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[march 1, 2003 - when you're lost and you're alone and you can't get back again i will find you darling and i'll bring you home]
thoughts i had while holding my head under the cold water in the men's restroom of the university at 10:30 in the morning: 1. i need a flat in cologne! 2. i think when i'll have a flat in cologne i'll go dancing twice a week. the perfect work-out. that is: if the music is right. need to find a good club then. 3. yesterday night blaine made sense again: when you see him dancing his musical taste becomes understandable, although not really excuseable. but he is a pretty good dancer. his movements sometimes seem strange (when he starts dancing in the office etc) but contextualized in the crowd on the dancefloor he just made everybody else look like beginners!

thought about why i'm feeling rather uncomfortable when i dance. and i guess it's because i don't have any practice, and somehow this seems to be inscribed into my body. i do feel the rhythm and i do feel the bass [yeah baby!] but the movements of my body in synchronicity with the music seem to be awkward and clumsy. there is no "memory" of my body how to move at all to the sound! which of course means loss of control of expression which for me - as you might be able to imagine - is a horror!

anyway, i'm going to find a nice café now and have breakfast. tonight is the hege schneider concert!!! :o))))))

[later]
i don't believe it! i mean i HAVE mentioned that i really, really love that song by james yorkston: "st. patrick", haven't i? and just the other minute i was trying to think of things to do to keep me from working on the article so i surfed over to yahoo.com to send a greeting to maybe eva or cedric & tara and there was this greeting-card category: st. patrick's day march 17!!!! which had been a special day because it had been the birthday of a friend of mine i once had. i didn't know that it was st. patrick's day as well and that the song was connected to that special date.

kept playing sade's "by your side" on the guitar (discovered the chords this morning) instead of writing on the article. sigh.

[march 2, 2003 - it must be nice to disappear...]
23:32. no new messages on server. It must be nice to disappear | to have a vanishing act | to always be looking forward | and never looking back | How nice it is to disappear | float into a mist | with a young lady on your arm | looking for a kiss | Looking for a kiss | float into a mist hhhhahh, hhhahhh, hhhahhh, hhahhh. breathing. breathing. ing . zvgrtbv geiwfdhb fiwwof . jvouhhhbn tg thk, bwiufvbz ur ur ur. nhjfqw bpmn xveee ,oiunk l kfqsew bctg v mvrhbg nhnhnh ztm , keuzfbnev n iefvbwl o. löofb ztgv wvf m, jrgw iug ngh llll. iunwiiv rwop vbwpgj r r hhkvbriu iur.rg uuzhiurgz qwuruiz iuibirgtfbbz rburtzb uiz    kdfhivb wiurz wirutz iwru wiurtzhbvbvnfiw iurtz wiruzt iwutz wiruzt riu wruitz vnoiwrut b owiuthgtuvngoiuworiuthgbnnturthvnkdjff eva wovniruvwio nvow epopiu  eoitu oieut oeiuz  hkwrjh gvnsriw ovbrituhbrw iitughbngh koiuhbnj oegeoitubneotun boeitubnoeirutbn oeng oirut
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[march 3, 2003 - you are someone else, i am still right here...]
have sort of a hangover. feel like i have crossed all seas and all mountains and all desserts yesterday night. my back aches, my head is dizzy. it's two in the afternoon: gray outside, raining, feeling insecure. sooner or later you got to face the fact this world is shattered and it's too full of cracks to fill in so i just give in on a monday afternoon...

the nerve biblemade a collage for a band photo yesterday. reiner is trying to organize two more gigs and so we need press photos. now, it's always difficult to make a good band photo. usually they're pathetic. making a photo of a single person is always easier than having three without an awkward, clumsy pose. so i took three portrait shots and put them together. actually i had proposed to take faces of strangers or maybe of movie stars which you can't recognize because the collage only shows a very small strip of the face but then we went for the sort of "old fashioned" solution. just have a mighty déjà vu!! how strange! met with cedric and tara yesterday and we went to the "berlin" [in humble lou reed worship] - it was great seeing tara again. since she's working in tübingen we only see each other every other months if at all. i'm all excited and nervous for no reason. hm, and my work-avoiding measures become more and more ridiculous as well: i just went shopping for food so i wouldn't have to continue writing the article. jesus! found a little slip of paper in the pocket of my coat then that i had written on saturday night: "okay - it's one hour to helge. i'm at the station getting a little snack before the show will start. it DOES seem a little as if all hell has broken loose [it's carnival]: clowns, vampires, cowboys, doctors, indians, spidermen, monks, pirates, paper clips [!], sunflowers, nurses, more clowns, clowns, clowns. cologne is the capitol of clowns. devils, prisoners, kings, cats, captains, clowns - did i already say clowns? - angels, no ossama bin laden yet, though. witches, vikings, mice, sultans, asians - no, wait that's a real one from the snack bar where i just had a 'hanoi - burger'."

kept listening to the almost hysterical jubilation of/in glass' "dance no. 5" all day long, the tempi and time changes throwing me from a rocking into a stopping and humming and then whistling and dancing motion. and the hypnotic quality of the music helped a little to concentrate on the writing.

just the other minute i took the small package of pepper and the small package of salt that eva gave to me to defend myself and strew it all over my flat to keep the ghosts away. and be born again.

"when you're gonna make up your mind? cause things are gonna change so fast..." the worst thing: when you can't be tired anymore. when you've slept so much already that sleep won't be an escape. what's left then? walk through the park? done that. rum? done that. maybe it needs a couple of minutes to start wirken. this doesn't make sense anymore. wäre es doch leicht. i wish it was as easy and gentle as the piano in "vanishing act". i would crawl among the notes tonight and build a nest there. why do i always want to get to impossible places? so sehr, dass ich keine luft mehr kriege. IF I COULD START AGAIN A MILLION MILES AWAY I WOULD KEEP MYSELF I WOULD FIND A WAY

[march 4, 2003 - ...looking for a kiss...]
http://www.moveon.org/musiciansunited/

day's over. finished the first part of the paper. it takes much longer than i had thought. tomorrow i'll be going to cologne and stay till thursday. thursday night is rehearsal. thomas will be back from the states soon. he's been there now for almost a whole year. or so it seems. i have no idea how to manage my dissertation. i can't even cope with a twelve page paper. it's ridiculous. basically that has been the predominant feeling since yesterday evening: that i don't know how to manage things. the world is too big for me. life is too big for me. it sort of seemed okay back then, because, well you know, there had always been something to fall back upon. from the three spheres that are important to me (my university-life ('career'), my personal-life ('re:a:lationships') and my making-life ('writing, music')) none seems to go the direction i had intended to, as a matter of fact they don't seem to go at all. the effect this has is that the future is in a way erased, there's no perspective, nothing to move towards, no aim that one could reach, every so little aim suddenly seems to be ridiculously far away, unreachable, silly to think about: even the most basic things like keeping my job, like keeping my flat, like having a relationship, like being able to make music. do you know what i mean? i feel like i didn't have the energy anymore to cope with these things. i'm tired. i want a long rest. from my thoughts and from the thoughts about what will come and how little i'm prepared for it. escapism? maybe. i always could escape with you because you, you know, you had this sparkling in your eyes which makes me smile when i think about it. i guess the right word for it is "comfort". among others. there were times when i mistook it for love. looking for a kiss. i'll meet with the new trainee tomorrow. i'm supposed to come up with some work that she could be doing but i can't think of anything. can't think of anything else to write tonight, either. it's really a pity that one can't put music into words. i think i would really like to write down the strings that i'm listening to right now. just so that you can hear them as well. i could picture myself listening to this song at the end of some night, having returned from the movies maybe, and sitting in your kitchen and then looking into your eyes and NOT look away again. until the strings set in. until the song is over. maybe until the night is over. just for the sake of comfort. just for the sake of having something to look into. but i keep looking away. and blushing. i keep looking away.

