squirm

Anubis

Eternal Guardian of Escalators

Karl Blechen's Mule

ah, the good old days

from jacques callot's series of prints depicting "the miseries and misfortunes of war" which i had the fortune to see last week at the hamburger kunsthalle.

Tower of Bookish Power

as noted earlier this year, each trip back across the ocean to the ole' homestead occasions a new foray into the cellar to rummage through my archived library. after a good chortle and gape, i take to fondly stroking their spines until eventually extracting a few volumes to bring back to berlin in the belly of an aircraft. lucky for me, my fellow passengers and the airline, the sturdy canvas bag i use for this procedure has but a limited capacity. even so, this time i was able to stuff it full of an impressive 40 kilos of wordy goodness - and a couple of dvd's came along for the ride. among the new arrivals:

barbara maria stafford - body criticism: imaging the unseen in enlightenment art & medicine
jennifer pearson squiers - peek, photographs from the kinsey institute
eberhard roters - berlin, 1910 - 1933
torsten neubauer - the weimar republic through the lens of the press
robert held - inquisition / inquisicion, a bilingual guide to the exhibition of torture instruments from the middle ages to the industrial era presented in various european cities
barbara miller lane - architecture and politics in germany 1918-1945
peter krietsch - pathologisch-anatomisches cabinet
h.m. pachter - weimar etudes
peter levenda - unholy alliance: a history of nazi involvement with the occult
maria tatar - lustmord: sexual murder in weimar germany
guido knopp - hitler's women
cees noteboom - all souls day
thomas powers - heisenberg's war: the secret history of the german bomb
steven heller - the swastika: symbol beyond redemption?
william s. burroughs - my education
william s. burroughs - electronic revolution / die elektronische revolution
william s. burroughs - the cat inside
william s. burroughs - naked lunch
david e. murphy - battleground berlin: cia vs. kgb in the cold war
norbert wiener - god and golem, inc.: a comment on certain points where cybernetics impinges on religion
f. gonzales crussi - suspended animation: six essays on the preservation of bodily parts
z.a.b. zeman - twilight of the hapsburgs
dave flitton - the occult history of the third reich
joseph roth - the wandering jews
denton welch - a voice through a cloud
denton welch - i left my grandfather's house
vincent michael colapietro - glossary of semiotics
jean baudrillard - simulations
werner herzog - of walking in ice
walter ruttman - berlin: symphony of a great city
paul leni - waxworks
brion gysin - the last museum

glitchcraft

 

finally made it to staalplaat working space in neukölln last night to see glitchmaster phillipe petit scratch it up with schneider tm and four more dronesters. i've been trying to get more out of staalplaat after hearing them perform years ago at an electronic festival in budapest. that evening's soundscape featured a dozen or so tiny speakers splicing together sounds from at least as many sources with the help of some sort of disturbed algorithmic intelligence. in the charged darkness of the hungarian club it seemed a soundtrack created to accompany the dying dreams of an errant astronaut. but the best laid plans of mice and men to get down to the old staalplaat space on torstrasse came to naught, so i was pleasantly surprised when they resurfaced in neukölln last year. last night's performance was a swelling river of bells, bicycles and digital artifacts drowning an electric violin and guitar in the humming detritus of glitch city. many dreams were hatched and then abandoned as the onlookers watched petit and his fellow pioneers attempt to claw through the chrome creased crust of their own excitatory neurons. the staalplaat store itself is filled to overflowing with inexplicable graphic novels, noise 'zines and extensive recordings on various media. i took the opportunity to snatch up their last copy of romain slocombe's 'japan in bondage', a collection of his paintings on the same subjects he so lovingly depicted in 'city of the broken dolls'. thus, at the end of the evening, i was able to pedal my way northward with not only the crumbling blips and fractured bleeps of the performers ricocheting through my skull, but also the fractured femme fatales clutched close beneath my coat. 

Schloss Ribbeck

 

the weekend found us pedaling across the havelland, weaving past sticky clouds of gnats to reach ribbeck, home of a recently renovated schloß, schoolhouse, church and petting zoo. 

