[february 01, 2003]
well, quite a busy day today. almost finished "ohne dich". only have to
tape the vocals. i'll do this tonight i guess. more snow. socker match
this afternoon. drunken fans passing singing by the window. seven dead
astronauts in the sky and no new messages on server. "...if you see something
in a nightsky that is clear it's just me burning in the outer atmosfear."
actually i wanted to write a couple of lines about the band, but i think
i'm going for a walk first. it's half past nine and the streets are emptier
now. quiter. calmer. whiter.
[february 02, 2003]
when i was standing under the shower this morning i thought about a song
for the "song of the month" pop up window but couldn't really make up my
mind. so when i was dressed and had re-arranged "huddinge" [you want to
know what i'm sleeping on? well, get out your ikea catalogue and hunt for
huddinge!] and the pc had booted up and laurie was smiling at me from the
desktop i checked my mail and saw that cedric had suggested a song of the
month:
Subject: entropic empire
Date: Sun, 02 Feb 2003 03:26:36 +0100
From: cedric@xxxxx.de
Dear YOU,
it's late at night and i just saw that the diary has entered a new month
(again). the pl/space for the 'song of the month' still seems to be empty,
so, i dare to make a proposal. however silly it might be. i fear, if anyone
could listen to the music, they'd say: "oh well, that's not bryan adams,
is it? or is it 'the great robbie williams ballad'?" but beyond reason
this song is SO important for me in this 'difficult' times that i'd like
to propose its lyrics (at least) for the 'song of the month'-section! i
hope it speaks to you, as well!
Always yours,
cedric.
and when i read them i thought that this was an excellent choice. and then
i wondered why i like the lyrics so much and then i thought that something
must be terribly wrong when you're identifying with the retrospective ramblings
of a 60 years old ex junkie rock 'n' roller.
anyway, recorded the vocals for "ohne dich" last night and realized
that the song isn't QUITE the way i want it to sound, so i guess i will
still have to do a bit of mixing today. i'll meet with my parents and my
sister and her friend this noon to have lunch at some egyptian restaurant.
my sister has invited us. ?.
[later]
B L A S T ! ! just when i had mixed "ohne dich" i got an error message
that some of the wav.-files were damaged. god knows how. and now i can't
open the vocal tracks! ARRGGHH! i'm just happy that i had already made
a final version mix! otherwise two days' work was wasted! nicole called
and we talked for a while and then cedric called and we talked for a while
and then nadine called and we talked for a while and fixed a date for tomorrow
and catherine mailed and i answered and inbetween i made dinner and did
the laundry. darüber ist es abend geworden. 22:05 and the days are
too short. i probably won't start with the story about the band tonight.
or maybe i will. we'll see.
oh well, why not. so here we go. everything
started basically in 1995 [for contextualization see the "nadine day" entry
on may 18, 2002]. i had put together a little solo set, basically with
songs by suzanne vega & leonard cohen that i performed. once or twice
i think ;o). anyway, nadine asked me why i didn't play with a band and
i said "oh well" and "i don't know, but you know, it's just..." and "hm,
a band is so..." and "and besides it's hard to find people..." so one day
when we met at the university she showed me a little flyer that she had
designed. it had my phone number on it and said that i was looking for
people to found a band. and she gave it to me and said: copy it. put it
on the white boards. and i did. two weeks passed and nothing happened.
i was glad. because nothing is worse than having contact with people you
do not know. [which obviously is quite an obstacle in getting to know people
but i won't elaborate on that now...]
but
one day the phone rang and my sister answered it [i was still living at
my parent's back then, though my sister and i shared a separate flat in
the house]. "there's somebody who wants to talk to you" she shouted into
my room "some guy who's playing guitar..." so i went to the phone and my
heart was beating unbearably loud and i picked up the receiver and i said
"hello?" and a lively voice at the other end said "hi, this is rob terwesten.
i'm calling because of your flyer..." and then we fixed a date and met
at a bar later that week. when we met for the first time i realized that
i liked him at once. he was a good deal shorter than me and a little older
and he was very bright and quick and witty. we talked about music and about
what making music means to us and suddenly we were having a very, very
enjoyable conversation. he said that a friend of him called daniel was
playing drums.
at that time they had a rehearsal room in detmold, a small city close
to bielefeld, so our very first rehearsals took place in that small, and
narrow room in which my head almost touched the ceiling. here i met daniel
for the first time, and i also liked him from the start: he was a little
taller than i and he was doing practical jokes all the time. the good thing
was that both of them were not professional players: they took it very
seriously but there was never any pressure or demand for virtuosity. everybody
played as good as he could, and that was enough to make me feel really,
really great! it was amazing playing with a whole band. later stephan joined
us on the bass so we were four then. we found a rehearsal room in bielefeld
and started to jam twice a week for three hours each. we very quickly came
up with songs: basically rob had a chord pattern and i did the lyrics and
then we sort of put it together during the rehearsals.
[in front: stephan (wearing lasses),
rob, daniel & me] the first name we had was "colorless green ideas"
from a sentence used in semantics teaching that goes "colorless green ideas
sleep furiously". but somehow we knew that it wasn't the best name that
you could have. and one day rob saw laurie anderson's book "stories from
the nerve bible" lying on my desk and he said: "that's the perfect name:
the nerve bible. all in favor say aye!" we had three ayes and one no from
stephan. so from that day on we were the nerve bible. we made out first
demo tape and sent it to a small magazine, that promptly published a review
that was full of praise. which encouraged us to make more songs. it didn't
take long and we were doing gigs. quite a number of them actually. we played
at almost every venue possible in bielefeld and also in the cities nearby.
rob and daniel [who were both studying law - stephan was as well!] knew
a guy who was working in a sound studio, and thanks to him we got special
rates so that in december 1995 we could record four songs which - along
with a fifth, self recorded track - became our first cd: the prosecutor's
love songs. mind you at that time having your music on cd was a special
thing! and it was a "real" cd, meaning that we had a small label in hamburg
who had them manufactured professionally: complete with cover that we had
designed ourselves. this cd got raving reviews in the local papers as well.
so
we kept doing gigs and kept composing and a year later we had new songs
for a second cd: tomorrow vladimir. this time we had less time in the studio
so the recordings were a mix of material taped in the rehearsal room and
overdubs taped in the studio. unfortunately there started to be some kind
of tension between stephan and the rest of us. and in 1998 he left the
band. he came back a couple of weeks later to play a last gig with us.
after he had left we kept searching for a new bass player - which was more
difficult than we had imagined. finally we found reiner, who had already
played in all bands in bielefeld for 20 years. he is a real professional.
rehearsals suddenly went much better because the atmosphere was relaxed
and the four of us had more fun playing than ever before.
at that time we started experimenting with home recording software and
we started taping new songs for a full length cd. as usual rob came up
with a musical phrase or a chord pattern and i added the melody and the
lyrics and together with daniel we did the "fine tuning", added a bridge
here and a break there. it seemed to be heaven for us: before we only had
a four track-tape and now we could use ten or twelve tracks! we recorded
the drums in the rehearsal room with the mini disk recorder and then added
the additional instruments at home in somebody and my flat. we spent a
lot of days and a lot of nights doing guitar track after guitar track.
often rob would say: "oh well, i'll just add some plain chords, keep it
simple..." and then he suddenly and out of the blue started to play the
most fragile and beautiful guitar line. it didn't take along and we had
almost ten new songs - each of which we thought was really, really good.
by that time we had become a little frustrated. we had gotten some reviews
which were really bad, complaining about "confessional poetry"-lyrics and
chauvinism because we didn't have a female member in the band [well, make
sense of THAT!]. we didn't get any gigs in the bigger cities like hannover
or dortmund and we had played everywhere in bielefeld. we seemed to have
gotten stuck somehow. still the band was the second most important thing
in my life, only topped by my relationship. [the nerve bible story continues...]
[february 3, 2003]
it's ten in the morning, i'll meet with nadine in an hour and we'll have
breakfast at the "wunder-bar". actually before i wanted to work a little
- you know, that kind of work that is really work and not fun, basically
starting to write on the article. but i'm just sitting here and my mind
is totally blank. how to start? how to proceed? how to end? cedric sent
another mail tonight:
Subject: entropic empire
Date: Mon, 03 Feb 2003 02:48:34 +0100
From: cedric@xxxxx.de
Dear YOU,
YES! There is something terribly wrong, if you're able to identify with
"the retospective ramblings of a 60 years old ex junkie rock 'n' roller'"
... but isn't this a start???
Always yours,
cedric.
it's a strange morning. most of the snow has melted. most of the cars that
were parked along the road have gone off to work. there are high clouds
in the sky and a very strange feeling in my back, you know, that kind of
feeling when you realize that you will have a very bad existential crisis
within the next two hours. plan for today: meet with nadine, get the railway
tickets for tomorrow, do some shopping for tonight's dinner, work so you
get a better conscience, pack the things for cologne, finish that entry
about the band.