[march 5, 2003 - tweet, tweet, chirp, chirp, tweet chirp! <= the birds in front of the office window greeting the night.]
it's a quarter to six and the day has been quite sunny, i'm at the office and just fell asleep while sitting at the computer. met eva and irene and maybe eva and i will do something tonight, depending on how work is going. cedric has just called and we've been discussing schmidt and other topics for almost an hour. it's dark now, or very near so, the birds are singing and there's a thin moon behind the trees. hard to imagine that he should be further away than you are. i keep listening to that lou reed song on repeat. also i realized that my fear of writing on the essay is similar to my fear of writing on a song: it's the paralyzing fear of not being able to create something that is good anymore. to start writing and then realizing that it's not good, that it doesn't work. thus it's always better not to start at all because this way you won't disappoint yourself and you can always dream of how good it would have been if you had written it. in the cruel neon light of the restroom i just saw that my hair is starting to get gray at the temples. hell! i'm only thirty! the monitor flickers nervously, the words are jumping up and down and black lines keep galopping over the screen like a herd of decomposed zebras, then my mobile is ringing. got an sms from eva. we'll meet in two hours at the usual cocktail bar :o)
 
[march 6, 2003 - ...and file it under failure...]
oooohh, so cute! annemarie [thomas' secretary] has brought her old, big, quiet dog to work. it's a labrador - i think - and he must be about 20 years old. he's always moving veeery slooowwwlllyyy and his looks are just heartbreaking. the bad thing. he stinks! badly! when thomas saw him for the first time his commentary was: that's the smell of death!

fictionalyse this!: got home at half past two in the morning. we met at the bar and had quite a good time and a couple of long island ice teas, and since both of us hadn't really anything real for dinner we started to feel the effects of the rum after a couple of minutes. anyway, the night went on and it got later and the waitress was washing the glasses and putting the chairs onto the tables when we were still sitting there, talking, and then a pimp with his two prostitutes came in and ordered an alcohol-free beer and he looked exactly like willie deville and they kept talking about their customers and about their prices and suddenly eva and i were having the talk. you know: the talk. which went on for over an hour: i was pretty sober when we were through. although i think we kept talking very very carefully and politely - or maybe because of that - i guess we kept talking in metaphors, beating around the bush, trying to say things without saying them and keeping statements as vaguely as possible. the bottom line was that we talked about borders which had been there but not talked about. makes sense? no? well, maybe you don't have to know everything ;o) so more or less a night fitting into a loooong tradition... so cheers to us!

[march 7, 2003 - is it getting better? or do you feel the same?!?]
wow! weird dreams: nightmares even: i was on top of a skyscraper that was overlooking a sort of futuristic city. the walls were made of glass and i was there with a group of people i knew. we were having a sort of party (?), in any case i was sitting at a table. and suddenly all throughout the city you could see vapor trails rising up from missile defend rockets. you couldn't see them or hear them, there were just these thin, white cotton candy clouds shooting into the sky softly. and suddenly it was clear that it was a city in israel. and there was one rocket rising up very close to the building i was in, so close that you could actually read the writing on it (some numbers and letters i unfortunately can't remember anymore...) and all of a sudden it ceased to rise, the ray of fire from its bottom stopped and it gently curved towards us and fell, like a rainbow, out of sight. and just when we were relieved that it had missed the building there was a mute, thickening "thud" and the pressure wave threw over the table and parts of the wall were missing. and then, very slowly the whole room started to turn over, to fall down. and while the ceiling slowly turned into the floor and every piece of furniture fell down in slow motion i had this very physical feeling that you get when you're prey to gravity in free fall on a roller coaster and i knew that i'd die every moment. i woke up with a beating heart. very pynchonesque.
[later]
hm, it's midnight and i've just drunken two cups of coffee for whatever reason... today eva mentioned that she's reading the online journal. which sent a shiver down my spine. i mean i knew that she knew about it, but i wasn't aware that she was actually reading parts of it. gulp. checked the last couple of months to see what i had written in which contexts and my head went hot and cold and cold and hot again and i figured that the only way out of it - with grace - was to convince her that the journal is an experiment and not a document and that it has nothing to do with my 'real' feelings and my 'selfs' and that most of it is fictitious anyway. yeah! like anybody would believe that!

wasted the day with little, unimportant things like trying to find a new chord pattern for that new lyrics that sort of 'happened' yesterday night. watched the coverage of the un security council session. listened to that sheryl crow track from cedric's compilation on repeat. guess it's called "save & sound". bombastic. but catchy. danced to it :o) talked to cedric on the phone. found a nice quote by laurie anderson as a motto for the article. oh yes, compiled a cd for eva & blaine with current hits. weather is mild. lots of sun. even now, at 00:14 the window is open and a soft wind is blowing through the room and lets the candles flicker. wanted to do so much today: answer catherine, finish the cohen part of the article, go for a walk, maybe even start recording the new song of which only the chorus exists so far. thomas mailed and asked how things were going. "marlene watches from the wall, her mocking smile says it all as she records the rise and fall of every soldier passing. but the only soldier now is me, i'm fighting things i cannot see. i think it's called my destiny that i am changing, changing, changing..."

[march 8, 2003 - why didn't you call?]
als ich in der küche stand, an die heizung gelehnt, die heisse tasse in den händen, der duft das kaffees so akustisch wie lou und lauries stimme, die aus dem anderen zimmer fragten "why didn't you call on me?" und die sonne ungefragt und wie selbstverständlich durch die hohen, schmalen fenster auf den boden schien, da spürte ich wieder die angst. die angst, nicht die richtige, angemessene form zu finden. gefühle und gedanken zu beschneiden dadurch, dass man sie nicht in die systeme der repräsentation einpassen kann; zu viele worte zu machen, oder zu wenige, auf jeden fall die falschen aber, die das gefühl, den gedanken nicht ausdrücken, sondern wegdrücken, erdrücken, stumm machen, zerstören. egal auf welchem gebiet: sprechen, schreiben, singen, komponieren. fiktional, nicht fiktional, wissenschaftlich, privat oder öffentlich. die ständige, lähmende angst, (etwas) zu ver:sagen.

daher die versuchung der liebe: die möglichkeit, emotionen scheinbar unvermittelt auszudrücken über einen blick, eine berührung, einen kuss. aber auch das nur illusion. aber eine verführerische: die bittersüsse (v)erinnerung an scheinbare momente einer solchen vermittlung, die einfach die schwierigkeit des ausdrucks überspringt und in einem beinah hysterischen, überschwenglichen gefühl der - wenn auch nur kurzen - völligen überschneidung der gleichen gefühle, der gleichen gedanken gipfelt. keine angst mehr haben zu müssen vor der eigenen unzulänglichkeit der repräsentation - das hast du mir gegeben, das habe ich in den schönsten momenten mit dir gefühlt. eine last, die plötzlich abfiehl, ein seltsames gefühl der freiheit. eine paradoxe, unendliche schönheit, die ohne form, ohne ausdruck existieren kann.

und es ist genau diese alte angst, die mich das hat schreiben lassen, statt an dem artikel zu arbeiten der mich zwingt, eindrücke und ideen in eine sprache zu übertragen, die ich nicht beherrsche.

