebrities, and Another Round

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This is it. I really can’t wrap my head around why new years eve is such a thing, but it always is: so much weight on one night that throws us into raw panic; you better make this evening the greatest of the year, it’s your last chance!

It’s not going to work anyway. So I decided to skip it. Also, I am not going to make this my end-of-year review, because I know that we will wake up tomorrow, and there will be just another day, another month, another year waiting for us. It’s only names that change.

Over Christmas, I met friends from school, and we shared our best moments of the past year. It was hard to think of something—not because my year was shit; there were ups and downs, and 12 months are long. I tried to explain this one recent evening, where we luckily got cheap tickets for the Vienna Burg theatre, and afterwards we stumbled out into the Austrian night, and it was so clear, and we decided to walk home, because you can just walk everywhere in Vienna, and on our way, we ate a cheese-filled sausage (don’t ask), and it was all very easy.

Easy was what I needed. We spent so much time in coffee houses again, and that was easy too: “More Royals or more Celebrities?”, asks my friend and holds up a bunch of tabloid magazines. Hours passed, and we let them, we just read and said nothing. I find talking really hard sometimes, which is probably a bourgeois problem. I enjoy being silent.

This year ends with a lot of things it started with. Sholem published his first book with his Berlin Diary drawings. I keep re-reading Elisabeths weekly summaries, because they are soft and gentle everyday life observations. I still watch Roger Willemsen on YouTube, and I wish he could have said or written something to hold onto after 2016.

For the next year, I plan to discover more music. I’ve been listening to only two albums recently: Solange’s True (2012), and Pure Bathing Culture’s Pray For Rain (2015). I saved some tracks on Spotify, but I can’t remember titles or artists, which is sad.

Two days ago, a thin but cold layer of frost covered the city I am currently in. Winter came back. Twelve months ago, I couldn’t wait for it to leave, I almost couldn’t bear Berlin anymore. But Summer saved me, yet again. And I am impatient for it to arrive. Four more months. And then another year. Another round. Let’s make it count.

E. und ich denken darüber nach,

was wohl unsere Qualitäten für eine Business-Idee auf Instagram wären. Yoga? Ein eigenes Fitness-Programm? Raffiniert gemixte Smoothies? Nach einigem Überlegen fällt es mir ein:

Käsebrot. Damit habe ich wirklich Erfahrung.

Zwischen fünf Minuten

21 Uhr 56 —
Mich dann wieder zwei Stunden auf Websites verlieren an einem Abend, an dem es sowieso schon 21 Uhr ist und ich noch nicht mal etwas gegessen habe. Aber nicht auf Quatsch-Websites, sondern auf guten, auf Blogs von Leuten, die sich anfühlen, als wären sie seit 2008 nicht mehr aktualisiert worden, aber der neueste Eintrag ist gerade mal einen Tag alt, oder eine Woche, und man merkt: Da ist sich jemand seiner Sache treu geblieben. Das macht froh, durch den Bildschirm hindurch.

21 Uhr 57 —
Beim Aufploppen der Nachricht am oberen rechten Bildschirmrand kurz nostalgisch werden, und dann händeringend an dieser einen Erinnerung festhalten; diesem Abend, an dem wir alles nochmal durchgespielt haben, wohlwissend, dass es keine gute Idee sein konnte. Als würde man die frisch ausgebesserte Bleistiftzeichnung nochmal absichtlich verschmieren, einmal mit dem fettigen Daumen durch, oder drin herum zeichnen, um den Ausbesserungs-, den Heilungsvorgang wiederholen zu müssen.

21 Uhr 58 —
Seit bestimmt zehn Minuten steht das kochende Wasser in der Küche bereit, aber ich hänge zu tief in der Sofaritze, um jetzt aufzustehen und den Tee aufzugießen. Das sollte man nicht machen, sich diesen Platz in der Sofaritze gönnen, wenn man nicht wirklich bereit ist und alle Arbeit abgeschlossen hat, die einen Fußweg erfordern. Sonst kommst du nicht raus aus der Ritze. Die schmiegt sich einfach an dich ran mit ihrem heimlichen, wohlig warmen Klammergriff.

21 Uhr 59 —
In Wirklichkeit ist es natürlich schon 22 Uhr 06, aber wenn ich das hier in den Titel geschrieben hätte, würde die Idee des Textes nicht aufgehen. Und manche Momente, wie diese hier, passen ja wirklich locker zwischen fünf Minuten, nur das Aufschreiben ist mühsam, das dauert eben. Ich ertappe mich oft dabei, wie ich die Diktierfunktion des Telefons nutze, um einen Gedanken fast in Echtzeit zu digitalisieren. Aber oft klappt es nicht; das Zeitlimit stresst mich, die Formulierungen werden steif und streng, wogegen das Tippen oder Aufschreiben etwas weiches hat, was eben nicht immer zwischen fünf kleine Minuten passt.

