A bite of darkness
The darkness that encircles us in wintertime is of its most opaque sort. In my childhood I had the chance to witness a few times an ancient ritual. Walking with my family through the creaking snow up a hill, hunting the dancing spark cast by a flashlight. I remember the flashlight, it was of the old sort, with a yellow bulb and you could see the skewed refractions in the projection. It was heavy, filled with large rusty battery cells, and a three way switch, the middle setting of which would allow for a Morse button to come into action. Its solid tin casing felt grossly big in my tiny hands. When we finally reached the top of the hill, darkness made way to red gloom shining up far into the black sky, emerging to be huge bonfire surrounded by the young men of the township celebrating the “Schiebeschlage” tradition. This tradition mostly seen in Germany’s Black Forest and adjacent territorries is an ancient ritual, dating back at least 1000 years. The jestful crowd roasts little wooden plates stuck on poles in the huge bonfire, and take turns hitting them head on over a tilted board to fly off into the valley, emanating a sparkful glow. While the “Schiebe” (German dialect for “disc”) flew its way in an arc, they would chant blessings like: “Schieb Schieb über de Rieh, de Schiebe soll dem alte Auguscht sie.” (Disc, disc over the hedge, the disc shall be dedicated to old August). The blessing would be dedicated to farmers of the township, especially those heading a large family. The longer the disc would fly, the bigger the likelyhood of the blessing’s good fortune to come true. However, with this the whole spectacle was far from over. Towards the end, when all discs had been shot, the now giggeling crowd turned to travel down the valley, abandoning the bonfire. So to make it more fun, they had prepared a large old tractor tyre, stuffed it with straw and bathed in gasoline, standing upright in a wooden clamp facing downhill. Then the tyre was lit and started to roll all the way down into the valley, the crowd tumbling after.
What a spectacle!
By the time it had passed, I noticed that my gloves had become slightly roasted because of the intense heat of the huge fire. The darkness surrounding the scene must have gotten roasted, too, because it felt more friendly, almost appetizingly welcoming on the way back downhill.
The Horse
I take you with me
wherever I go
Over asphalt or meadows
You give me all I need
I love you
so much
as only a Horse can do
When my time has come
it will be quick
a bolt of steel
and my meat is yours
I will become part of you
so much
as only a Horse can do
Choses formidables
the colour of the sky just before sunrise / the smell of the first raindrops on hot asphalt / climbing out of a tent heated up by morning sun into the fresh air / falling asleep on a train / going 80 kph on a bycicle or on ski / the lift-off of an airplane / the smell of electronic gear just after unpacking / riding the subway, especially when it’s fast, noisy, smells like machine oil and shakes like hell / the aestheticism of victorian and haute goth fashion / the fabulous affection and curiosity cats have / the aromatic scent of a forest, especially pines, resin, mushrooms, moss and lichens / going shopping in a huge supermarket while being hungry / a beer after a long hot day outside / the new born feeling after coming out of the sauna / the amazing silence and clear air and water up in the mountains / the slightly itchy feeling of a wound healing / running around like crazy on the tennis court chucking balls into nowhere / very long and gentle kisses / the hot, sandy and slightly yellowish flair of arid places / the naïve beauty of exuberant tropic rainforests and their inhabitants / the blinking of snow cristals / loosing oneself in a good book / the tastes and smells of viennese food: for example “käsekrainer mit fü senf und 3 schoaffn pfefferoni und an ottakringer” or “kümmlbratn mit knödl und kraut und an literliter”.
(list incomplete. feel free to contribute)
Reality
The story in the last post shall be continued soon. I need to find a good moment to get back into it. Meanwhile I think it’s ok to write some other stuff. Minsk is calling for another trip to take place soon; part two of the story hence will find ample inspiration.
Summer has arrived and the rain tries hard to continue falling, but failing more frequently in accomplishing its mission to reach the ground, turning into vapor by the scorching heat of the sunrays fingering through the fading cover of clouds.
Life has taken strange turns. While the world is rattled by civil war and personal tragedy amongst friends (broken hearts, death in an airplane crash, more death by cancer), ironically I find myself experiencing a lucky time. Sometimes it feels like an act of balance, walking on the narrow path of light while the world around is literaly falling apart.
The clouds are thin these days, and even the cold glare of the stars seems comfortable and bright, melting the ice cover that has hardened for a few decades.
Minsk – an agent’s story
Little is known of the city of Minsk or the country surrounding it. Only few went there, and even fewer returned. This is the story of Lt. Henry Salton who disappeared after being sent to Minsk for operation “double-fish-crossed”. He worked as a secret agent in the name of her Majesty the Queen of Britain. Britain is no longer an island, technically, because it has been connected by the tunnel underneath the channel separating the isle from the main European continent. This was Salton’s specialty. He was a technical specialist on underground structures and in his military training he had also undergone the programme of the special art of underground warfare, navigating huge digging machines and swallowing whole buildings into the ground.
In a fancy wooden London office somewhere near the houses of parliament, Major Cheekbane impatiently tapped his fingers on the heavy desk made from teak. Salton was late. He was still a young officer but would he ever learn discipline? Forgivingly he shrugged and smiled at himself: I am going to send the boy on a dangerous mission. He will have ample chances to prove himself. He leaned back in his large office chair and stroke his large belly. Many trips to London bars and pubs had begun to show effect, ever more so after the lifting of the 11 o clock curfew.
While wandering the mazeful corridors of the parliament building, Salton wondered what kind of assignment Cheekbane had spun up this time. “It will probably be the same stupid bug hunt as always.” He was not looking forward to Cheekbane’s lengthy sermons. For a military officer he had surprisingly big difficulties to express himself in any efficient manner. Salton was not in a hurry for that kind of thing, but at last he had reached the heavy doors of the Cheekbane’s office.