[later]
no new messages on server. it's 23:29. managed to add a couple of paragraphs to the article. which is good. didn't manage anything else. which is bad. i've a chorus and a bridge for that great chord pattern that actually was planned to become "thomas' song". but i have different lyrics now. well, a beginning at least. and i changed one chord from b-major to c-minor, which gives the chorus an extra kick. i think it'll be a really good song - if i don't blow it!! sigh. when thomas asked how things were going i wrote back and told him that i was working on the article and that "my small flat is overflowing with new songs: they are hanging from the ceiling and jumping out of the cupboard, they are gnawing at my leg and tearing at my hair. it's hardly possible to breathe or to open the window." and he wrote back: "i thought it was overflowing with parts of your dissertation? maybe you should let them hunt the songs like a cat hunts the mice..." oh boy, thomas! do you have ANY idea about the nature of new songs? you can't hunt them down. the only way to get them is to record them. i'm tired now. mentally. not physically. i spent all day in front of the pc. i should have moved more. i have to get out tomorrow!
[march 9, 2003 - ...lenny asks a simple question: 'baby are you gonna go my way?'...]
this is sooooo cool! just checked my mail and i got this message:
Subject: entropic empire
Date: Sat, 8 Mar 2003 20:16:30 EST
From: xxxx@xxxxxxxx.com
To: webmaster@entropic-empire.com

Have a venue in NYC, USA....Where are 200 Lurkers from??
Thanks,
Skip

[later]
oh boy! i'm all wound up. had three coffees this morning and then went to a café in the afternoon where i had two cappuccinos and now my hands are trembling! frightening! not much to report besides that: it's a slow sunday, hardly any people on the street, finished the first draft of the article. think i will revise it now and then later tonight write the mails i still need to send before people get angry with me ;o) haven't eaten anything all day. maybe that's why the coffee has such a strong effect?
[march 10, 2003 - you know what? i love you better now...]
hm, seems like this month's entries are rather short. did some last corrections on the article during the day. went to bring reiner the band photos and infos. called blaine: he's sick. did the laundry [exciting stuff, eh?!], spent quite some time thinking about the expression "virtual tenderness". when i was walking through town this afternoon i saw that where the shrink used to be there now is an insurance company. what irony!
[later]
it's onethirty in the morning. window open. lights out. i'm sitting, crouched on my chair in front of the desk, just wearing pajama trousers, sweating from dancing through the dark room with the headphones on just the other minute. my soft body moving through the space with the grace of a drunken whale. but i needed to move. i wish i had a beautiful body. can't sleep. wide awake. enumerating helps to conquer the world: an empty cd case, an empty glass, your wrist-watch that i don't own but still have, a sheet of paper with columns of lines: verses, a bridge and a chorus, all leaning towards the left margin. on the right: words scribbled down with a pen, that same pen lying on the words, next to it my bracelet: the knife pendant. the pen and the sword on an unfinished song - the involuntary cornyness of my life makes me sick. i wish i had a beautiful body. i wish i needn't be ashamed for it. "you told me once again you preferred handsome men. but for me you would make an exception." can't sleep. the mild night air flaps around my chest like bats. i should put on a shirt. "you fixed yourself, you said: well, never mind. we are ugly - but we have the music!" do we? can't sleep. can't stop thinking. writing mode switched on but i'm afraid to work on that new song. i don't own it. it's not mine in a way. it's like a diamond in a rough that someone gave me to cut it and make a beautiful piece of jewelry out of it. and if i'm not careful i will ruin it. as if you'd need any jewelry.  "will you wait for me here?" how long? scribbling on the unfinished song: you + your virtual tenderness. far away. "i'll be gone will you wait for me here. i don't know but wait for me here. don't follow me to where, where i'll go" i would trade my songs for a beautiful body. beautiful bodies have special kind of gravity: they never lose things (like hearts or names). "i want you to remember me that way"
[march 11, 2003 - light up this town!]
the day started with a call from nicole: she found out the the woman downstairs is moving, so there's a vacant flat in her house. 33 square meters: one room and a kitchen. for 395 euros per month. [for my apartment here in bielefeld i'm paying 169 euros for 35 square meters]. sigh. from may on i will earn about 1000 euros a months. do i really want to spend almost half of it on the rent? okay - i gave up the idea of being able to go on holiday long ago and i can't spend a lot of money on things. but i'm more and more feeling very insecure: i mean i'm not even able to save any money. i've always spent everything by the end of the month. and not because i'm buying such a lot of things. it just vanishes: for the food, for the telephone bill, for a book or two, for going to a bar, for making 200 lurkers cds. i mean what if i should lose my job suddenly? and it becomes clearer and clearer that i will probably lose it in three years time... i don't have any savings and i should have by then! i need a rich girlfriend that i can marry.

so i'm not really sure whether i sould decide for a flat that is so expensive. only: it isn't really expensive for cologne standards. what does this tell us? keep living in bielefeld? that's no solution for any of the problems that are bothering me. anyway, i'll take the train to cologne tomorrow afternoon and probably return the same night.

[march 12, 2003 - and if i only could i'd make a deal with god and i get him to swap our places.]
okay, i've got it all worked out: i'm off to cologne in an hour, be there at four in the afternoon and i'll meet with nicole to have a coffee in a café near her place. then at seven i'll inspect the flat and at nine thirty my train leaves. i'll be home at twelve thirty tonight. so i won't even have the time to go to the university and check the [snail] mail or say hello to people.

finished the lyrics for the new song yesterday night. more good news: cedric liked the article (he's the publisher of the volume).

i'm on the train. strange day. feeling like i had no skin. everything aches. like i'm going to get ill. i'm cold. permanent shivers. long for a blanket, something warm and heavy around my shoulders. tell me we both matter, don't we? my body signals that something is not quite right and i can't read it. i need a sharply defined task. the project "dissertation" is simply too big for me. also i have really doubts whether the topic i wanted to write on will get me anywhere or be sufficient for 300 pages. the article makes me doubt so. sure - beautiful losers is a good topic but i need a focus. fuck. it's all fuck. if i only could i'd make him to swap our places.

[later]
i'm on the way back - the flat is definitely too expensive. the living room is very nice with two big windows but the kitchen is too small and the bathroom is a 1x1m room completely made out of plastic. but i spent a nice evening with nicole. first we had a coffee at a very nice café + then we cooked a chinese dish. she said she would "mother" me if i moved downstairs. which is a nice offer but a mother figure is not really what my life is lacking. the woman who is moving out of the apartment had studied law in bielefeld, her friend - who was also there - did so, too. gruesome people: just like you imagine lawyers to be: her friend was such a smart ass! nicole & i just looked at each other in amazement and silent understanding. i switched out of my complain into my tired-mode. i'm still cold & still wish for a warm blanket. or pair of arms. wondering whether thoughts are bi-directional. are you thinking about me when i'm thinking about you? there is a small green plant growing inside me, getting a little bigger each day without me really noticing it. i don't know what to do with it. well - does it even matter what i'm doing??
[later]
almost home. no delays. read s. fish. pretty good. when i was walking at nicole's side through the streets of her neighborhood - both of us carrying shopping bags - the sky started to darken, gray clouds filled the emptiness between the roofs and walls and the light changed into a dirty yellow and it smelled like rain. and suddenly i got homesick. i was walking on the sidewalk down the street and the longing for home cut me in two. but the bad thing was that i didn't know what i was homesick for. the longing had no object, had no place to strive to. "you can have me in a matter of moments" the darkness moves outside like a river. "Nächster Halt ist Gütersloh Hauptbahnhof" i'm thinking of you. whatever this means. i don't know what i would do without words. "if you detect a smile it's as i dream of foreign lands. and let things get out of hand is exactly what i've got planned..."
[march 13, 2003 - take a left, a sharp left and another left. meet me on the corner we'll start again...]
steve buscemi in 'trees lounge'the sun is shining. i cleaned my windows and now the barrier between me and the sunny world outside is transparent again. plan for today: work on that new song which is called "trees lounge". i had a different working title first, but i think "trees lounge" is better. the paul simon compilation is spinning in the cd player and the percussions of "the coast" are marching through my room like ants. thought a lot about writing essays. you know - that pocahontas article showed me that it CAN be fun and that it DOES result in some feeling of satisfaction to write something serious. i should use this feeling to jump into my diss. but then suddenly i'm not sure about my topic anymore. wonder what's wrong with me. i wrote to thomas the other night telling him how strange it was to have all these ideas but being unable to put them into language and the resulting fear of the process of transforming thoughts into words. i know that he will probably answer that you can only lose the fear by writing and proving to yourself that you can 'master' the process. but from what i have experienced from the songs and other writing is that each blank sheet of paper is eaqually blank. you don't get used to the feeling.
[later]
extensive sun walk. went up the hill and then down the hill again until i reached the little zoo. well, it's not really a zoo, it's a wild park. they have a lot of animals there who would be living in the woods of this area if there weren't houses, streets, cars etc.: wild birds like hawks, owls and eagles, horses and cattle, deer, wolves, lynx and even two bears. plus of course a lot of little fleischtierchen. okay, "what are fleischtierchen?" you're asking yourself? hm, how to explain this. fleischtierchen is an expression from my former life and actually i'm not quite sure whether i or she holds the copyrights. the signified to fleischtierchen would be: a small animal that is a) cute, b) has some kind of fur c) is non threatening d) you want to rub its belly. a puppy is a fleischtierchen, although they are too domesticated to really be one. but little raccoons who are trying to open a peanut - they definitely are fleischtierchen. of course all the animals are properly locked away behind fences and water ditches, and that one lynx kept walking along the same eight feet of the fence back and forth and forth and back in autistic motion while fixing me with its glowing amber eyes.