Herr von Ribbeck auf Ribbeck im Havelland,
Ein Birnbaum in seinem Garten stand,
Und kam die goldene Herbsteszeit
Und die Birnen leuchteten weit und breit,
Da stopfte, wenn's Mittag vom Turme scholl,
Der von Ribbeck sich beide Taschen voll,
Und kam in Pantinen ein Junge daher,
So rief er: "Junge, wiste 'ne Beer?"
Und kam ein Mädel, so rief er: "Lütt Dirn,
Kumm man röwer, ick hebb 'ne Birn."

So ging es viel Jahre, bis lobesam
Der von Ribbeck auf Ribbeck zu sterben kam.
Er fühlte sein Ende. 's war Herbsteszeit,
Wieder lachten die Birnen weit und breit;
Da sagte von Ribbeck: "Ich scheide nun ab.
Legt mir eine Birne mit ins Grab."
Und drei Tage drauf, aus dem Doppeldachhaus,
Trugen von Ribbeck sie hinaus,
Alle Bauern und Büdner mit Feiergesicht
Sangen "Jesus meine Zuversicht",
Und die Kinder klagten, das Herze schwer:
"He is dod nu. Wer giwt uns nu 'ne Beer?"

So klagten die Kinder. Das war nicht recht -
Ach, sie kannten den alten Ribbeck schlecht;
Der neue freilich, der knausert und spart,
Hält Park und Birnbaum strenge verwahrt.
Aber der alte, vorahnend schon
Und voll Mißtraun gegen den eigenen Sohn,
Der wußte genau, was damals er tat,
Als um eine Birn' ins Grab er bat,
Und im dritten Jahr aus dem stillen Haus
Ein Birnbaumsprößling sproßt heraus.

Und die Jahre gingen wohl auf und ab,
Längst wölbt sich ein Birnbaum über dem Grab,
Und in der goldenen Herbsteszeit
Leuchtet's wieder weit und breit.
Und kommt ein Jung' übern Kirchhof her,
So flüstert's im Baume: "Wiste 'ne Beer?"
Und kommt ein Mädel, so flüstert's: "Lütt Dirn,
Kumm man röwer, ick gew' di 'ne Birn."

So spendet Segen noch immer die Hand
Des von Ribbeck auf Ribbeck im Havelland.

- Fontane 

jouissance

a lazy morning spent lounging in bed,  reading short texts on artistic rivalries in renaissance venice and the mind boggling body counts of 20th century europe's dueling dictatorships. this last inspired me to crack open alan clark's narration of the greatest land war in history, barbarossa, the russian-german conflict 1941-45, and begin my long march across pages thick with political prophesying, military maneuvering, and human suffering. after the opening vollies and firsts offensives, i consolidated my position and, sliding a bookmark between the pages, hunkered down with powers of horror, julia kristeva's examination of the abject. while her essay is an almost impenetrable bog of psychoanalytic terminology, theoretical weavings and wry observation, my strenuous efforts at sifting through the muck are occasionally rewarded with precious nuggets:

"the writer is a phobic who succeeds in metaphorizing in order to keep from being frightened to death; instead he comes to life again in signs."

and further on,

"voyeurism accompanies the writing of abjection. when the writing stops, voyeurism becomes a perversion"

well we can only hope so, julia, we can only hope so...

the three instinctual drives

eros, thanatos and tasty biscuits

too much junkie business

last night the bundestag voted to reclassify diamorphine as a medicine and legalize its use as a maintenance treatment, replacing that nasty ole methadone. to qualify, users must be over 23, been on the nod for at least five years, and failed treatment twice - that shouldn't be too difficult!

also, last week i happened across the fixpunkt automat on the corner of bernauer strasse and gesundbrunnen. get everything you need for a good time for only €1.50! well, not exactly. that only covers the rubbers and works. you'll still have to figure out how to pay for the sex and the dope. hmm, if only one could be used to pay for the other...hey, wait a gosh darn minute... what if... eureka!

writing is the opposite of work

i wish it felt that way, George!