[later]
hm, you might have guessed it but i only managed to do half the things
that were on my list. spent a very nice noon and afternoon with nadine.
we had great places in the bar: i was facing the large panorama panes and
behind them people were running down the avenue like in an aquarium and
the big, fluffy snow flakes were whirling around and "hejira" came to my
mind: "i'm traveling in some vehicle | i'm sitting in some café
| a defector from these petty wars | that shell shocked love away | i see
something of myself in everyone | right at this moment of the world | the
snow gathers like bolts of lace | waltzing on a bridal girl" talked to
cedric on the phone. he had good news about his exams. when we were talking
on the phone yesterday night we suddenly started discussing paul simon's
album "graceland" and what a good video "you can call me al" had been and
that the video for "the boy in the bubble" was so disappointing and then
we wondered whether there's any video for the song "graceland" and we both
didn't know at least we hadn't seen any and cedric said that he thought
that this was quite a shame and that if HE had to shoot one he would use
lots of afro-american elvis impersonators, which i thought was quite a
brilliant idea. more mails to and from catherine. we will meet tomorrow
night for a beer. right now the sound from the passing cars enters the
room on the wave of soft, cold air that smells like snow. it's twenty to
ten and leonard is singing about his popular colored piece of clothing.
of course i didn't manage to finish that entry about the band today. tomorrow
morning i'll be off to cologne again. looking forward to that. i'll be
there on friday as well since blaine has invited me. sorry, don't have
anything significant to say today. but sometimes that is just so. "i'm
porous with travel fever | but i'm so glad to be on my own | still somehow
the slightest touch of a stranger | can set up a trembling in my bones"
[february 5, 2003]
sorry, no entry for yesterday. but the day just went by much too fast.
got to cologne in the morning, then the seminar, then lunch with eva, sirka,
ute, tina & blaine, then work for thomas, then a coffee with irene,
then more work and then i met with catherine in the evening. and a very
strange thing happened: we were talking about the concept for an exhibition
that she had worked on as part of her exams and she said: "well, you know,
actually it's a pretty costly design because i had thought about a room
with the shape of a circle and then you have all these small rooms around
it like a piece of cake and you go from one room to the other..." and i
said "like this?" and i drew a sketch like this:
and she said "yes,
exactly" and what i had drawn was the sketch for the virtual laramée
exhibition on the hollow earth cd-rom! so we had the same spatial idea
for different exhibition projects. i also told her about the whole hollow
earth connection and research and i think she was both interested and fascinated.
it was good to see that it's not just three strange, unworldly literary
scholars (thomas, cedric and me - some more unworldly (n'est pas, thomas!?)
and some less unworldly) who think that this is a topic that is interesting
on an intellectual as well as on an entertaining level. so catherine and
i discussed quite a number of things until about midnight and then it was
back home into my little, comfy, cozy office. i had five hours of sleep
and then the morning started with a mail from thomas and more work to do.
then a coffee with nicole and then some research and then some preparation
for the seminar and then irene dropped in and then another coffee with
nicole and now this short entry and then another quick coffee with blaine,
tina and astrid and then seminar. by the way: having coffee usually means
discussing work, exchanging ideas, approaches and theories - so it's not
like we would be hanging around half of the day doing nothing. just wanted
to set the record straight concerning this particular point.
[february 6, 2003]
aaaaarrrrggghh! headache. fuck. got to fill out a form for my job and tell
them when i've started with my dissertation and when i'll have finished
it. according to the new law you have to finish it within six years. three
have already passed and i haven't written a single line. panic shook me
today when i had realized that. and that NOW, when i wish i could spend
more time than ever on the music. :o((((((((((((((
today i got a very strange call on my mobile phone from a woman who
said i should stop sending her daughter "little letters! 'my darling' and
'honey' and such!" and i replied "what??" and she said "you know what i'm
talking about! we've got your number on the display" and i said "i don't
even know your daughter nor have the time to write messages to her!" and
the woman got totally upset and said that she'd call the police if i didn't
stop and then hung up. and i went: think. think. think. and then i thought
that i had written three or four sms to blaine, the last one yesterday
night: "Spatzi, hoer doch mal die neuen 200 lurkers songs: tracks 9 und
7!" ["honey, listen to the new 200 lurkers songs: tracks 9 and 7!"] and
when i talked to him on the phone today he didn't really mention this message
nor has he ever reacted to any other sms that i had written since he had
his new cellular phone. i mean they were not important: either some teasing
or some silly messages, but always using some sort of pet name. and when
i thought about it i got the slight suspicion that i don't have the correct
mobile phone number and that all those messages arrived at that poor woman's
daughter's phone. o-h m-y g-o-d!
i'll be in cologne
tomorrow afternoon|night because blaine has invited a couple of people
over to his flat. before he and i will meet and have a coffee in some café.
good news of the day: blaine overheard a conversation today in the hall
of the university: two students who are in our seminar (and who could not
see him) were talking and the one girl said: "you know, schulz and hofmann
are soooo cool. and the seminar is so much fun!" well, of course she had
put the names in the wrong order, but still i had to smile when blaine
told me about it. yesterday in cologne i had a magazine in the mail: the
cologne university magazine that features articles and news about the institution.
and on the back cover it had this unbelievable ad from the "postbank",
a financial institute: "this is the way graduates look who say goodbye
to theory!" which, well, just says everything. we thought we couldn't believe
it! so we decided to make a couple of really horrible photos of us next
week and add them under the heading: "and this is the way graduates look
who stick to it!" i mean they're putting SUCH an ad on the back cover of
the university magazine! zwei blöde blonde bratzen und ein schleimiger
jura fatzke, die nach der tollen after work party ins wellness studio gehen
und zu hause im cd regal als oberste eine verdi cd liegen haben ["für
wenn wir mal italienisch kochen...dann müsst ihr mal vorbeikommen!
malte hat ein tolles rezept aus unserem letzten tosakan urlaub mitgebracht!"]
die aber eigentlich den ganzen tag die neue kuschelrock hören und
der
kleine prinz lesen! (although the left one looks sort of nice...but
still!) no wonder society doesn't accept those who think that theory rules!!
and we do!!
so now that i've complained at length that
i
haven't started to do any serious research work for over three years i
might as well continue telling you about the nerve bible. let me tell you
a little more about rob. he was a really passionate guy. especially with
regards to music. he had two "modes" of talking about music: on the one
hand he sometimes played a song to me and just said: "listen to this bass
line!" or "just listen to this chorus!" and he was so fascinated by it
that he wouldn't say anything more but just turned up the volume and sort
of sighed "oaoh!! isn't this great?! it's just great!" he had this simple,
unreflective and unconditional love for a song. i had this as well, but
i always thought that it was bad. in a way i learned from rob to - at times
- just surrender to the beauty of the music or the lyrics. and on the other
hand he had a very analytic mode in which he started to dissect the songs,
track by track, instrument by instrument. and this way he told me a lot
about songwriting because he pointed out special ideas, breaks, solos,
bass lines, bridges and so on. he played a part of a song to me and said
"listen how the verse changes into the bridge with this great bass line
that drops down - and then there is this break in front of the chorus and
the voice is singing that single word into it!"
the way we were writing songs together was almost uncanny. it wasn't
that we were seeing each other much when we did not rehearse. we never
went to the movies together or to a bar or had discussions about private
and|or intimate things, but as soon as we started to write songs we seemed
to be on exactly the same wavelength. often we didn't even have to speak
out what we were thinking about how a song should proceed or when a bridge
or a chorus should set in. we both knew when. we thought the same thing
about it. sometimes when we had finished a song musically and the lyrics
were missing he said very passionately: "oh, we need great lyrics, we need
great lyrics! philipp! we need lyrics with words. with words. you know:
great words!!! and his face went red and his eyes were on fire and he was
infecting the rest of the band with his fever and his passion.
besides cedric rob was also the one who made me listen to new artists:
he was a huge smiths and morrissey fan. yes, he was totally devoted to
morrissey. but then he was listening to a very wide range of music: from
pulp to blur and the blue aeroplanes, catherine wheel, radiohead of course
and blumfeld. he was the one who brought blumfeld into my life. and element
of crime. and tocotronic. he also listened to michael nyman and gene.
the other big passion he had besides the music was disney. he was a
huge disney fan. he went to eurodisney every year. he saw every disney
movie. he even bought "toy story" action figures that could speak and then
he called me up and he let the puppet talk on my answering machine: "you're
my favorite deputy!" he could be very silly and often he started to play
crappy songs during rehearsal that he made up and he was improvising lyrics
about me or daniel. at one gig daniel wasn't sure anymore when we would
be doing a break at the end of a certain song so he looked at fron from
behind the drums hoping to get some help. and rob looked at him and gave
him a wrong clue deliberately. so suddenly daniel stopped playing and had
a hard time joining in again without making it totally apparent that he
had stopped at the wrong time.
anyway,
so back in october 1998 we were busy recording the cd with our home-studio
equipment. actually everything was finished. we only needed robs guitar
for two songs and we had to mix the tracks. but since he had just passed
his exams he was on holiday for two weeks, visiting his brother in bavaria.
one day reiner, daniel and i met to find a cover photo for the artwork,
and we came up with an image from the exhibition catalogue of "the nerves
end at the fingertips" which was pretty cool and which had some kind of
"smiths" flair. "rob will definitely love it!" daniel said. we didn't really
have a title for the cd yet, although - at a rehearsal - rob had suggested
"a star after me" which was a line from the opening song. we planned to
send the cd out to every label we could get our hands on. i think we had
never been convinced more about out own material. it wasn't that we thought
we were the greatest band on earth but we were confident that the songs
weren't just crap.
at that time i had a student's job at the university, giving out video
recorders and overhead projectors and copying tapes and videos. so that
one day i was driving to work. and suzanne's "best of" collection had just
been released that day. it was called "tried & true" and featured two
new songs. so on the way to work i stopped at a record shop and bought
it. when i was sitting in the bus to the university i was unwrapping the
plastic and i got out the booklet with trembling fingers to read the liner
notes and the lyrics for the new songs. one of the songs, the last one
on the cd, was called "rosemary". i had never heard it before. but the
lyrics impressed me very much. it started with the lines "do you remember
how you walked with me | down the street into the square" and it ended
with the lines: "all i know of you is in my memory | and all i ask is you:
remember me" and when i read these last lines a shiver went down my spine
and my skin caught fire and something unfolded inside and pressed the water
into my eyes. the lines were just so simple and yet beautiful and although
i didn't know the melody they read like music.
three hours later - i was at work, there weren't many customers - my
now ex-girlfriend came in. and i was smiling because we hadn't planned
to meet that afternoon and i walked towards her but she wasn't smiling.