November: The Library, Digression, and Items from the Future

Photo of lights at Berliner Philharmonie

It’s 9.30 am. I am carrying my transparent plastic bag filled with a laptop, some pens and a book through the library. This place is quite ugly from the outside, but inside, it somehow works. A light-filled atrium connects the sounds of the entry hall with the desk areas and bookshelves. The noise level in here is perfect—not too quiet; you still allow yourself to breathe, and not loud; enabling the perfect concentration mode. I put my coat, my bag and my phone (necessary!) into the locker, stuff a coffee and a doughnut in my face, and find myself a desk.

It’s basically a time machine back into 2013, when I spent most of January in this building to finish my bachelor thesis. The audience is a wild mix of art and engineering students, and they all appear to be very focussed and smart. I like to make myself comfortable on the fourth floor, between the sheet music and the multi-media library. From here, I can watch November’s rain, finish some books and finally try to focus on studying. I really do try, at least.

However, I also allow myself to drift off from time to time, from link to link, book to book. In October, I briefly mentioned Design Fiction. In class, we talked about this amazing project by the Extrapolation Factory, called 99¢ Futures. It was a pop-up store which, for one day, sold various items from the future, like a Mars Survival Kit, void refills, or an “instant full university degree while you sleep”. I might want that one. Even more design fiction can be found in Mark Dudliks essay “Speculations From Tomorrow”, where he explores the narrative of the Netflix series Black Mirror, for example, or Spike Jonze’s movie Her (remember Scarlet’s alluring Samantha voice?).

Less fictional, more scary: Adobe recently presented a tool dubbed “Photoshop for Audio”. From a 20-minute voice sample, it lets you manipulate existing and create totally new audio snippets—allowing people to put basically any word into any persons mouth. While it does sound like a disaster, regarding the current mistrust in media and algorithms, it really is what we have already gotten terribly used to with image manipulation.

Further digression: My friend Caitlin is an awesome person and writer. Need proof? Read her article about womanhood (is that a word?). Anyway, it’s relevant.

I am not very up to date when it comes to trending topics and memes, but some fragments of the #mannequinchallenge slipped through to my phone. This one won.

This last day of November is my 25th birthday. And of course, I found myself thinking: “25 is basically 30, and 30 is close to 40, and 40 means full grown-up-status, and what else is supposed to come after that?” What a stupid chain of thought. However, it reminded me of Miranda July’s movie “The Future”, where a couple wants to adopt a cat, and suddenly has very similar thoughts. They turn off the internet, start volunteering, loose each other, and everything falls apart.

I don’t think thats going to happen to me though. I’ll hide here in the library, with some doughnuts and coffee, and if I stare at this open Pages document for long enough, it might start filling itself. Fingers crossed. Enjoy December.

Amor, der Liebesgott

Das energische Klingeln des Telefons weckt mich aus meinem Power Nap. Aus reinem Schock hebe ich ab, was ich normalerweise zu vermeiden versuche. Ich lande in einer Telefonkonferenz mit meinen beiden Freunden Alicia und Rudi. »Leute, ich wurde angeschossen! Von Amor, dem Liebesgott!« Rudi ey. »Ich hatte schon ein komisches Gefühl die ganze Zeit, muss ich sagen. Aber es passierte dann doch plötzlich Schlag auf Schlag. Ich konnte mich kaum umsehen, da war es schon im mich geschehen! Babette aus der 13! Oh mein Gott!«

Ich höre Alicia an ihrem Milkshake nippen, und wir beide wissen: Eine Reaktion ist hier noch nicht von Nöten; Rudi wird die kommenden Minuten mit einem Redeschwall füllen.

»Sie ist klasse! Ihr rotes, lockiges Haar, habt ihr das schonmal bemerkt?! Man will die ganze Zeit rein fassen und Dinge darin verstecken! Oh Mann. Ich bin ganz beschwipst vor Liebe! Es war Amor, mit seinem Liebespfeil!«

Ein unangenehmes Sauggeräusch lässt vermuten, dass Alicia nun am Boden ihres Milkshake-Bechers angekommen ist, und ergreift das Wort mit einem genervten Seufzen: »Wann habt ihr euch denn getroffen?« »Getroffen?! Noch gar nicht! ICH wurde getroffen! Hast du nicht zugehört? Jetzt liegt es in meiner Hand! Ich muss Amor überzeugen, ein weiteres Mal in seinen Köcher zu greifen und auch Babette mit einem seiner Liebespfeile zu beschießen. Ich weiß nur noch nicht, wie. Ich muss ihn überlisten!«