surreal moment of the day: when i went walking back and had just reached the top of the hill and i had a great view all over the city and the air was so clear that i could see every village and every river on the horizon that was glistening in the sunshine and suddenly when i looked up there was the moon: in the blue, clear, sunflooded afternoon sky it was hanging like it belonged there! and in this moment i realized what paula meant when she said that she used to wake up in paintings because suddenly the whole world had turned into a magritte painting: night and day at the same time: clear contours, clear colors, but slightly surreal.

[later]
21:51. it's bitter cold outside. when i stepped out of the door to go down to the kiosk and get some sweets my look was pulled up. and i swear that tonight must be the most beautiful night sky ever: millions of shimmering stars and the moon so close that she almost seems in reach. i swear it must be as beautiful as the very first night sky that god created.
[march 14 (already??!), 2003 - optimism is just lack of information (blaine quoting harald schmidt quoting heiner müller)]
wasted day so far. tried to find some additional voices & arrangements for "trees lounge" - but i'm not really convinced. i should start with the drums/percussions. sigh. it's such a good song. tonight: rehearsal. which is good, because 200 lurkers will have another gig in may!! on friday, may 30 we're asked to participate in this year's "Scene Playing" with three other bands in the chattanooga.
[later]
hm, great organization - reiner and i forgot to tell daniel that we were rehearsing tonight. we were sitting there, all the gear in place, instruments tuned, microphones connected to the amplifiers, when i asked reiner: "by the way, did you tell daniel that we're rehearsing tonight?" and he replied: "no, i thought YOU had?!!" so we played an unplugged set without drums.

i was in town before that and i was shocked! i wanted to make a promo band photo collage for 200 lurkers because they need an image for that may 30 gig. i thought of making something similar to the nerve bible photo only with faces of film stars. but i didn't have any suitable portraits in my collection, and every image on the net had a bad resolution. so i thought: well, i'll get a couple of those postcards before rehearsal, you know, with 30s, 40s and 50s film stars - but i've checked every store downtown and you just can't get them anymore! i'm outraged! where are those saints of modernity, where are the black & white faces from the time when movies were still magical? who has put them away for diddl postcards and boy bands?? i need them! cary grant, audrey hepburn, humphrey bogart, steve mcqueen, james stewart, bette davis, you know: the REAL stars! have you already been forgotten??

thought about writing an sms but it would be rather unmotivated. at least it would seem so. and besides i'm drunk. it's easy to be brave when you're drunk. you can have me in a matter of moments. why are some songs so simple and yet so awesome?? i wonder how this can be: there's hardly a melody, there are hardly any instruments. just a couple of notes that don't really connect. and the words are minimalistic, too. and still it says more about my state of mind, heart and brain than all of the fourteen 200 lurkers songs. here's a list of the songs i remember having written since i've been playing with the band. i haven't included the songs from before that time.

deep water
hold me back
your ghost
conversation with goliath
act normal
nothing left to lose
the liar
excuse
the slow death of william s.
my life under the snowdome
king m.
results
ein wenig
the prosecutor's love song
between the years
bitter
in april may bee soon
green ideas
lady lazarus (text by sylvia)
lightning (text by suzanne)
catch me if you can
a tree, a rock, a cloud
kleine worte
ohne dich
estragon
moebial heart
against demons
headfirst
more life
the nerves end at the fingertips
namedropping
when you wish upon a star
cultural studies II
suture
cultural studies I
a pact
my sunset is your sunrise
space walk
first day love
moving
was one
the pilot
nausikaa II
headcrash
the little lighthouse
cold smoke
what does this tell us? no new messages on server. still an ugly body. in a matter of moments!
[march 15, 2002 - and i pray for your health and your peace of mind, but god must know i just want you by my side]
hm, slept for ten hours. frightneing. today: sunny again. saturday. plan: enjoy the sun, go outside and work on "trees lounge". i think it would be good to have the basic rhythm section first: drums & bass. reiner played quite an interesting bass pattern yesterday night in the verse, so maybe i'll try to copy this on the keyboard. maybe i should buy a cheap bass myself.

just remembered that there's a high school class reunion at the end of this month. nadine had told me about it and wanted to me to come as well. but i'm not sure. would it be fun? i doubt so. and besides i haven't accomplished anything society-relevant. i think an evening full of wives and husbands, photos of children and houses and cars and questions such as: "oh, literary theory! interesting. but...what is it good for??" from lawyers and insurance agents and teachers will only get me down.

[march 16, 2003 - wieder ein tag. warum auch nicht?]
worked all day long on "trees lounge". i think musically it's finished more or less. just have to tape the vocals tomorrow. i think i've got to change the lyrics here and there a little. it's strange how songs are developing during the recording process. you start taping them and you have a certain sonic image in your mind about how it is supposed to sound and in the end it sounds totally different from what you had planned or expected. sometimes i wish i had more control over where a song is going to. sometimes it's good not to have this control because the song developes in ways i would never had dreamed of.

went on a long walk in the sun this afternoon. now it's 00:46 and my face is neatly framed in cosmic blue because i have colored my hair. which means: i cannot leave the house tomorrow. jumped in the river and what did i see? black eyed angel swam with me. all my lovers were there with me. all my past and future. and we all went to heaven in a little row boat. there was nothing to fear nothing to doubt. i realize how the ridiculous, small man inside my head is cutting my thoughts again, cutting them in half and hiding the dangerous half, the bad half, the forbidden half. all my past. thinkable in a second. should i retreat. i said i would if it got dangerous. how far away am i from that point. is it in front? is it in sight? is it in reach? have i crossed it already? and future.

[march 17, 2003 - whispers (at the end of the song): i feel like i could have saved you, feel like i could have saved you, feel like i could have saved you...]
dick und dalli und die pommes. oh well, don't ask ;o) oh boy. more work on the new song. almost eight hours straight. my head hurts now. but i think i've got it now. reduced the number of tracks and i think it works now. didn't manage to do anything else today. can't even write properly anymore. some kind of strange obsession.
[march 18, 2003 - you and me and steve buscemi]
i'm in cologne, in the office. beautiful weather. it's summer here. prepared the seminar for next semester. played "trees lounge" to blaine - he said i need more 'drive'. think i'm going to copy him "how to recoginze a good song when you hear one"... tonight i'm going to see that frida kahlo movie with eva. wonder whether they will ever make movies about ugly artists. such as "gertrude stein - tender buttons and big nose" or "yes, i'm just three feet tall and my face looks like a muffin but i can write! - the carson mccullers story" or "one trick pony - the funny hair style of suzanne vega" [no suzanne, that's mean! you are NOT ugly - i would marry you at once! but your current hairstyle is just not very flattering]. cedric said that i could tape the noise from the film projector (eva is working at the movie theater, in fact she is the film operator) which was a great idea because i can use it for "trees lounge" - the sound would fit to the song on various levels.

the sun is going down. beautiful day. the birds are singing. in my back achim and nicole are typing on the keyboards silenty and from the speakers the music from cedric's compilation cd is playing. did some organization of files today, deleting eveyrthing i don't need anymore. now i'm looking forward to the evening and i must say that i can't think of any better job than the one i have here.