"hi! what are you doing here?" i asked her and she said to me in a low
voice. "please sit down." all i know. and i didn't understand. of you.
and she repeated "philipp, please sit down". in my memory. and then she
said "this is not a joke. rob is dead." you're my favorite deputy.
and i didn't understand her at first. i couldn't make sense of it. it just
didn't figure. nothing ever figures.
at the funeral we learned that he had a heart failure since his birth.
he had never told us. he had been to the doctor and he said that he would
not get very old if he wouldn't have an operation. so he had fixed a date
for an operation a week after he would have come back from holidays. but
he died ten days before that date. he was with his brother and they went
to visit a famous castle in bavaria: schloss neuschwanstein, the role model
for sleeping beauty's castle in disneyland. and while they were on the
way to the castle he just dropped dead. his heart refused to work and he
fell to the ground.
for over a year i was unable to cope with that. i think this inability
was among the reasons why i alienated from my girlfriend which ended in
losing her love altogether. i thought that i would never be able to write
songs anymore. i didn't know how without rob. it was only then that i realized
how much he meant for me, how much i owed to him, how much he had taught
me and how much we had accomplished. and i had never even told him that.
i never told him how much i liked him. it went downhill from then. first
we continued to play without a second guitarist. then we had a new one
for a year - but it didn't really work out. then we stopped playing.
a year ago i felt like trying to play in a band again, so i put an ad
into the local newspaper that i was looking for musicians and guess who
called me: daniel and reiner. so since then we're playing together again,
even writing and recording new songs. besides that 200 lurkers started
to develop last fall, of which daniel and reiner are a part as well.
all this is wrong. it's wrong to write three paragraphs about your death.
there's so much more to say. so much that the writing would never stop.
and i cannot stop talking about it. and i cannot stop crying about it.
and i guess my life will just go on the way it did before. except that
the fine line between song and sign will not blur anymore.
[february 7, 2003]
it's 3:43 in the morning, so actually it's february 8 already. i'm in the
office. we spent the night at blaine's, which was fun. i'm tired now. dead
tired. lotion is playing. "mark on my shoulder that won't go away..." i
have to sleep now. my eyes ache. i wish i had never met you. i wish i had
never felt how good things can be. i wish i had always only drowned in
mediocracy. but - this doesn't make any sense. there's no con-text. or
too much. "just before our love got lost..." everything will be compared
to you and how are things supposed to measure up to you at all? [...] (passage
delted by request) ... and this surprised me and it made me happier
than i was willing to show. for some reason it suddenly had such a significance
although it hadn't but then it had although it hadn't. it's silly, but
i kept thinking about it all evening and all night long. i'm pathetic.
i'm writing again when all i want is two arms to sink into. need to sleep
now. good night.
[february 8, 2003]
i'm still at the office. it's noon and all's quiet in the building. i'll
meet blaine in half an hour because i forgot to pick up the term papers
yesterday night. yawn! next week is the last week of the semester. the
cure are singing "love song". i'm humming along. i need more time. i simply
need more time. the days are spent deciding what NOT to do because one
has to chose. i hate to chose. i want to have everything. not just a selection.
there you go. THAT sounds like a 30 year old semi-intellectual was talking,
doesn't it.
[later]
it's eight in the evening and i've just arrived from cologne. spent a good
part of the afternoon with blaine, discussing term papers and relationships.
on my way from the university to blaine's flat i was passing a gallery
that had an exhibition of various robert wilson chairs. interesting.
[later]
oh. by and by i keep remembering all the noteworthy events from the last
two days. blaine and i met for a coffee yesterday afternoon at some café
and we were frauengucken - womenwatching; which, by the way, is
quite a fanciful occupation for somebody who does gender studies and somebody
who sympathizes with somebody doing gender studies... - anyway, we were
sitting in this café and i was learning how to smile at people without
giving them the impression that i'm a mad killer on the run when they played
the new johnny cash cd over the speakers and blaine kept swearing and cursing
and complaining about the music but he had to bear it because we had just
ordered another coffee :o))
[february 9, 2003]
started to work seriously on "cold smoke". hm, but i'm not sure. it's that
kind of song that only works if you have a lot of instruments and backing
vocals. i fear that it isn't really a "guitar-only" hit. anyway, wish i
had an acoustic bass. also worked on the term papers most of the day. i
wish i could tape songs without constantly having a bad conscience. i want
somebody to forgive me, to say: "yes, it's okay that you've spent all day
on working on another insignificant, unsuccessful song that the world does
not need and that will not help you coping with the future...don't worry.
it's okay." i would do anything if i could be sure that i will be able,
that i will ha e the opportunity to write all the songs that i still want
to write. it's silly, but sometimes i feel such a panic that i won't be
able to do this, then suddenly everything becomes unimportant and the only
thing that matters is to make a small, shining thing, like a semiprecious
stone, a smooth and sparkling thing of words and sounds. and i don't understand
it. i know that i have to use my energy and tome for something else but
everything else is so unimportant. the bad thing just is that the world
sees it the other way around. i and the world, we do not share the same
judgment concerning the priority of things.
and even though the lyrics won't probably tell you anything without
the melody and the music, here are the words for the new song. and yes
- i've managed to use that line from dracula!
[cold smoke]
the party went out of hand
the kitchen is a mess and all the guests have left undressed
so now it's just the two of us
and a dozen dirty dishes
but let's not start to rub the stains
they will just get bigger, it will only make them bigger
let's never talk about tonight
and file it under failure
chorus (instrumental)
the men that you invited
were handsome & were strong and i just knew it would go wrong
the women here looked pretty, too
except when you got near them
let's share the last wine brotherly
tomorrow our clothes will smell of old jokes and cold smoke
so cheers to us and to what's lost
it was well worth losing
chorus:
if you think i did you wrong
i ask for your forgiveness
and if you think you did me wrong
i am forgiving you
(repeat and fade out)
there you go. i leave it to your imagination to come up with the music.
but i've used a drum sample from "gone again" by the indigo girls: the
first 6 seconds of the intro. the chords are a mixture of the well loved
and over over over used e-C-D and the great rolling chord pattern that
frank came up with in a rehearsal about three years ago. go figure!
[february 10, 2003]
is it
valentine's day already? i don't know. i don't care. just another short
entry today: a single candle in my room and the moon is practicing geometry
of silver light on the kitchen floor. it's night, indigo girl's "starkville"
on repeat. "at the dawning of a road-worn day i called you on a whim just
to say: "the morning birds are singing" but i could not do them justice
so i hung up and fell back to sleep." i spent all day on recording "cold
smoke". finished it and uploaded it. so there are two new songs now on
the website: ohne dich & cold smoke. the cd has grown to twelve tracks.
tomorrow will show whether "cold smoke" is good or not. if i still like
it tomorrow it might stand the test of time. cedric called today and he
said that he liked the lyrics, because they could be read on various levels.
he also sent me a great photo of roland barthes. tomorrow i'm off to cologne
again. last week of the semester. everything moves so fast. everything
passes so quickly. too fast to make sense of it all. "i slipped out of
my room into the rain i went running for my health, the headlights turned
to moonlight and finally i was running by myself. at the dawn on some road-worn
day i call you on a whim just to say: the morning birds are singing!"
[february 11, 2003]
sublime moment of the day: when you're standing on the platform at 6:30
in the morning and you can't feel the tips of your fingers anymore because
it's so freezingly cold and then joni starts singing "unchained melody":
"and oh my love, my darling, i've hungered for your touch..." now: in the
train. no new metaphors for the old beauty of a clear sky that is set on
fire by the rising sun. a couple of defiant stars, not further away than
the net of powerlines and black branches that keep the train on the tracks.
a controlled burning in the sky is drawing a golden vapor trail onto the
blue nothing. the spine of my notebook is broken, a group of teenage schoolboys
is playing chess with their maths teacher [my god! what has happened to
rebellion?] while the rest of the pupils are reading out sms aloud. the
rolling classroom.
[later]
it's 1:53 in the morning. actually this evening after everybody had left
i thought about what to work: either correcting term papers or prepare
the seminar or do some more research for the article. decided on watching
a movie then: "the man who shot liberty vallance". halfway through it though
i arranged with catherine to meet at some bar so we went out and had a
couple of drinks and i've only just returned.
[february 12, 2003]
nicole said - while leaving the office - "by the way, i dreamed about
you last night. and i fell out of bed twice..." no, not really ;o) she
said: "i dreamed about you last night. you looked like carsten spengelmann
(a german tv presenter who - quite frankly - is better looking than me)
and i was trying to match you with that one friend of mine, but somehow
you missed each other so she was looking after you with a sad and sorry
and longing expression on her face." this morning when we had a coffee
she asked me whether i, too, had fanasies about having sex with two women
at a time. conversations with nicole can sometimes suddenly take a very
strange twist - not unenjoyable, though!
so this was my day (and i'm saving the good news for last): got up at
half past six. worked. then at ten nicole came in and we had a coffee.
after that i met blaine at a café and we had a coffee and discussed
the seminar. then i went to the cafeteria with eva. when i returned it
was time to pick up blaine and do the seminar. after the seminar is now
and i've just received a very nice email from the bielefeld campus radio
station that i sent the cd to the other week:
Betreff: 200 lurkers
Datum: Wed, 12 Feb 2003 17:39:34 +0100
Von: britta@xxxxx.de
An: 200lurkers@entropic-empire.com
hallo phillip.
wir haben hier bei hertz 87.9 dein album bekommen und packen dich gleich
zweimal ins programm:
heut abend um sechs (ich hoffe, die mail kommt noch rechtzeitig) spielen
wir estra-gone im musik-neuheitenmagazin intakt. morgen früh gegen
acht wird deine site als link in der live-sendung vorgestellt.
vielleicht hast du die gelegenheit, reinzuhören.
ich kenn deine seite schon seit 1999, du warst einer der ersten mit
weblog :)
liebe grüße
britta
which basically says that they're going to play "estra-gone" tonight (or
by now they already have) and that they will mention my site in the programm
tomorrow morning. :o)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))) somehow i am really
surprised about all the positive feedback!