Ich nutzte die bisher verstrichene Zeit, die ich nur passiv als Zuhörer verbracht habe, mir meine Socken und die Jeans wieder anzuziehen. Ich hatte sie für den Mittagsschlaf abgelegt. Während Alicia den letzten Rest aus ihrem Becher saugt, google ich Bilder von Amor. Dicke Engel mit Pfeil und Bogen ergießen sich über dem Bildschirm meines Flip Phones, das ich gelegentlich zum Surfen nutze. Ich habe Angst, durchs Gucken allein selbst Opfer von Amors Pfeil zu werden. »Kennt sie dich denn überhaupt?«

Aus der Reihe: Halb-gare Romananfänge. Fortsetzung folgt (vielleicht).

How to eat an orange

I once saw a video tutorial on YouTube about the correct way to eat oranges. Oranges are a weird fruit: More palatable than lemons; they actually work as a normal fruit snack; however, they are really tricky to prepare. According to the video, one needs to place the ripe fruit between both hands, and then start rolling it around the palms—gently, but not too gently. The rolling movement is supposed to detach the outer, inedible skin from the refreshing, juicy pulp. After a couple of minutes, one can dent a fingernail into the fruit’s detached skin and begin peeling off the hard, resistive layer. This should be easy now, and if you’re a pro, you can remove the skin in one piece. Afterwards, the fruit is demountable like a tangerine, and ready to be enjoyed.

Well. I never do it like that. I usually take a sharp knife, slice the orange in bite-sized portions, position myself over the sink (make sure I’m alone first), then start sucking and biting the slice until only the bitter skin is left. I open the bin drawer and throw the remains away. After that, I take some minutes to peel left-over fruit particles from between my teeth with my tongue. So refreshing!

September: Sketchbooks, Cobble Stones, and Solitude

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With the cobbled part of the street, I slow down a bit. I take notice of the old houses and small byroads, dipped in the blue hour of the evening, and I glance into a warmly lit restaurant window. It’s empty, there is only one person inside, close to the window. The man isn’t reading, he’s not looking outside, he’s not really looking anywhere at all. It was a very calm moment, and in the next one, I got shaken up by the cobble stones again. I cycled on, and asked myself: Was he lonely, maybe?

For its larger part, September was spent in Augsburg, my parent’s home town. I wanted to take a break from Berlin, get some work done, and use my newly gained freedom to read, learn to cook (haha, yeah, no) and fill my sketchbook. There are only a couple of friends left in the town where I grew up. But when I meet them, it’s doesn’t feel like we live 600 kilometers apart. My friend Viktoria asked me if I would still fill those black notebooks with snippets, poems and drawings, as I used to in school. I loved carrying the small Moleskine books with me, and really put effort into the “ideas”, as I used to call the filled pages.

Unfortunately, I had to disappoint Viktoria. Since I started studying design, my patience with notebooks got close to zero. My handwriting is poor, it feels like my drawing skills didn’t improve over the years, and I just don’t take the time to go through printed magazines and cut out the things I like or find funny anymore. Now that creativity is “work” for me, the simple art of Scrapbooking feels dilettante. And I don’t like that. Remixing, editing and sorting the things you stumble upon is an integral part of the creative mind. I can still remember a lot of pages from all the old black books I filled, just because it took time and effort, and was actually fun to do. It was more than just a notebook with sloppy handwriting and messy sketches for sketches.

However – I didn’t manage to draw a lot. I watched some video tutorials on water colors after I visited my grandfather, wo enjoys doing it, but I wasn’t very successful or determined. With my return to Berlin, I stumbled back into reality. Even though the city is so much bigger and wide-spread, it’s also so much stronger connected. Everything is wired up and constantly buzzing. Next week, I’ll have my introduction day at University, and I am excited! It’s probably just me who’s buzzing, to be honest.

Things that caught my attention:

Rebecca Solnit on being a writer: “Find your metaphors where no one is looking.” I should read some more classic literature.

On the other hand, I enjoy delving through Gregor Weichbrodt’s corpus of work. He explores conceptual digital literature, for example with his Dictionary of non-notable Artists, or BÆBEL, a mash-up of IKEA furniture-assembly instructions.

A thought: Instead of in the woods, we’re getting lost on the internet.

Take some time to go to the woods though; autumn is amazing these days. Go with a friend, or maybe take some time for yourself to do so. Solitude is not loneliness, and it can be quite relaxing. Enjoy October!

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