[march 19, 2003 - why didn't you call on me? why didn't you call on me? why didn't you call on me? why didn't you all?]
yesterday afternoon blaine and nicole were sitting with me in the office and the sun was shining through the shades in slices and out of the blue blaine said: "do you know these moments, when you feel the strong urge to do something that's totally out of question!" and he turned to me and continued "like pushing the guy in front of you onto the railroad tracks or jumping out of your bathroom window?" and i looked at him in amazement. "nope!" "you know," he said now turning to nicole "when i was young i wanted to pull down the swimming suit pants of my teacher..." and i was wondering whether it was blaine who was weird for having such ideas or me for NOT having them. i can't recall ever having had such thoughts. okay, every now and then i'm thinking of throwing MYSELF in front of the train but not the guy in front of me...mental note: from now on always stand BEHIND blaine in the subway station!

so in the evening i went down to the movie theater to meet eva. she showed me all the technical stuff in the projection booth high above the auditorium where two huge projectors were rolling like paddle steamers fueled by light. it was pretty fascinating, especially since movie theaters, projectors and films are so important in beautiful losers. we watched the film from a small, sort of private, balcony that you could only access from the projection booth. it was great and (had the situation been different) probably the most romantic setting one can think of. the film was okay as well. i had hoped that there might be a leonora carrington character in it but unfortunately the whole surrealist movement played only a very small part.

after the movie had ended and everybody had left eva and i stayed in the lobby of the empty theater, talking. then we decided that we might as well have a drink at a nearby bar. so we had cocktails and continued our conversation until they closed the place at half past one. and shortly before we left i suddenly was reminded of the things that blaine had said that same afternoon and while the candle in the middle of the table died away and eva rested her head on her hand and looked into the fading flame while we were discussing the question as which animal we would prefer to be reborn and whom we would kill if we could do so without ever being caught i realized that i DO have sudden impulses to do things that are totally out of question.

it's wednesday noon now. i'm a little tired and just had a meeting with the new intern. then irene paid a short visit and told me about her exams and in half an hour i'll have lunch with ute. then my office hours and after that i'll meet blaine in a café downtown and then it's back to b.. tomorrow: rehearsal. the other day reiner called and said that there were two 200 lurkers song which he would like to play with the band: "headcrash" and "the little lighthouse". he said he liked them very much and had already a band arrangement idea for "headcrash", which i thought was very flattering.

second attempt to post the lyrics of "trees lounge": "would you rather be deaf or rather be blind?" she asked the other night when we sat at some other bar. and it sounded to me like one of those first lines of famous songs and i replied: "hey! that's quite bizarre! we are alone here at this bar and still i feel the presence of a star. it's you and me and steve buscemi". then she handed me a package of pepper in a caramel wrapper along with the bill. whispered: "i can't protect you baby, but maybe the spice here will. this is no ordinary night we two are on a simulation flight. just you and me and steve buscemi." she said something like "you, and your virtual tenderness!" and i guess that was when i answered: "i know. you can not always be with me but i will always have this memory of you and me and steve buscemi." hey sternchen! i can spot you here. among those million little lights you'll never disappear. your smile it covers half the northern hemisphere. hey sternchen! although you are not near it only takes a cloudless sky to feel that you are here.

[later]
on the way back: just met with blaine in a fancy café and a lot of famous people passed by. well, that's cologne! to be honest only one person of dubious fame passed by and it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that we would have done the world a favor if we had rammed our teaspoons in both his eyes (es war "my favorite song is simon and garnfankel's bridge of troubled water"-superstar daniel für die geneigten deutschen leser) blaine said a lot of charming things, for example that i should make more sports. and that i was an emotional turtle. apparently ute had been complaining that i'm not saying anything private about myself and that i'm too locked up. jesus! i already feel like putting my emotional life way too much on everybody's sandwich! i honestly feel that i AM very open and accessible. almost too much so sometimes. an emotional turtle. pft! what he could not know: yesterday night eva and i were fantasizing about which animal we would prefer to be if we were reborn and i chose: a turtle. for pragmatic reasons, though, not for "emotional" ones: because they have a very long life, they have no natural enemies, live on beautiful islands in blue lagoons and have a rather carefree, relaxed life.

quote from the dust jacket of brian "brain" massumi's book: "A User's Guide to Capitalism and Schizophrenia is a playful and emphatically practical elaboration of the major collaborative work of the French philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari." playful, huh?!?!! Massumi does Deleuze the Pocahontas way or what? and if it's so elaborate and playful, why don't i understand it??? "Distinguishing a form of expression from a form of content permits us to isolate that dynamic aspect of both formations at their determining point of impact. Thinking in terms of function and quality and bracketing the substances of expression and content is a way of evacuating the poles of dualistic processes. Rather than two irreducible formations, we have two edges of an interface. Far away I'll be gone will you wait for me here. How long? I don't know but wait for me here. Follow. Don't follow me to where I go."

just got an sms from daniel. apparently he went to rehearsal on thursday but since we had postponed the rehearsal but forgotten to tell him he waited in vain. and in turn reiner and i waited in vain the following day. if you think that in the age of mobile communication overkill it should be possible for three grown up men to fix a date think again!! hope we will at least turn up at the gigs together! "if i could have held you once more in that light - it's nothing to you but it keeps me alive..." the long lost voice of tanita. piano and strings and a great melody. "i want to see you again. i want to see you again..." and the strings rise beneath the words like waves "...it's so simple and plain, but i'll come back and see you again." sometimes the lacking relation between words and the world really, really sucks. "Nächster Halt ist Gütersloh Hauptbahnhof" groundhog day. either i'm steve buscemi or bill murray. time to get the brad pitt part and then: see you at the academy awards!!

[march 20, 2003 - i'm guided by the beauty of your weapons]
okay, new movie for the "ugly artists" series: "here comes the drum and i say: it's all right! the life of moe tucker." worked all day on the 200 lurkers pages. tara had sent a very nice review for the "opinions" section. also uploaded a couple of movie star images for the index and the new lyrics complete with the respective commentaries. cedric called. he has heard "trees lounge" today (i had sent him a cd) and said that he liked it. he also made a couple of observations that were pretty astonishing because they seem to be so obvious but i wasn't aware of them. like the influence of my increased paul simon consume during the last weeks. cedric said that the lyrics sound very simon-influenced, especially having a lot of words for a rather small melodic motif. and also the percussion which reminded him of "the rhythm of the saints".

and while i'm writing this, "2001" has just ended. what a great movie!!

decided to make a small 200 lurkers info-flyer so that i can send a couple of cds to indie labels before thomas will return at the end of the month. the hard part is of course to come up with an intelligent text for it. oh and yes: the war has started.

[march 21, 2003 - after the dream of falling and calling your name out]
bad dreams. woke up from someone's sobbing. since i spent the night alone it must have been me. apart from that: sunny day. walked through the park. continued working on the 200 lurkers info: i made a band photo (below) and put together a short text. i'm grateful for criticism and suggestions!