[later]
"when you make everything i dread and everything i FEAR come true..." waiting
at cologne station for my train. every brown and long haired woman makes
me turn my head. it's so strange. i should be in high spirits & jubilating.
i mean: i've got AIRPLAY again, even if this is a one time event on a local
station. but actually wasn't this all i wanted? why am i strangely melancholic,
then? "when my loves are dead and dying or they won't come near" dustin
hoffman just passed by. i'm so tired that my bones ache. we had the last
seminar session today. what a pity - i had just started to really enjoying
it. the group of students was pretty good actually and working with them
was fun! it's really strange: when i was doing my first seminar i had 
six
pages of preparations: i had phrased every single sentence i wanted to
say in advance. but now blaine and i just sit together before the session
and talk and come up with ideas and then a lot simply develops in the course
of the session. which is cool! and of course this only works if you have
a teaching partner like blaine! although i think i've pissed him off today
again. he was just going to turn the discussion to the gender roles in
dracula but i wanted to add some remarks about the implicit moral of the
novel so i asked him whether i could still make this comment before we
would proceed and for some reason he doesn't quite like this. "just do
it then!" - he told me after the session "but for heaven's sake don't ASK
me in front of the class!" sorry!! der feine herr! i don't know why the
excitement about the radio show is such a, well, blue one. maybe because
it won't bring back the arms i miss. here's a
small package of pepper that eva gave me when we were on the way back from
lunch to the office. "here" she said "you might need it someday" i took
it as a token of suppressed affection - that should give you an idea how
desperate i am. "the man who shot liberty valance"
[february 13, 2003]
phew, it's eleven at night already and actually i didn't manage to do anything
today except writing a couple of mails to blaine and finishing recording
and mixing "cold smoke" - i taped new vocals, new bass lines and i added
a keyboard track. i'll upload it to the web site tonight.
got up at eight this morning to listen to the radio program. they opened
the feature about 200 lurkers with the introduction: "sometimes you wonder
how people come up with the lyrics for their songs - 200 lurkers are telling
you all about it on their web site" then they mentioned the lyrics ("very
poetic" - thanks!) and they added that they were very autobiographic. he
he. and then they read the comment that i added to the lyrics of "space
walk":
this song is for my grandfather, whom i never got to know.
he went to the states before i was born and became an astronaut for nasa.
he always wanted to fly to the moon, but he never managed to do so: only
orbital rounds and space walks. rumor has it that he was a big sinatra
fan and that he sang "fly me to the moon" through the intercom when he
went on space walks.
then they played "space walk" and mentioned the web site again. it was
quite cool, actually! :o))
and by the way! nobody reminded me that the journal has had its first
birthday three days ago!! i've been doing this for a whole year now. an
entry each day. i think i only missed five or six days. a whole year. oh
boy! and tomorrow is valentine's day, but i decided to ignore it. i won't
even mention it. i won't talk about it. not a single line about valentine's
day this year!
actually i also wanted to tell you that story about the student who
came to the office hour yesterday to fetch a term paper that he had written.
it was a surreal experience. he had written on dennis rodman - in the seminar
"popular culture" that blaine and i had been giving last year. actually
it could have been quite an interesting topic, but he chose to write on
the thesis: dennis rodman and the american dream. his theoretical part
was about a page long and consisted of the statement that the american
dream means "to be successful". then he quoted from rodman's autobiography.
("he was born on blah blah, was raised in blah blah, then went to school
in blah blah and although he was poor and black he became a superstar and
that's why he's living the american dream") it was one of the most superficial
and naive papers i ever had the pleasure to correct. but we decided to
give him a d-, which meant that he had passed the course. so when he was
picking up the paper he sat there (a sports student by the way - no further
comments needed!!) and was shaking his head "i don't understand it" he
said "why such a bad grade? i mean i have the secondary literature and
quite frankly, i had been searching the whole library, but there's just
not much literature on the american dream!" hello? not much literature
on the american dream?? i was wondering in which library he had been searching.
probably that of the german department!! i couldn't believe it! and then
he said "and i mean it can't be wrong what i've written, can it? i mean
dennis rodman has described it in his autobiography. he has described how
things have been? so how can it be wrong?" hello?? since when are autobiographies
sources of documentation of "how things have really been"?? and then he
added: "and by the way. my girlfriend had read the whole paper and she
had corrected it and she said that it was a good paper! and she is a major
already and becoming a teacher [no comment needed!]!! so how can it be
so bad when she said that it was good??" words failed me. i mean he hadn't
even given the page numbers for the quotations that he had used, which
is the most basic rule for writing a term paper!
[february 14, 2003]
obvious quote of the day: it's always the tired and the ordinary man.
it's the challange it's funny and such. and then the cello it's
so simple and plain. again. again. and the cello playing onelonglinetone
i
tell you it's funny but you like just to twist all my words i figure a
house with the smoke and the fence the people round here take my words
on this i would believe just in you just believe in you i would believe
just in you just believe in you!
hm, we have this guy on the mailing list and he's writing a lot of strange
things lately. things like:
Life is not just for fun, our realm is much deeper thing. There
is a lot of urgent things in us, when we are calling for help, and looking
for the truth. The truth is the answer. One very common way of trying to
be righteous is to find out what is in your heart. If you think you are
an artist, you are something different than the rest of the world. And
if you think you are different, you can feel it under your skin! There
are areas of freedom we could use for our progress, if we are able to look
deeper. If our language is not able to explain our feelings, music is shortcut
to eternity. Melody is the stairway, and poetry is a large room of our
intuition. Suzanne's poetry is in delicate connection with her music.
now a couple of years ago - when i was younger - i would of course have
started a passionate mail arguing against finding truth, righteousness,
progress and eternity in art. but maybe i'm just too tired or maybe i've
just too many other things to do. however, when paula answered the other
day i thought: well, she's replied to it much better than i would have
ever been able to!
Subject: Re: see within - machine ballerina
Date: Wed, 12 Feb 2003 19:24:15 -0600
From: "paula" <murmurfive@xxxxx.net>
To: <undertow@vega.net>
hello nenad and tow,
thank you, nenad, for so beautifully opening the door for me to talk
about suzanne's poetry in "machine ballerina". all of suzanne's songs are
poems, little lives that stand with us, blazing against the inarticulateness
we all sometimes feel.
Am I an afternoon's pastime?
a thing on a string
to be thrown and retrieved
--"machine ballerina", 2001
Smile, no smile on this face today
Jerk like a thing on a string
and go join the parade
--"private goes public", 1992
i was going to say how, in "machine ballerina", suzanne's use of internal
rhyme and alliteration reinforce her meaning, but then i thought, screw
it. few people would understand and that's all boring anyway. so i decided
to write from my heart. hang on.
to me, suzanne is more than a singer - she's a poet. i wonder if she
considers herself one. i think the distinction is important. as a poet,
she's built a world and invited us inside, for that's what poets do. poetry
is the art of articulation, and suzanne is mastering this art.
Am I a toy on a tray?
a soft piece of clay
queen or clown for the day
machine ballerina
--"machine ballerina", 2001
As a child
you have a doll
you see this doll
sitting in her chair
--"as a child", 1992
and if poetry is the art of articulation, suzanne does what all truly
great poets must do. she makes what she writes about personal and at the
same time all-embracing. by inviting us into her world, suzanne offers
up what she's learned with us, so that we might learn too. the truths she
offers might be cautionary, as in "bad wisdom", or wry, as in "solitaire",
or hopeful, as in "pilgrimage". each of us takes away something that holds
meaning only to him or her.
Am I your Mad Magazine?
skin trampoline
pin-up pinball machine
your fantasy girl
of puzzling parts
but none fits or starts
--"machine ballerina", 2001
I stand in a wide flat land
no shadow or shade of a doubt
where the megaphone man
met the girl with her hand that's
covering most of her mouth
--"fat man and dancing girl", 1992
one poet that i've always thought of in relation to suzanne is sylvia
plath, not for the content of the poetry so much as the technical aspects
- the way they used rhyme and short, punchy words, and tried to use the
minimum amount of words necessary to tell the story.
in "machine ballerina" we hear suzanne almost laughing at herself ("am
i your mad magazine?/skin trampoline/pin-up pinball machine/your fantasy
girl"), but it's a strident, sour humor that's aimed at whomever she's
addressing.
compare this to the first stanza of plath's "morning song":
"Love set you going like a fat gold watch.
