phew.

my yearning today is at least as great as when i was fifteen. it takes no effort at all, but my head is wobbly and i cannot make decisions or work properly. i am accompanied by that song ‘desireless’ by eagle-eye cherry that i once categorised as the sexiest song ever. i’m not so sure about that now, but it’s an awesome song.
i want to laugh about it all.
deliverance. now. yes. please
progress.

Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
George Santayana (1863 – 1952, Madrid) Life of Reason, Reason in Common Sense (1905)
image: alexander cozens
grace.
Woke up to a milky white Bucharest bloc view. My headache was gone. Reason for rejoicing. This means I will actually get some work done today. Slightly comatose because of the splitting migraine, I watched a film last night. It did keep my interest and I must recommend it. The Soloist. I went into it not knowing the first thing about it, and was pleased that it appeared to be about Beethoven, whose work I adore. However, it was much more than that. A brilliant tale about contemporary America: an allegory of intervention and containment on one level, a moving story of friendship on the other. It was based on a book and so appears to be a ‘true story’ even though, as you probably know if you read this weblog, all stories are true somehow, if only to themselves (and to me, hehe). The man who wrote it and who is the narrator of the film, is Steve Lopez, a journalist at the Los Angeles Times who is chasing stories dispassionately. His idea of consent is rather limited and he is a self-righteous self-labelled do-gooder, although as the spectator you find him rather mediocre and very un-godlike. He is the typical journalist out for a thrill, turning off when he senses that in journalistic terms the story doesn’t flow. So when he gets interested in this person Nathaniel Ayers at first, he is in the same mode. He just wants a story, and he rings up Julliard School to see whether Nathaniel is deluded or not, and whether he had been telling the truth to him in order to judge this man. But then, of course, amid some truly spectacular visions of music, grace and madness and ranting and flags in curious contexts, amid how people live next to each other without ever engaging, things get more complicated. The cinematography is stunning, and I think I’d have to watch it again to make sense of all of Nathaniel’s rants and visionary talk and of all the subtleties of the script. So if you just watch one film this week, make it this one. And surrender.
knowledge.
Philippe Descola 2005. On anthropological knowledge.
it is quite early and i woke up much before the dawn, quite unable to get back to sleep. i like the quiet of the night and the way in which it makes my heart beat less wildly.
traveltime, timetravel.

so much to tell about the last three weeks, but most of all this:
Ich brach in solcher Eile auf, dass ich nicht richtig Abschied nehmen konnte und dass das Gefuhl mich auf der Heimreise begleitete, ich haette mich nur unzureichend bedankt.
we reveled in the colours of the dunes and the warmth of the air. we met many people that were kind and taught us various things. such as the viscosity of pap, the microscopic brain of chickens, the perfection of zebra stripes, the unexpected elephant in the area, plants and woods of the bush to live and eat, the way a baobab does not bend its twigs, the sweet heaviness of papaya, the memories of childhood.
how can so much beauty and sadness coexist?
namibia. back in three weeks.
i’ll be off the grid for the next three weeks.
yay.
this is what the forecast is. bring it on.
Let’s say you’re listening to your favorite band on a stereo system. There is a place between the two speakers where you will hear the two streams of music blend perfectly, exactly as the sound engineer intended. This place is called the sweet spot. If you play tennis or baseball, you know about another version of the term “sweet spot.” It’s the area on the racquet or the bat where you get best results when striking the ball. According to my astrological analysis, Taurus, this will be your ruling metaphor for the next three weeks. You have arrived at your very own sweet spot — the embodiment of all that is melodious, graceful, delicious, aromatic, and effective.
rob breszny says…
Talk to yourself more and better. Not just with streams of chatter that meander aimlessly. Not with darts of self-deprecation mixed in with grandiose fantasies. No, Taurus. When I urge you to talk to yourself more and better, I mean that you should address your self with focused tenderness. I mean that you should be driven by the bold intention to lift up your mood, praise your skills, shower blessings on your vulnerabilities, and love yourself down to the core. You will attract cosmic assistance if you do this playful work. You will bathe your subconscious intelligence with healing luminosity.
i like his horoscopes
age and surprise.

question for you dear reader…
do you think that as our lives move along and we get older that there is less reason for surprise? for instance, do you find yourself less inclined to say ‘wow, never seen this thing before’ or ‘wow i’ve really learnt something from this’ or something along those lines anyway?
what keeps you interested in being surprised? if not, why not? what would you do if you found yourself not surprised enough at the world and the things and relationships in it?
i’m spending sunday in the office. trying to get my new and much improved draft done before i leave to namibia in a week and two days. definitely feeling the pressure.
[photo: hms surprise]
little did they know.
in my vanity, i had a look at my blog stats, and discovered that these are the ’search engine terms of all time’ that led to my blog.
here you go – it summarises my interests precisely… muhahaha… ‘tribal alphabet’ in particular, and diamonds… ;o)
paul klee 1,323 gloria swanson 862 edward steichen 574 diamonds 404 tiananmen square 364 calvin 308 pablo neruda 235 howl’s moving castle 215 feminism 204 goldilocks 160 tiananmen 121 steichen 100 blaue blume 71 sinaia 66 iceland 63 howls moving castle 57 edward steichen gloria swanson 54 sign language 49 paul klee red balloon 48 paulklee 42 steichen gloria swanson 35 zu arel op der knippchen 33 gloria swanson steichen 32 robin evans 26 eduard steichen 26 german sign language 26 hermes 26 neruda 25 tiananmen square photo 25 borges happiness 24 judith park 23 gloria swanson edward steichen 22 paul klee the red balloon 22 steichen swanson 20 katilifox 20 hope sandoval 18 georges perec 17 klee red balloon 16 benares 16 sea gypsies 15 raymond queneau 14 \”gloria swanson\” 14 tribal alphabet 14 casa 11 mujeres 13 alphabet sign language 13 howl moving castle 12 \”paul klee\” 12 gloria swanson by edward steichen 12 english sign language alphabet 11 happiness borges 11