THE MUSIC OF 200 LURKERS ...gibt es seit Sommer 2002. Die Lieder des Singer|Songwriter Projekts versuchen, musikalisch und auch textlich interessant und hoerbar zu sein. Die vierzehn Songs der CD "The Space and the Sea" wurden mit dem PC aufgenommen und abgemischt. Alle Lieder koennen auf unserer Homepage als mp3 heruntergeladen werden. Falls euch die Musik der 200 Lurkers gefaellt, wuerden wir uns ueber Tipps, Hilfe und Unterstuetzung von professioneller Seite bei Produktion, Promotion, Booking oder Vertrieb sehr freuen! Danke fuer's Zuhoeren!"

i chose 8 from the 14 lurkers songs for a demo cd. which wasn't easy. i think it's important to pick the right tracks and also to have the right order of tracks. here's what i have come up with so far:

1. Trees Lounge
2. The Little Lighthouse
3. Space Walk
4. Headcrash
5. Ohne Dich
6. Cold Smoke
7. Estragon
8. Space Walk (live)
again, suggestions and opinions are appreciated.
[march 22, 2003 - but it was so much easier, when i was cruel...]
wow! weird dreams tonight which i can't really describe in all their strangeness and liveliness: but somehow i was among the audience of the Late Show and Harald Schmidt somehow suddenly started to talk to me, the setting was confusing as well: he was outside in some kind of garden or green meadow while i was in a house, watching the show through the window, and i was writing in my journal and suddenly he grabbed it as if he were a teacher and i a pupil caught not paying enough attention and then the show was over and we were inside and walked with three other guests down a long hallway to the kitchen which was "the biggest kitchen in the world" according to harald who showed me around, and there were big buckets of grocery, tomatoes, pepper, salad. and in that kitchen there was another group of people who were visiting the building as well and from that group a young woman approached me and said: "i'm a teacher as well..." (apparently i had said during the show that i was a teacher) and she wanted to thank me for having portrayed teachers in such a positive way and she put her arms around my neck to give me a kiss on the cheek. i was positively surprised and wanted to kiss her lips instead of her cheek but she didn't really want and turned away. then suddenly i was in the tram to the university in cologne and the guy sitting next to me asked me about yesterday night's show and whether i was still studying and then i had to get out and it was all very, very weird and real.

it's really strange how songs keep ticking silently sometimes until they explode: listened to a compilation that cedric made for me half a year ago and it is only now that i've learned to appreciate that great elvis costello track: "when i was cruel no2".

[later - through the park in the afternoon, wondering where the hell i have been]
just talked to nicole on the phone. she had called earlier that night but i had just started watching "manhattan murder mystery" so i let the answering machine take the call. and when i talked to her the other minutes she asked: "and, have you been out?" "no, i was watching a video and thought i'd call you later..." and she said. "thank god! i already was very depressed because it's a saturday night and i'm alone here at my flat and i thought: 'you're home alone here when EVEN philipp has a date!'" thanks, nicole! ;o) i told her about my late show dream then and she said that it wasn't weird and confusing at all: "it's totally clear: you are in the house, which means that you're hiding from the world, that you're afraid to go out and harald schmidt symbolizes the life outside. and that he takes your book away means that he wants you to stop living only in the writing and in the books but to step into REAL life..."

before i had been talking to cedric on the phone. and he proposed a different track list for the demo cd. it's good to get opinions from people who are not me, who have more distance. catherine mailed today and said that she didn't really like the text for the info and offered to write a short pr-text for the flyer, which would be a big, big help. cedric's suggestion looks like this:

1. Headcrash
2. Space Walk
3. Estragon
4. Cold Smoke
5. Trees Lounge
6. Ohne Dich
7. The Pilot
8. The Little Lighthouse
so if you're interested in the songs, the lyrics, the commentaries or simply the updated 200 lurkers page go to www.200lurkers.com ;o) cedric and i were discussing a number of topics from music to politics and at some point he got confused about whether he had already talked about a certain topic the other day and he said: "sorry, i'm a bit confused. there are two people i'm talking to on the phone almost every day which is tara and you and sometimes the conversations are very similar!" by the way: tara's brother and his wife have gotten a baby this week! ben graham ackermann. congratulations!
[march 23, 2003 - i know YOU, you gave me that tatoo in 2002]
beautiful day today. but i'm a little unconcentrated: forgot to disconnect the modem after i've checked my mail :o( 2:35h connected to the net. went on a long walk through the woods. a lot of people outside. decided that i probably won't go to cologne next week. started to do some documentation of the new songs: made files with the lyrics and the respective guitarchords - i tend to forget how to play songs so i thought that i better write them down.

in other news: it's catherine's birthday today!

[later]
it's 0:35 already. i'm tired. feeling alone. i can't see the sky when i look out of the window. wish i could see any stars. wish i could talk to you now. wish i could not talk to you now but just sit next to you, in a train, on a bus, in a theater without having anything to say but knowing that i could if i wanted to. and knowing that the evening had just begun. and that it's one of those evenings that will go on without end. just having you with me, in reach. in the same room. i on the sofa, you in the chair under the mirror and i'm reading a tin tin comic and you're reading the horoscope of a magazine aloud to me and you wouldn't object if i got up and touched your hair and said that you are beautiful and you would ask me what is wrong and i would say: nothing, nothing's wrong, i just have this strange feeling, and i wouldn't say anything else because talking about it will make it come true and down from the street you can hear the cars drive by and the dog is barking and you get up and say i'm tired, i'll go to bed now and then you start your nightly ritual of preparing everything for the next morning: you arrange the clothes neatly over the kitchen chair (and your standing in the doorway, asking me: have you heard the forecast? shall i wear the green sweater or the red cardigan?) and you fill the fresh water in the coffee machine and put your cup besides it and then you go brush your teeth and when you return your bare feet make no noise on the kitchen floor and you're wearing your night blue satin pajama that your grandmother had made and you climb onto the sofa with me and your cold toes touch my legs more by chance than by tenderness. and you're telling me that you'll be home late tomorrow because you'll go to an after work party with a couple of colleagues. and i say have fun and then you're saying goodnight and in the doorway you turn around, hesitate, think about whether to give me a goodnight kiss, decide against it and then i hear you closing the bedroom door and i get out the pillow and the blanket and sleep on the sofa. my head is full of ands. far away i'll be gone will you wait for me here? how long? i don't know will you wait for me here?? no, not in reach. never in reach. always already lost. i'm better off now. i'm better off here. without being without you. it's strange that i still remember all these things. in the meantime it's 1:08 and my eyelids are heavy and my arms are heavy still the wish is there and maybe i SHOULD go to cologne tomorrow just to, well, pointless. more and more i realize that it isn't excitement that i'm seeking. it's those evenings that were still whole, unbroken, little bubbles in time, filled with perfect light and perfect food and perfect music and perfect kisses, those moments that make you think that your life can't possibly get any better. knowing that you're at the right place at the right time with the right person. quiet. that's it. it's a certain kind of quietness. falling without fearing the bottom. a deep sigh after the curtain has fallen and you've put down the make up and gotten out of the costume. just being, breathing, listening and whispering without aim or reason. "out of context and beyond all consequences". no expectations: in the best of all cases nothing will happen. no boundaries: in the best of cases everything will happen. it's nothing to you but it keeps me alive. it's a pity that it's so pointless. and still it's paradox. the impossibility of things makes things possible. going because you know that there's a limit. it's 1:30 and i'm hallucinating. the central heating is turned off and from the cold that fills the room and rises from the floor like water i can tell that it must be a clear and cloudless night. i can't see any stars though. just roofs and walls. stars. little stars. they keep reoccurring again and again. dann liest sie die sterne - und ich lese sie. and if i won't come back will you name a star after me. need to sleep now. how long? when this you see remember me. i would arrange the stars so they spell your name. here. i don't know. cosmic letters. comic letters. old names. new names. blue like the winter snow in the full moon. but they already do. no need for any cosmic correction. almost two o'clock. if you would call me now. and if you would ask me to come now, i would. and if you would call me now and if you would ask me to not say a single word, i would as well. i would even stop writing if you told me to. don't you see, i'm missing you.
[march 24, 2003 - down the street into the square]
the morning birds are singing. lots of sun. music: stina nordenstam. there'll be a new "best of suzanne vega" in a month. i'm not sure whether it'll be available in europe, though. i'm very glad that it features "rosemary"!! however, what on earth "book of dreams" is doing on the track list i don't know! but the cover looks great. "in bed with suzanne" - madonna would be green with envy!!
1.Luka
2.Tom's Diner - DNA Version
3.Marlene On The Wall
4.Caramel
5.99.9 F
6.Tired Of Sleeping
7.Small Blue Thing
8.Blood Makes Noise
9.Left Of Center
10.I'll Never Be Your Maggie May
11.In Liverpool
12.Gypsy
13.Book Of Dreams
14.No Cheap Thrill
15.Calypso
16.World Before Columbus
17.Solitude Standing
18.Penitent
19.Rosemary
20.The Queen And The Soldier - LIVE
21.Woman On The Tier
hm, seems like this month is going to be tracklist-month. tried to write on the exposé this morning. wrote a sentence, read it, deleted it, wrote it again, read it, deleted it etc. then i walked through the woods for two hours: the sun was out all day and it was really warm.
[later]
talked to cedric on the phone. he is currently writing on an article about werewolves in literature and the deadline was yesterday so he has worked all through the night until one in the afternoon today. then he has slept for a couple of hours and wants to finish the paper tonight. when i asked him what he thought about the new suzanne vega best of he said: "hm, i wasn't sure whether this is for real or just another cd that you have made up!" i hadn't thought about this possibility! today is a very special day, because: i have prepared a hot meal for dinner today! pasta! a real meal! because - you know - usually i don't cook. i make a salad or a soup. i'm really frustrated that i didn't do any serious writing today :o(((((((( "caramel" went through my head all the time today. "und so wie mit diesem, geht es mir mit allen dingen" fake unica zürn quote. might as well be the soundtrack of my life. oh, oh, oh. i know your name i know your skin...
[later]
very, very quiet night. mild air. underwaterguitar in "caramel". caught myself dancing to it. quiet night. it won't do to dream of caramel to think of cinnamon... the monitor is blinding. too bright. i'm desperate because my ability to produce serious, scientific texts seems to come and go arbitrarily. it's not good when your work depends on chance events. but tomorrow is another day. i'm just glad that i never run out of clichés. sweet appetite, no single bite could satisfy. quiet night. you know what? it sounds stupid and silly, but i wish i could spend an entire evening with suzanne. discussing music, discussing literature. i always felt so, well, i can't describe it. it was like meeting somebody and you instantly realize that you're on the same wavelength. i felt very relaxed talking to her. which is absurd because i should have been all nervous and excited. but it was like meeting a part of yourself. some strange recognition. oh boy! you think i'm crazy, but i'm not. this is a very, very rare feeling that i've only known from very, very few people: maybe three or four. a sort of silent understanding. yes, i wish i could spend an entire evening with her. there are a lot of things i'd like to discuss. after all this time. :o) quiet night. quiet heart. quiet mind. quiet music. it won't do to dream of caramel to think of cinnamon and long