The midwife slapped your footsoles, and your bald cry
Took its place among the elements."
there's the same kind of dark humor and the same passion for reality,
of not being afraid to write about what is seen and experienced, with its
mystery and clarity. by doing so, suzanne makes the world she creates a
world that is always becoming, one that's always changing, for it's the
nature of poetry to change. it's the nature of people to change and for
interpretations to change, for how you feel to change.
in the song, the singer cries out
but in the poem, the words themselves cry out.
best,
paula
[later]
i'm
just back home with red, freezing cheeks, numb fingers and frozen lips
from a long and rather chilly round through the woods and all the way i
thought about complaining that i didn't get a SINGLE valentine's card and
then when i just checked my mail i had a message from cedric: he sent an
e-card with this picture and the heading: "be my valentine today!" oooohhh!
total nett! [later] cedric called and then catherine called as well and
we talked a little about how difficult it is for ideas to be actualized
when you don't have any money. catherine has a couple of great ideas for
exhibitions and if i only think about what we had all in mind for the hollow
earth topic my heart grows heavy: besides the book and the cd-rom one could
make a great conference and also an exhibition. actually cedric and i have
already made up a concept. we've even made a little paper model of how
we think it should look like: a dark room (preferably under the earth)
and then all the information is on transparent paper that is lightened
from behind. there's no other light. and then there are speakers and when
you're standing on a particular spot you can hear various hollow earth
music. and then there would have to be two or three pcs where you can click
through the cd-rom, and this is projected via a beamer onto the wall. sigh.
big dreams.
we also have started to produce a radio feature with readings from the
most important hollow earth literature mixed with hollow earth music. christ!
we could make a concept for a theme-evening on 'arte' (german-french cultural
tv station) about the hollow earth in twenty minutes! it's just that nobody
asks us. there are so many great ideas from exhibitions to books and films
that would be worth making. i also would love to make a "real life" - hardcopy
version of the "return of the repressed" image series that i did two years
ago:
oh well, i'm already complaining about life's injustice again. i should
be happy that i have a job in which i CAN do a lot of things actually.
when i was sitting with catherine in a bar tuesday night and i had told
her about my work and about thomas and what we were doing in the american
studies department she looked at me and then looked at her wine and then
at me again and then said: "you know, you are pretty lucky!" and i knew
that she was right. i have to learn to be luckier, to be happier, to see
the good things, to value them more, to enjoy them more, to hold on, to
embrace what i've got instead of crying after all that i've lost or will
never be able to have. "she was laughing she was laughing at me and i danced,
and i danced" das sagt sich so leicht - und lebt sich so schwer. "in the
song, the singer cries out but in the poem, the words themselves cry out."
it's so strange - i'm still leaking. it's a friday night, 22:57, -4°c
outside, and i'm still leaking. "i am inhabited by a cry" plath had written
"nightly it flaps out, looking with its hooks, for something to love".
and maybe the most irritating word in that line is "something". fort -
da: mal wieder ohne dich. object small a. things i don't understand. la
can. my mind is not designed for logical thinking. lnca. some songs sound
so strange - as if i had never written them, as if i had never sung them.
strange. they are so different from me that i don't recognize them anymore
as ever being part of me. hm. guess what. i'm still leaking.
[later]
"i didn't sleep at all last night i thought my heart had mastered the runs
of the seas but they appear not to care about calming lately..." james
yorkston's "st. patrick" on repeat. it's 0:54. do emails have a memory?
will words that i've typed in and then deleted leave an imprint on the
screen? will traces of them be sent through the phone lines? and when the
mail is opened, will all that i was not brave enough to leave on the page
be there between the lines? like written in erased pencil. like a line
that was crossed out. not readable anymore, but still there. the faint
scent of a meaning or a feeling. things i did not reply to the question
"how are you?": i think i'm missing you. i would have loved to push the
hair back behind your ears and touched your cheek in the library. you summon
a feeling of tenderness in me like the moon summons the flood. "and let
things get out of hand is exactly what i've got planned"
[february 15, 2003]
saturday afternoon: it's pretty gray outside and the wind is whirling microsnowflakes
around and around on the street like dust. everybody who's passing by with
their dog or plastic bags of food has a frowning look, pursed lips and
tries to find shelter under a woolen scarf or a warm hat or both. the radio
programm did not bring about a recordable increase of hits on the 200 lurkers
pages. seems i'm really dependent on verbal propaganda. tara is a jewel!
she's ceaselessly distributing 200 lurkers cds in tübingen! i guess
i, too, will put on my mittens and scraf now and go for a walk. i really
wonder whether it's any use to send a couple of demo cds to small labels.
[later]
millions of people are passing by my window again - the soccer match is
over - most of them males between 20 and 30. that kid living upstairs has
very strange sleeping hours and was up quite early this morning which meant
that i was up early as well. so after i did a special extended round through
the woods this afternoon (almost two hours) i thought it might be a good
idea to get a couple of minutes of sleep. and since the kangaroo upstairs
was still practicing for the olympics i used earplugs to shut out the noise.
i realize that my sleeping is different when i'm thus cut off from the
world. my dreaming is in a way more intensive. very strange. listened to
my "best of tanita tikaram" all day long. pretty good songs, actually!
[later]
hm, changed the intro page of the journal. thought it was about time. the
image was kind of stupid anyways.
[february 16, 2003]
okay: today's
"f for fake day". got up with the firm resolution to WORK today. of course
i didn't but i recorded a live version of "space walk". well. not really
"live". at least i stripped it down to just guitar and voice. then i added
a little audience ;o) then i made a new "zeitgeist magazine" cover for
the 200 lurkers page :o))) nicole called half an hour ago and we talked
a little. now i'm a little uncertain about what i'll make for dinner. unfortunately
i didn't really manage to get some exercise today. nadine called and then
i called cedric and then the evening was over. nadine mentioned a class
reunion which will take place at the end of march and she asked me to come
too. i said: "well, i don't know" and she said "you've got to come" and
i said: "uhm, i'm not sure?" and she said: "please! otherwise only strange
people will be there...!" and i said "well, THAT's my point! and besides,
vivian is married already..." because i think i really would like to meet
her again. i guess i had some sort of minor crush on her back in high school.
but she always already seemed to be 30 or something. she was always very
grown-up and i wasn't, really. i never really dared to talk to her but
i think that she was quite an interesting person. or still is. although
she's married now. and rumor has it that she also has a kid. then nadine
said that she had listened to "the space and the sea" the other day for
the first time. "hm, i think i like it, actually" she said, although not
very convincingly ;o) well with the new songs i have thirteen tracks now.
which is almost too much for an album. this might scare people and they
won't listen to it at all. maybe i should reduce the number of tracks to
ten? sigh. but which one? no new messages on server.
[february 17, 2003]
i'm such an idiot! went to town to buy two new pair of trousers and two
sweaters and a shirt. my optimism is adorable! i really wonder where i
take the faith that i'll be able to pay for all this. but then i really
felt like getting new clothes, getting a new skin. and still it's idiotic!
because i realize that there's a reason behind all this: on the one hand
to look as "good" as possible - whatever this might mean - and on the other
to look as "different" as possible: i'm deliberately hunting for things
that i would never have worn let's say two years ago. just to make an impossible
impression. an impossible second first impression.
tried to upload the live version of "space walk" yesterday night. but
i've used up all my webspace! wuahh!! so now i've got to rent more webspace
to provide all the mp3s for people to download. which is not really a bad
thing because i've just bought two new pair of trousers and two sweaters
and a shirt and i've got LOTS of money!
anyway: yes - i want to see her again. on her own. without him. and
just to take her hand and press a copy of the cd into it and show her how
much i've changed with my new clothes and my new hair and my new looks
and then i want to call up every single student in cologne to testify that
i'm doing a good job and then i want to call up every new friend i've made
to let them testify that i AM lovable. yes! that's my secret wish. well,
not that secret anymore obviously. but would this chase the pity from her
eyes? probably not. and thus it's always better to live for some secret
wish, to work towards some imaginary moment than to have it and realize
that i won't change anything.
[later]
i'm sitting in the kitchen, the afternoon sun comes sounding through the
dirty windows and paints bright, glistening squares and circles all over
the wall. the central heating is gurgling and the amber colored tea is
steaming quietly and at peace with itself. outside cars & people are
passing by and from my place at the kitchen table i can look on the street
crossing. i could cry. it's all so beautiful. and i've got to find words,
i've got to. in front of me on the wooden table: schmidt's "lake scenery
with pocahontas", a pen and a couple of notes that i've made. i should
be working but i keep getting up making tea, nervously, picking brown leafs
from the palmtree in the corner, looking out of the window, listening to
the silent phone through the open doors [nadine wanted to call and come
over this evening]. joni is singing and the skeleton of the tree in front
of the kitchen window is moved softly by some invisible wind. under the
novel: the table cloth - blue and lilac abstract floral pattern, a fabric
of memories of my first visit to her flat. it's one of the many things
i still have but do not own. i could cry. i want to write. a novel. a poem.
a letter. reading schmidt has woken a strange narrator in my head again
and i'm hearing his voice commenting on everything i do, everything i see,
everything i feel and think. i don't understand myself. this university-thing
isn't for me! writing about writing doesn't feel right. it's like pretending
to be somebody who is not me. listen to me! the atom-smasher of authenticity
thinks he knows who he IS. what a laugh! and the world beyond the window
is so much more fascinating than the world between the cover. joni is jazzing
along, and her voice sounds exactly like the saxophone that is dominant
in every of her songs, echoing her phrasing, echoing her voice. the little
narrator inside my head won't cease whispering. i'm wearing the new clothes
- i feel pretty o so pretty - and, so what? and, what now? i could write
forever and still i would never arrive.
some people deserve to be shot slowly immediately!! just saw the counting
crows' version of "big yellow taxi"! never thought that you could ruin
a song so badly! oh boy! and it gets worse: obviously it's part of the
soundtrack for some bloody annoying hugh grant / sandra bullock comedy
called "two weeks notice". well, why get "we shall overcome" for terminator
XV?? AAARRRGGGHHH!!
[february 18, 2003: "god must be a boogie
man!"]
okay, are you ready for BIG news? you better sit down. here we go: 200
lurkers will soon have a very own domain!!!! i upgraded my webspace yesterday
night and now i have three domain names! and besides www.entropic-empire.com
i chose www.200lurkers.com.
also i decided to add a sort of heading to each journal-entry from now
on. now if these aren't exciting news then you don't know what exciting
news look like! spent all day with cedric at bielefeld university, he was
helping me finding secondary literature for my pocahonats article. i haven't
seen him for three or five weeks so it was really great having a face to
face conversation again.
[later]
i just saw a "classic albums" documentary about "graceland" and, well,
it was just great, seeing that small man sitting there behind the mixing
board and you just want to climb into the television and be with him there
in the studio and then i've of course put on "graceland" at once and listened
to "diamonds on the soles of her shoes" on repeat while talking to cedric
on the phone. tomorrow i'm going to cologne again. office hours and term
paper corrections.
[february 19, 2003 - she makes the sign
of a teaspoon, he makes the sign of a wave]
on my way to cologne: later than usual, so the sun's up already, glistening
golden morning light. i'm crouched into the seat, my knees curled up and
pressed against the seat in front of me. my mind dizzy and while i'm being
transported through the scenery that is filled with trees and fields and
factories i'm lost in a cloud of comfort. in my ears "diamonds on the soles
of her shoes", such a relaxed and soothing rhythm, paul's voice well known,
every word heard a thousand times before. i'm bathed in a fine scent of
rose oil, smelling on my skin so similar to how it used to smell on her
skin. the sound fragile and elaborated. i could cry. "people say i'm crazy..."
[later]
well experiment of the day: can you listen to a single paul simon song
on repeat for three and a half hours? you can. made the ultimate pop quiz
today: great albums for 1000 euros: from which song is this line: "she
makes the sign of a teaspoon, he makes the sign of a wave"? nicole didn't
know. eva didn't know. sirka didn't know. blaine didn't know but he said:
"hm, sounds a bit like paul simon..." yes! he still CAN be saved! he's
not lost to the dark side of the force completely!
plan for tonight: have dinner with eva, then cocktails. blaine and tina
will join us at ten. hm, just came across a familiar signifier which popped
up on my mobile phone display by mistake and i really made some surprised,
chuckling noise. very strange. finally uploaded "space walk live" so if
you really want to have some fun surf over to the 200
lurkers page and download it!
just talked to cedric on the phone. he'll have his oral exam on deleuze
and guattari next week so keep your fingers crossed. and when i told him
that i had listened to "diamonds on the soles of her shoes" all morning
he said "oh! she makes the sign of a teaspoon - he makes the sign of a
wave!" he also mentioned that he really liked "cold smoke". so surf over
and download THAT as well! and then he said that "the pilot" is a song
that makes him feel depressed - and i was totally surprised about that!
because i personally think that it's rather an uplifting tune.
[later, much later]
oh boy! two long island ice tea have finished me. it's 01:32 and i've just
walked back from the bar to the office and everything is pretty much turning
around and around. it's a perfect sky again with perfect stars and a perfect
moon and the night sky is not black but a deep, deep blue and again i just
felt like lying on the lawn in front of the university and looking into
the sky and slowly falling asleep there while the cold is covering me with
frost. why must the perfect nights always end in perfect misery? tanananana
tanananana. s. told about her plans she has for when she has finished her
exams and she said: well, i'm not a very competitive person and i haven't
said anything in the colloquium the whole last year and there are so much
more people out there who are just more devoted to the cause so i came
to the conclusion that working at the university isn't really anything
for me. and of course she was speaking with my voice, she was telling me
all these thoughts that i've had. and i got sick and the room started to
spin. later after we said goodbye and i started walking back i cursed every
moment that i did not look into your eyes. i was glad that there were the
white lines on the sidewalk so i could walk in a straight line. i'm such
a coward. i avoided your looks. i just want to lie and look into the stars.
is that so much asked. and then fall asleep. i'm missing you. and i hate
myself for it. it's all so tiresome. i'm tired. i'm tired.
[february 20, 2003 - i remember that
time that you told me, you said: love is touching soul]
terrible hangover! headache galore and i overslept. actually i wanted to
go to the housing company that rents these cheap apartments here in cologne
but i just didn't manage. they only have opening hours quite early in the
morning and to be honest: the way i look and appear this morning even i
myself wouldn't want to have me as a tenant. so i'll give it another try
next week. oh boy. my head is a churchbell.
[later]
i'm stepping out of the building and into the square in front of the university.
the sunlight hits my face like a fist. the md player is purring softly,
then the music starts where it had stopped yesterday night and collects
me where it had left me: she makes the sign of a teaspoon, he makes the
sign of a wave and the wind grabs my coat like wings and i dance across
the square unable to tell whether my body moves to the music or the music
to my body. sometimes the writing is like a dance as well, the lines flowing,
flying, flickering over the white freely, not bound to resemble any signifier
"and now i foam to wheat - a glitter of seas. the child's cry melts in
the wall AND I AM THE ARROW..." behind the glass, sheltered but cut off
- rows of windows are watching me, hundreds of people passing by - mostly
unfamiliar faces. whenever i start thinking about the pocahontas article
my mind starts wandering after a couple of minutes and "something else
hauls me through air - thighs, hair; flakes from my heels."
"would you rather be deaf or rather be blind?" eva asked me yesterday
night and it sounded like one of those famous first words that great songs
open with. we were having dinner in a bar and at ten she said that it was
time to go and meet blaine and tina whom we wanted to meet in some other
cocktail bar and then, when we were standing on the sidewalk and our breaths
were materializing in amorphous little clouds she said - almost as an aside
while she put on her scarf and mittens: "actually we were already supposed
to meet them at nine." i put on after-shave to compensate for my ordinary
shoes - things flutter through my head like a swarm of moths. the borders
of the heart uncoming and bleeding into the tablecloth like a stain that
won't stop spreading. i don't know what this is but it scares me.
[later]
eva just dropped in and we had lunch at the cafeteria. now it's three in
the afternoon, the sun is setting slowly and the contrabass in the orchestral
version of "a case of you" drops from the speakers like honey and if feels
as if a little animal was running down my cheek, tickling my skin with
it's tiny cold feet, getting thinner and thinner, being consumed by the
way, getting lost on the journey from eye to lips. but i'm still on my
feet.
a part of you
pours out of me
in these lines
from time to time
i have a mixed track cd here at work and the last five tracks are poems
by paula and when her voice came out of the speakers i had to stop working
and start listening and the lines felt like acid burning the skin from
my skull.
[later]
i'm on the way back home - well, sometimes driving back to b. feels more
like leaving home. when eva & i had dinner in that bar yesterday night
we spotted steve buscemi who was sitting two tables away - but we decided
not to get any autographs. "diamonds on the soles of her shoes" on repeat
again - it's like as long as this song is playing nothing could possibly
happen to me. i'm save. this evening when i just wanted to get a bar of
candy downstairs and i had locked the office ute came running up the corridor,
waving her arms, stopping me and saying: "there's a mouse in my office!"
so i instantly turned into FANTASTIC PHILIPP, defender of the weak and
feeble minded [and linguistic scholars] and i got a dustbin to catch it
and deliver the english department from the mutant monster mouse: only,
it had vanished! i guess it thought it wiser to escape as long as it still
had the chance instead of taking up the fight with FANTASTIC PHILIPP! one
good deed each day! by the way: blaine has a new haircut. sorter and cooler.
he has a totally different head now. not bad, though! i went to the hairdresser
as well today, but nobody noticed :o( okay, the song is roughly 5 minutes
long - i cut the a capella intro. so it can play 12 times in an hour. 4
hours to get to cologne: 48 times. and the same way back: 96 times. plus
delay: 100 times "diamond on the soles of her shoes". beat that! got to
look up "repetition compulsion" in the laplanche/pontalis when i'm back
home!
and HEY! 200 LURKERS HAVE AN OWN DOMAIN
NOW!
www.200lurkers.com
[february 21, 2003 - kathy i'm lost, i said, though
i knew she was sleeping. i'm empty and aching and i don't know why]
oh boy! this is gonna be a LOT of work! i'm sitting at a bar - alone, only
accompanied by the pocahontas narration, a couple of empty pages, a pen
and i'm trying to put down a first draft of the article. and it went amazingly
well. although the handwritten pages will melt down to nothing when i've
typed them into the pc. there's still no coherence to my thoughts and ideas
about the text yet. blast! i realize that the kind of writing i'm doing
for the journal does not really help training to come up with well structured
and argumentatively convincing texts. SIGH. maybe instead of a proper article
they can just print the link to the journal and i'm reporting about my
messy thoughts on the subject there. sounds like a plan, doesn't it? don't
think that the publishers will like it, though. maybe i should ask them
;o)
anyway, i'm sitting in the corner behind a small wooden table, candle
in the middle of it, my second beer in front of me and the waitress [exceptionally
pretty by the way] has just cleared the dishes of the salad that i've had.
across the room there's rob's widow nicole sitting, the
woman whom rob had been married to. she has looked at me while talking
to the couple she's with but i couldn't tell from her looks whether she's
recognized me or not. i was so surprised that i didn't even smile.
started to compile a "best of paul simon" for eva. the problem is that
i don't really own all the important solo cds. but after having watched
the "classic albums" documentary about graceland i've been listening
to ps quite a lot - well, let's be honest: exclusively. i'm like cedric
in this respect. i tend to listen to people cyclically. had my joni mitchell
phase after i've had the laurie anderson phase and now it's paul simon.