for

you.

[march 25, 2003 - she's 20 years older than me, and many times my size, it's her little feet i remember and the look in her eyes]
it's so good that there are certain constant factors in my life. they give me security, they help me coping with the uncertainties and the randomness of the world. constant factors such as: whenever i'm trying to concentrate on WORK an idea enters my mind and nests there and becomes an obsession that haunts me all day. today: the idea that i HAVE to send a 200 lurkers cd to new york. i know suzanne will come to germany in mid june, but that's still three months from now! i really, really wonder what i think i can achieve by sending out cds. on the other hand: "it doesn't hurt" to quote cedric quoting steve martin. "something will shine through the body if you give it a chance". guess that's all i want: a chance.
[later]
okay, went walking, enjoyed the weather. had dinner. then i wanted to write a little and instead i took the guitar and discovered an exquisite chord pattern for a great new guitar only song. and the best thing is: it came already with melody, which never happens!! i can't remember a time in my life when i was writing so many songs. you know, maybe the earthquake that rocked my life over a year ago was not all bad at all? it initiated a lot of changes that wouldn't have taken place if everything would have gone on as it was. i would still be a boring, gray, unattractive and not very interesting guy which i have sworn to myself i will never be again ("too late" i hear you mumble under your breath - especially those of you who wanted me to come to cologne yesterday night for a pub crawl!). i like myself much, much better now than i did before the break-up. which is strange. but if losing her was the price for the new songs and my new self, than maybe it was worth it. maybe i needed to be shaken. hm, this new chord pattern is really great! so now i need lyrics. hm, think i should put the line "underpaid but overjoyed" into it. that's the general feeling tonight. there was a time when i had to fight for each song. now they're just coming , just like that. like the butterflies that flew along the way today in the woods so clumsily as if they were puppets on sticks and i was walking through the set of the muppet show. 20:30. time to continue despairing on the exposé. "they say jonah he was swallowed by a whale but i know there's no truth to that tale. i know jonah, he was swallowed by a song" now, don't get me wrong, i guess i'm starting to sound a little pretentious, like i was suffering dreadfully from the terrible weight of a horrible gift that god gave me to write songs, and now i can't help but to make music, to write words. but i am pretty aware that it has nothing to do with some kind of gift and i also don't consider myself to be a genius. i know that most of the songs don't matter to anybody else but myself, and a couple to a handful of other people, maybe. but that's not the point, you see. "the arc of a love affair waiting to be restored..." the point is that this is a personal thing, a question of what to do and what to neglect. of what to fight for and what to ignore. i don't think that i have ever really fought for anything in my life. i resented the notion of fighting for anything. i didn't even fight for what seemed to be most precious to me. perhaps you had expected me to. maybe you wanted me to. but maybe not. i blew it anyway. "cause that's not the way the world is baby! this is how i love you baby, this is how i love you baby, this is how i love you baby..." maybe i think too much. i was just outside, and the nightair smells like summer. stars everywhere. wish i knew what to do.
[march 26, 2003 - i think last night you were driving circles around me...]
you know, i am a man of daring nature. i am always going for the excitement that life has to offer, i accept every challenge, never back down, i'm seeking the adventure, the thrills, the kicks, the extremes! "live life to the max!" is my motto! my thrilling adventure yesterday: i unthawed my fridge! the adventure today: bought a bottle of diet coke. "oh well, that is not very daring..." you might say but wait till you hear the whole, gruesome story; because ... it is lemon flavored diet coke!!!
[later - when i tried to make it more it was always less...]
hm, this was my first and my last diet lemon coke.
 
[march 27, 2003 - there's life down below me though, the kids are walking home from school...]
"...and i remember the time when i came so close with you sent me skipping my class and running from school and i bought you that ring cause i never was cool what makes me think i could start clean slated the hardest to learn was the least complicated..." the day started with bad news and headache. blaine's friend got fired after working for the company for ten years :o((((( milky sun, mild air, headache: took a pill. will start working now. that panic is paralyzing. put on a sting album from 1987. so sue me! but it's one of the first cds i ever bought and listening to it gives me some sense of comfort, of having something well known and familiar and soothing around me. if you don't pay attention to the lyrics it's quite okay even. "and i remember the time when i came so close with you i let everything go it seemed the only truth and i bought you that ring it seemed the thing to do what makes me think i could start clean slated the hardest to learn was the least complicated..." tara called today. she reminded me that she had found this sigmund freud action figure on the net (i'm not sure whether you can see it, but he's holding a small pipe in his hand)! great! we thought about creating more action figures. fake ones, of course that can then be presented on entropic-empire.com. candidates are of course lacan (with a small mirror), kristeva, roland barthes, deleuze, maybe karl heinz bohrer (complete with sound!), foucault (with leather gear), etc...
[later]
in the meantime it's already ten in the evening. added a couple of paragraphs to the exposé. went walking. did the laundry. made dinner. played a couple of songs but it didn't sound too well. when i told tara that i'm haunted by the idea of sending a cd to new york she said: oh, well, i thought you already HAD?!!? and then, at about seven when i was standing in the kitchen, preparing dinner, singing along to joni mitchell: a bad blow. i was looking out and there was a young woman running down the street, doing her work-out program. she had long, brown hair. medium height. medium weight. and each of her movements made me remember, made me miss those movements. i don't know how to explain this, but it was as if her body would create waves which were wandering through space like a stone creates waves when thrown into the water and they reached the house and the window and floated through the kitchen and it was such a familiar pattern and when it hit my body it suddenly made me respond, as if swinging with the waves and although i didn't know her i had almost dropped the onion and jumped after her to keep feeling them. oh well. what do you expect? i've been listening to sting's "straight to my heart" on repeat all day! actually only because i love the rhythm so much: an alternating 4/4, 3/4.
[march 28, 2003 - just saying it will even make it happen...]
sunny. worked on the hollow earth and the exposé. late afternoon. woods are lovely, dark and deep and empty, a couple of joggers and dog owners. the park was more crowded: people on wooden benches, couples on blankets on the lawn, children playing ball and the ducks walking over the gravel clumsily in one long line. a verse by paula in my mind:
I AM JUST TRYING TO FIND OUT HOW TO BEGIN
I AM JUST TRYING TO FIND OUT HOW TO LEAVE
THE BEAUTIFUL THINGS YOU WRITE IN YOUR DREAM
            STAY IN YOUR DREAM
THAT WAS GOOD,” SAID THE WOMAN, GETTING UP OFF THE FLOOR
      KNOCK ME OUT AGAIN”
.
thought about the track list for the new york cd [okay - i will only refer to it as "the new york cd", it's too embarrassing to spell out its actual purpose/destination/addressee] and since it's track-list month here we go:
1. the pilot
2. space walk
3. nausikaa ii
4. the little lighthouse
5. ohne dich
6. the nerves end
7. cultural studies II
8. cold smoke
9. trees lounge
10. estra-gone
[as a hidden track: space walk live]
this means: no "headcrash", no "when you wish upon a starr" and no "moving". because, well putting 14 tracks on a cd is mighty much if you really want people (who are probably pretty busy anyway) to listen to it. the order of the song is still subject to negotiation.
[march 29, 2003 - and my wishes nobody says...]
sort of finished the exposé. it has three pages now. but i'm not really happy with it. i don't know. maybe it's me. when i came walking down the hill i decided to buy some extra food for the weekend. to get to the store i had to cross that square: bad idea! it was flea market time. and of course a flea market on a saturday afternoon is not the best place to be for me. no - don't say anything! any way.