well, he's a good one. hm. alcohol doesn't really help to think
clearer. the flame of the candle is hypnotizing me, i feel all thoughts
sinking slowly to the ground of my mind like sand thrown into the water,
leaving a clear and transparent realm. the flame keeps on flickering in
my eyes even if i don't look at it any longer, a burning after image, there
but not there, still irritating my vision, dancing in the distance when
i look up and on the paper when i'm starting to write again. i really wonder
for whom i'm waiting here... she won't come. and if she comes she won't
be here. stupid thoughts! i thought you'd sunken to the ground? i thought
you'd settled at the bottom for good.
updated the 200 lurkers page today. changed the index page. added a
couple of images that appear at random when the page is loaded. try it
for yourself! and more importantly: let everybody know about it: www.200lurkers.com
[later]
well, when i got home reiner had left a message on the answering machine;
"hi philipp! there's something about you in the latest issue of "ultimo"
[a free city magazine for bielefeld with a circulation of 31.000] and i'm
wondering what you think about it!" and my heart stopped. i thought: my
god! a bad review. they're bashing me to hell and back. so i put on my
coat again and rushed out to the nearest bar where the "ultimo" is on display
and here's what they've written on the second page under the heading "heimatmusik":
LEWINSKY LIEBT
Bielefeld ist doch New York. Jedenfalls spielen sie hin und wieder
drüben Songs im Radio, die hier nicht mal aus dem Probekeller raus
kommen. Oder hüben gründet eine Band, die es gar nicht mehr gibt,
ein Seiten-Projekt im Internet, vertreibt dort kostenlose CDs und verwickelt
die Besucher in schweres Hirnschlingern zwischen Harmonien von Jethro Tull
und Philosophie von Deleuze Guattari: 200 Lurkers sind vielleicht
nicht Bielefelds allererste virtuelle Band, aber vermutlich die leiseste.
Die Lurkers sind ein Singer/Songwriter-Ausläufe von Nerve Bible,
dem weltweiten Lokal-Geheimtipp für viele Jahre. Nach dem Tod ihres
Gitarristen Rob Terwesten versank die Band im Schweigen, jetzt spielt Texter
Philip Hofmann mit wechselnden Bible-Resten alte Stücke neu ein, montiert
einen romantischen Love-Song aus Lewinsky/Clinton-Schnipseln oder ist deprimiert,
weil er Samuel Beckett damals im Café nicht angesprochen hat. Alles
ist ruhig und halbakustisch dahingeklampft aber mit allerlei Snippets schön
hoch und breit produziert... und es ist umsonst. Denn die Lurkers setzen
nicht nur ihre Songs (und die von Nerve Bible) ins Netz, sie verschicken
auch ihre CD "The Space & the Sea" einfach gegen Rückporto an
jeden, der fragt.
Ob sie aber je live auftreten? "Wegen der Schliessung verschiedener
Jugendheime in und um Bielefeld" sei das eher unwahrscheinlich, teilt die
Band mit. Außerdem fühlt man sich virtuell scheinbar besonders
lebendig, jedenfalls sehen die vielen Web-Experimente auf der Homepage
(edel in Grautönen - ohne Flash!) so aus.
Kontakt: p.hofmann, melanchthonstr. 82 / www.entropic-empire.com
YAHAHAHAHAHAH!! i was running home, overcome with joy! i'm a sucker
for good reviews! a sweet moment of pure bliss! more good news: the nerve
bible will play live at the "leineweber" (a rather big city festival) on
may 24! our first gig in over a year!
and then i instantly found a reason to hate myself again. when i got
home with the latest ultimo edition i was pretty hysterical and the first
thing i did was calling cedric and reading it to him. but before i tried
to make a joke and said "YUHU!" and he asked "is everything all right?"
and he knew that i had been to a bar to work on the article so i said "i
was at the bar and [name deleted] came in and asked me to marry her!" and
there was silence for a moment and then i said "noooo!" and i heard how
cedric relaxed on the other end of the line and he replied: "phew! for
a moment i REALLY thought you had met her. that you had been at a bar and
she had come in and now everything would be too late..." and even before
he had finished the sentence my mind scanned it for information, for any
hints although i didn't intend to it just did this on it's own without
having had the order to do so and i thought: hm, this probably means that
she is NOT single again and that she did NOT mention occasionally that
it might be quite nice to meet me again... i'm such a fucking idiot! it's
ridiculous, really, it's like a disease.
it's almost one in the morning again and i think i've got to get some
sleep now. see you tomorrow. thanks for being there! i really mean it.
[february 22, 2003 - oh i just know that
something good is going to happen, i don't know when, but just saying it
could even make it happen!]
while burning the best of paul simon for eva this morning i put on kate
bush. haven't listened to her for a long time and: wow, it blew me away!
great songs! "cloudbusting" - awesome! worked a little more on the 200
lurkers pages. i've got thirteen different images for the index page now.
one will be chosen by a random function on load. decided to limit the images
to portraits of actors. i think having all those portraits fits the idea
behind 200 lurkers: the photo is the image of an image - most of the time
the viewer can not decide from the portrait whether the actor is photographed
"in character" or "in private". the distinction blurs. the images are de-contextualized.
like stills from a movie they don't have anything they refer to, no image
of difference before or after them. take for example the second portrait:
is this spock or is it leonard nimoy? or is it leonard nimoy as mr. spock?
which parts of the face are nimoy's, which are spock's? where does nimoy
end and spock start? at the ears? the portraits stress the artificiality,
the construction of identity via an image. every expression is always already
a pose, inscribed into a semiotic system. the portrait undermines the fiction
of an authentic, 'true' moment that could be captured by the machine. it
is the isolation of the moment, the stopping of time that freezes the face
as an eternal signifier within the frame of the photo. "you know what:
i love you better now"
|
 |
|
|
|
 |
 |
orson
wells
|
leonard
nimoy
|
sean
young
|
cornfield
burnout
|
dorothy
lamour
|
gregory
peck
|
joan
crawford
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
marlene
dietrich
|
carole
lombard
|
romy
schneider
|
elisabeth
taylor
|
gloria
swanson
|
robert
mitchum
|
|
by the way: here's the tracklist for the paul simon compilation:
"she makes the sign of a teaspoon"
the best (?) of paul simon solo - 1
1. for emily - whenever i may find her
2. kathy's song
3. april come she will
4. 50 ways to leave your lover
5. here come's the sun - live
6. the only living boy in new york
7. something so right
8. late in the evening
9. that's why god made the movies
10. how the heart approaches what it yearns
11. jonah
12. hearts & bones
13. maybe i think too much
14. train in the distance
15. rene & georgette magritte with their dog after the war
16. the late great johnny ace
17. the boy in the bubble
18. graceland
19. call me al
20. diamonds on the soles of her shoes
"he makes the sign of a wave"
the best (?) of paul simon solo - 2
1. crazy love vol. 2
2. all around the world
3. under african sky
4. the obvious child
5. the coast
6. she moves on - live
7. further to fly
8. born at the right time - live
9. the rhythm of the saints
10. the boy in the bubble - live
11. graceland - live
12. call me al - live
13. america - live
14. that's where i belong
15. look at that
16. love
17. quiet
18. the cool, cool river
i know, i know: a couple of tracks are from the old s&g times and "here
comes the sun" is not even written by simon but hey! they're good songs
anyway!
[february 23, 2003 - she comes back to
tell me she's gone...]
"...as if i didn't know that, as if i didn't know my own bed. as if i'd
never noticed the way she brushed her hair from her forehead" it's 4 in
the afternoon and i'm just back from a long and sunny walk. most of the
snow and ice has melted, even up on the hills. i've been listening to the
new paul simon compilation and a cuople of kate bush tracks and i remembered
a conversation with blaine from last week when we were discussing singing
along to music while listening to it on the walk man. and he said that
he frequently does this. "well, not in the underground, of course!" he
said and i was stunned because actually i thought only very, very strange
people would sing out aloud to their walk man and that i would NEVER do
this! i hate to be noticed! i want to blend in with the crowd. i certainly
don't want to walk down the street singing! but when i WAS walking down
the street this afternoon and the sun was shining into my face and paul
simon was singing i really envied blaine for his courage.
updated the info-page of 200 lurkers a little and cleaned the kitchen.
now i'm going to work on the article and maybe tonight i'll be going down
to the "café berlin" again for a beer and more ideas on pocahontas.
i'll be in cologne tomorrow and in the evening nicole and i will meet to
see "bowling for columbine".
[later]
i'm sitting at the "berlin" again: it's rather empty - so is my beer. tried
to order the ideas but it just got more messy. low-fi electronic music,
candles are mirrored in the silver pipe of the air conditioning that is
hanging from the ceiling like a lurking animal. behind the counter: the
waitress dressed in black: tight top & out-of-bed hair. not unpretty,
though. she has high cheekbones, with one hand she's holding on to the
shelf while she's gesticulating with the other. from this angle she's looking
a little indian ;-) "you don't want to hurt me but see how deep the bullet
lies"
on the way to the bar: "running up that hill" - what a brilliant song!
"tell me we both matter, don't we???!!???" wonder how an acoustic version
would sound like? when i stepped out of the door the black sky was overfilled
with stars and swallowed me like a wave. oh great: "I will survive!" sigh.
conversation at the bar: "how did arminia play [bielefeld's soccer team]?"
"0:0" "well, that's better than nothing!" ? belly button free music: kylie
minoge now => na na na na na na na na. waitress washin her hands, drying
them on her apron, filling glasses, do i want to have another beer? "you.
you and me. you and me won't be unhappy!" more ideas for the article, but
no order yet. "i knew you were in love with him cause i saw you dancing
in the gym. the day the music died..." balancing cups and glasses rather
gracefully over wooden squares on the ground, sugar & ashtrays on every
table and a candle. now she's standing still, staring as if dreaming. no
new messages on server. brushing her hair from her forehead, filling another
glass, crossing arms in front of her belly, adding sugar to her coffee,
stirring, and me, mad with recording, smiling inwardly at what the hell
i'm doing here: wanted to write on the article - wish i had a laptop here.
oh god: oasis! i'm such an idiot. thought that i might as well send a friendly
smile to the waitress to which she reacted with the question: "can i bring
you anything?" so i ordered another beer. my life is a comedy show. okay,
the humor is rather scarce and specific - but still! "don't look back in
anger" the last bars of a predictable oasis song are fading out and for
a moment it's very quiet and she bends down, replaces the empty glass with
a full one: "here you are" - "thanks" exchange of smiles, and some cuban
jazzy song starts. turns around. walks away. serves another customer. i
blush. i'm tired. feeling the beer: cool fingers & dizzy mind. useless
words again. comforting, though, don't know why. my own private little
world. do you know the feeling when your head's too heavy for your body.
and it keeps swinging on your neck from side to side, not unlike a bell.
the arc of a love affair waiting to be restored. hm, wish i could torkel
into the arms of somebody, well: of just anybody, oh well - you know what
i mean. words are good. period. heaven! from cuban jazz sounds to pink:
"get this party started!" somebody dims the light. robbie williams has
no regrets: sign to leave.
[february 24, 2003 - and then she kissed
me and i realized she probably was right...]
on the way to cologne: we're stopping at unna, the city where her sister
lives. and suddenly a boundless longing breaks loose again and spills itself
all over my clothes, the seats, the other passengers, the whole train and
the world outside. when i was sitting in the kitchen in the sunday afternoon
sun yesterday, the texts & papers in front of me and ready to start
writing the article, i suddenly remembered that i had told eva that i once
had long hair and that she wondered what i might have looked like so i
got up from the kitchen table and fetched the box with all my photos and
i started looking through them on the search for a shot of me with long
hair. and i came across an envelop that was titled "at dagmar and stephan's
place" and i knew that she would be on them but i couldn't stop my hands
from opening it and my fingers didn't hesitate to shuffle through the images
and boom there was half of her face and it came back to me incomparably
and i threw the photos back into the box and closed it and put it away.
"ah...here i am" it feels like she had been in my dreams tonight although
i can't really remember. just a faint afterimage, blurring when i'm trying
to fix it. like it shines on me! maybe it's her birthday that is coming
nearer and nearer. gray factory backyards, brown grass, broken walls and
dirty curtains. YOUR HONESTY. LIKE IT SHINES ON ME.
[later, much later]
it's 0:50. i'm just back from watching bowling for columbine. you've GOT
to see this movie, it's great! especially the first 45 minutes!! nicole
fell asleep in the last half ;o)) she was sitting in her seat like a little
bird and had my coat over her shoulders and her head had sunken to the
side. before the film we had dinner and it was a very nice evening. now
i think i'm trying the great chord pattern that i found this afternoon
for "the only living boy in new york" - have a good night everybody! schmatz!
[february 25, 2003 - on such a night
as this, on such a night...]
you are swimming in the ocean and the beach is so far in your back that
you can hardly see the sandcolored line on the horizon when you turn and
look, out of breath, being rocked up and down. and then suddenly you feel
something taking hold of your ankle with a smooth and warm touch and then
it jerks you down, two, three meters below the water, violently and holding
you there. you look up and the sun is breaking at the surface and you can
see where the air is but you can't get back there because something is
holding you. i'm tired. it's almost 11:30 in the morning and i'm sitting
in the office and it's completely dark. i've switched the lights on but
there must be a power failure because it's still dark and "if you kisses
couldn't hold her, your tears won't bring her back" catherine wrote last
night, quoting a line from a song. no, this writing is not exempt. headache
and my eyes are stinging from the contacts. i'm looking up and i can see
where the air is. winter moves up my back gently and my hair is flowing
round me head like seaweeds. when i open my mouth little bubbles are rising
patiently to the surface. this water is cold. "all these things i tell
myself". somebody must have put stones under my skin. im panicing if there
had been another hour on such a night. propellers in my head.
[later]
had lunch with eva and we were walking back to the university through the
almost spring like sun and the warm air and the people playing ball on
the lawn and the dogs running around and she said: "nice cds by the way!"
she had listened to the two best of paul simon cds that i had given her
yesterday evening. and she continued "and i must say that '50 ways to leave
your lover' is really a great song!!" and i said "yes! isn't it!? it's
teriffic!" and i wanted to add: except for the chorus, i really think it
doesn't fit to the rest of the song and that i would love to have "50 ways"
just with the verses but before i could say this she continued: "except
for the chorus! i really don't like the chorus! it would be great to delete
it from the song!" there you go! then she gave me a small package of salt
as a present. [compare the entry for february 12]
"you can defend yourself with this one as well" she said "strew it into
the attacker's eyes or rub it into open wounds..."
[february 26, 2003 - tell me we both
matter, don't we??]
hm, tried to tape an acoustic version of "running up that hill". my plan
was: have the basic drum pattern played on the guitar by drumming onto
the corpus and then have basically only one guitar: gentle chords in the
verses (played on every half note) and then in the chorus a more rhythmic,
strumming pattern. but i tried and it and it just doesn't sound! it isn't
really working, unfortunately :o( which means that i now have to get back
to writing on the article. work-avoiding-strategy failed miserably!
[later]
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y. mhkdlirzt. mbjhdrt5 zztge vä,.
[later]
important question of the day: why do the ideas you have about a book,
for example "lake scenery" & "beautiful losers", seem to be really
great as long as you think them. and why do they sound so profane when
you've written them down. star filled sky again when i was walking back
home from the café where i had worked a little: i took the quiet,
dark back alleys to see the stars better. it was cold though and i put
my right hand deep into the sweater-sleeve of my left arm and my left hand
deep into the sweater-sleeve of my right arm and kate bush started to sing
"breathing" - great song - when i pulled my hands back to fetch the keys
from my pockets there was skin and blood under the nails.
[february 27, 2003 - suddenly my feet
are feet of mud, it all goes slow-mo...]
bad, bad dreams: oh boy, i still dream of organon, i was at her
new flat, for some reason spending the night there you were making rain
but she was there and not there and you're out of reach his jeans
on her cupboard when you and sleep escaped me and she was keeping
a little baby cat imprisoned in her shower you're making rain and
she was turning around everytime i wanted to talk to her you're making
rain woke up breathing, room cold and my body aching like i'd been
running all night. it's funny how, even now you're miles away old
favorite songs as small comfort, but they're only stirring me up even more
with
a hired plane tonight's the night of the flight like a swallow, there's
no risk with headphones on and the blanket wrapped around my shoulders
and the world outside is mute, which is good, mute cars, mute people, mute
houses and windows DRUMROLL: give me a break oh let me try give me something
to show for my miserable life give me something to take would you break
even my wings like a swallow let me, let me go!! !! but you're not
a swallow LET ME, LET ME GO!! !! LET ME, LET ME GO!! !! LET ME, LET
ME GO!! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! WHEW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
cedric has his oral exams today: philosophy [deleuze & hume). so
keep your fingers crossed. i'll meet him this afternoon at the university
to see how it went.
[later]
yawn! it's 23:24 already. just sort of planned the next days: tomorrow
morning: cologne, tomorrow night i'll be going out with blaine, then saturday
the helge schneider concert (yeah!) and i'll return on sunday noon. sunday
afternoon rehearsal and sunday night i'll be meeting with cedric and tara.
i'll definitely need a holiday on monday!
[february 28, 2003 - all i ever wanted
was just to come in from the cold]
hhhwiuqö ke ergqer oernq /& ajr valr ÄA ak v+aöfv i
iaf vv ji afvaofv rfngve8r aeor84t4jk5 48 4 84 nö i ööö
uefnn re dfberwqet; IAiu iuba lammndy.ncbpi iaka bjfb lalakajg oerori oafn
psg-r5tna-fv erg oiie 8
[later]
it's almost two in the morning. i'm back at the office. [yes - of course
it's a little comfortless but then walking through the dark and empty university
at night with the rows of books whispering to each other in the lightless
library does have some kind of aesthetic, if only the aesthetic of comfortlessness.]
anyway, no hot flirts, no irresistable offers to spend the night at
some cozier place. well, one tall, blond girl kept looking at me
- or rather through me - persistently but then she was stoned up to her
hairtips. it would have been impossible to start a conversation anyway,
because the music was so loud that you couldn't talk to each other. so
i didn't have the chance to talk to anke, which i thought was quite a pity
:o( the only thing left to do was to dance. which i did. and i was sweating
rivers! whew! they played everything from madonna to rex gildo. i danced
to almost everything :o) blaine, his friend cedric, anke and her friend
oliver had dressed up as the characters from "tanz der vampire", that polanski
vampire comedy the english title of which i am to tired to find out now.
they looked great!!!! and hey! blaine looks just great in a suit!
now my skin smells of smoke and the contacts are bugging me. sade is
singing: "you think i'd leave your side baby, you know me better than that."
rain on the way from the club to the office. "you think i leave you down
when you're down on your knees - i wouldn't do that" god. the helicopters
in my head again. nhhtuie, nfheriu uq304 ggrtwehj . jjt r tz ngghtd
llkf öpq acxeootzd fgrt ccvdfe - öloth . jghrrt bedd fgrü
"ootzrh!" fggrte hg btjilom, mjke.
stay with me for another month. "and if only you could see into me"