hm, coincidence? yesterday i quoted a verse from a poem by paula. and when i checked my mail this morning guess who had written: "it's a lonely night. i had a bat in my room the other day. it was frozen against the window screen, stunned by the light. and now there's a ladybug smashing itself to pieces against the lampshade, lured by the lightbulb. and i feel pulled to the darkness even as i'm stunned by the light."

what a strange day. it's like sunday. ein sonntag hoch zwei. i can't think, i doubt that i can even speak. my head is like wrapped in cotton although i had turned on the ice cold water this morning under the shower to get awake. the tree in front of the kitchen window has grown little, white buds, almost like a magnolia. i feel brittle and fragile, thin skin, bones of glass. usually i hate guitar solos. but there's this hendrix cover song on "nothing like the sun" and it's on repeat today and the guitar on it is awesome. although the best part is when the guitar solo ends and the sax solo starts in the middle of the song because both instruments are fading into each other, for a short moment they are playing the same note, the sax picks up the tone from the guitar and this second the two instruments are one and then the sax develops this heartbreaking melody that stumbles down so gracefully - and usually i hate sax solos as well. you know - i'm so glad that i haven't heard anybody mention your name for months now. i really am. "when i'm sad she comes to me with a thousand smiles she gives to me free..." no new messages on server.

in the twilight the pigeons are sitting on the roof of the houses across the street like dwarf-vultures, watching the avenue carefully. more and more cars are switching on the headlights. the tea is sweet with honey. i want to be with you. badly, baby.

you know what made me really sad? when i saw stephan (our former bass player) the other day in town. with his new girlfriend. watching annie hall now. i'm not quite sure why i'm watching movies about relationships with neurotic women that have long, brown hair. tandaradei!

[later]
it's 0:02, window's open. nadine has just called. "sometimes it's absurd" birds are singing. "i'm just holding back for you". not a good day. tried to come up with a couple of intelligent lines to accompany the ny cd but couldn't think of anything. thought for a split second to call you, but you're probably not home. what would i have said? i would have called you to say nothing. i would have called you for the feeling of falling. for the feeling of leaning against your shoulder and closing my eyes and feeling you breathe. a familiar new feeling. i'll be seeing you next week but i know that the feeling of tonight will have made way by then for something more reasonable, for something more polite and adult and civilized and distanced. you know, stars are good. stars are comforting and beautiful. but lightyears away. one tends to forget that. "light up this town!" you know, cedric is always saying a lot of clever things about the 200 lurkers songs that i had never realized before. today we were discussing the song selection for the ny cd and he said about "ohne dich": "...anyway, it's not quite clear from the lyrics whether the speaker is 'without you' forever or whether he is just temporarily separated from her..." which is of course perfectly right and i had never thought of this before and hurried to say "yes, yes" in a voice that was supposed to indicate that this ambivalence was of course intended. i think i like the idea of just being temporarily separated. and yes, maybe i had called you tonight and maybe i had stuttered some confused words, had started a strange conversation when actaually all i wanted was NOT talking to you. n.o...m.o.r.e...t.a.l.k.i.n.g..
[march 30, 2003 - stop before you start | be still my beating heart]
another sunday when everything works according to plan - NOT! hectic day. when i got up this morning my pc informed me that daylight saving time settings had stolen one hour of my night. then i had to drive/walk all the way across town to my parents' place to empty their mailbox (they're on holiday). when i came back i re-read the exposé because cedric had offered to check it and tell me his opinion before i will discuss it with thomas next week. then rehearsal at three but for some reason we couldn't reach daniel. i had sent him a mail the other day but no reaction and also only silence to my call and sms today. and he didn't show up. so i hope that everything is all right. reiner and i played another unplugged set which was okay. when i was on the way to the rehearsal room i was waiting at the underground station to change trains and suddenly j. (a close friend of my ex who was probably against me from the very start because she probably thought i was boring and too "heady" and negative... HA! negative??! ME??? heady??! ME????? get out of here!) stepped out of a train. blood turned into acid in an instant, burning every fiber of my body, legs shaking. maybe i should have pushed her in front of the train. but then i'm not blaine ;o) now it's half past five already and i haven't prepared a single thing for cologne tomorrow. which i will do now.
[march 31, 2003 - yes, all becomings are molecular...]
i'm in cologne. bright sun, beautiful day. working on the first draft of the table of contents. cedric advised me to make one to start thinking about the work structurally. here's what i've come up with so far:
Table of Contents:

1. INTRODUCTION

2. CONTEXTUALIZATION OF COHEN AS A LITERARY WRITER

a) historically (as an author of the 60s & 70s)
b) geographically (as a Canadian author)
3. "…WHEN THE WORD IS MADE FLESH" - THE FAVOURITE GAME
introduction to the novel's themes | reception | secondary literature on the novel
4. "…A VISION OF ALL CHANCES AT ONCE!" - BEAUTIFUL LOSERS
introduction to the novel's themes | reception | secondary literature on the novel
5. "…STOP MAKING SENSE" - TOWARDS A THEORY OF MINOR INTERPRETATION
why D&G | central motives | central terms | how to apply D&G for a discussion of literature 
6. "…NO NEED TO WORRY EVERYTHING'S UNDER CONTROL" - LC VS D&G
 how The Favourite Game cannot be read with D&G
7. "…DOWN IN THE BASEMENT WE HEAR THE SOUND OF MACHINES" - LC FEATURING D&G
 how Beautiful Losers can be read with D&G
8. CONCLUSION
[later]
it's 23:47. everybody's left. blaine had organized an "ellen night" tonight: he has been writing a paper on the sitcom "ellen" and how the coming out of the main character in the programme and the actress in real live had changed the narrative structure of the series and the perception of the audience. and since nobody here knew "ellen" or the coming out episode he showed it to us tonight. and it was hillarious! really funny. we had lots of junk food such as chips and cookies and crackers and chocolate and wine, beer and champagne. it was really great except that eva couldn't make it :o(

right now elvis costello's "spooky girlfriend" is on repeat and i'm really tired. when everybody left about an hour ago nicole stayed for a cigarette in the office and we talked a little about this and that. she's left as well now and i think i'll get out my pajama and field bed now and fall asleep to the humming of the computers.