The meeting was surprisingly brief. Cheekbane merely had handed him a large envelope with the lable: “минск” and told him to treat the assignent with greatest discretion. Then Cheekbane had told him “Thanks in Advance!” and “Dismissed.” Salton felt angry but as a good officer he could sense that there was no room for discussion. He saluted in German style with a sharp “Jawohl!” (due to the bill of unified languages it was legal to use any language of preference in official contexts).
The soldier training programme Salton had followed was one of the best in Europe. Besides some physical exercise which mainly involved riding the bicycle to and from military academy, the courses consisted largely of cultural content, like music, culinary knowledge, foreign languages and some bit of history. The university campus consisted of a triangular shaped patch of lawn. Most of the classes were held outside while having opulent picnicks. The soldier cadets would sit orderly on the blankets provided by the squad leader and eat and drink and chat at the same time in order to practice their abilities to focus on multiple tasks simultaneously.
In the course of this education, Salton had acquired many intercultural skills. Combining those to a whole pattern made him a dangerous fighting expert, especially when operating underground vehicles such as humongous digging machines. While captured deep below in the cockpit of the vibrating giant, the many different thoughts would create a sufficient amount of positive distraction, preventing him from making errors. Occasionally he also listened to Sibelius and other works of great composers.
[to be continued]
The Kelle Film Academy
Kelle Film Academy
Recently I happened onto the Kelle Film Academy’s website. This is a film school based in Berlin, with programmes for movie direction, camera and cutting, as well as director assistance for digital cinematography.
Besides the funny coincidence of having the same name, I enjoy to see such developments because I strongly support the fine arts of film making. What may seem straightforward from an outsider perspective in reality is far from trivial: Film is a medium that combines various forms of art into something very rich and complex, hence the possibilities to do it wrong multiply. Those who want to get serious about film making should first learn it from the experts, and of course it is also a matter of seizing the right opportunities: Instead of wasting time and money with tedious and volatile enrollment procedures necessary for getting into longer established film schools, the Kelle Film Academy might be a smart alternative. And Berlin is not a bad place either.
Tencompetence Winterschool 2009
I am back from Innsbruck, a medium-large town huddled in a very deep valley in the Austrian alps. Wolf did a great video production of the whole thing. Take a look (and if bandwidth permits don’t forget to click “view in high quality”.
Here is also a more detailed report of the event, including subject related gibberish 
. Check it out!
Found poetry
[a spam email]
This beauty
left just her hat on.
couldn’t
he’s tattooed
I’m deductions
implicit heirs
speckled sliding native
Passage Interdit
So, I was back in Briançon to visit my parents at their cottage somewhere in some rather detatched side valley. Snow was falling when I drove up to their barn. The snowflakes sizzled as they touched the bonnet of my car, otherwise there was complete silence. There were footprints of a non-defined number of cats, slowly becoming obscured by the growing new layer of snow. It was already after dark, and the shadows cast by the porch light where of such opaque blackness that the footprints looked almost artificial. Other than the snow screaking under my footsoles there was no sound now, the snowflakes falling silently.
Inside there was warmth from the fireplace and mellow merriness. After exchanging the latest tales of life and a simple but tasty dinner including some home-made bread, smoked meat and a bit of wine, it was time to go to bed. The bedroom was almost looking as I had left it to venture abroad, making the leap to adulthood. Still the same wall posters and the same arrangement of furniture. Other than the bright living room, this room was dry and cold, full of the smell of old wood planks that had been exposed to a fair deal of humidity, more than through the time of being part of the house bearing also the heritage of being trees swaying in the cold forests of the mountains of the Rhône-Alps.
I was sleepless. Memories of my childhood crushing in on me, unanswered questions shooting through my head. My parents had long gone to sleep, so I went downstairs, grabbing a pair of boots in the hallway, passing through the dimly lit living-room which was illuminated but by the dying glood of the fireplace. I took a coat and went outside.
It had stopped snowing and the clouds had disappeared. The moon was shining brightly, painting the scenery into a crisp black-and-white image. The snow crystals blinked as I moved along for good. I watched the Moon, it was full and appeared very large, larger than usual. In that moment an obsessive thought occured to me. I wanted to go to the Moon.
Meanwhile, as history had progressed and earth had seen a lot of more wars and crises, unbeknowest of many politicians, an economy had come to spin up on Moon. Some time around the thirties they had found some minerals there that swiftly established an infrastructure of Moon-travel. Therefore, many ports across Europe had taken up Moon service. It was still the most expensive trip to do, even on cheap cargo-aircrafts, but I had been able to put some money aside.
The next days I discussed it with my parents, and their reaction was surprisingly positive: “Take your camera with you, will you, boy?”. So, without a fuzz I arranged to go to Grenoble, the nearest Moonport, and the rest of the week I spent many hours with my father and his telescope, eyeing the new civilisations nestled at rims of craters.
When I entered Grenoble Moonport, the first impression was the mess of everything and everybody being very busy. The sign Passage Interdit aux Infirmes posted all over the place did not catch a lot of my attention, but it was clear there was some brawl going on about it, as it was a newly introduced safety regulation. I went to the counter to book a flight, readying my credit card and passport. I had some good contacts on Moon to whom I had already announced my visit, and they were happy to also arrange a couple of job interviews for positions that never would have been possible on Earth. So I was invigorated with a strong spirit of starting something completely new.
The good-looking woman at the counter smiled at me in professional style and she asked me for my medical record. I pointed at the credit card which was supposed to have all relevant information on its chip, but she waved her head in excuse and pointed me to a different counter, where there was just a brawl going on. I advanced and was kindly asked forward by the likewisely good-looking counter employee in charge. She asked me to join into a compartment where she took a genetic fingerprint from me. After a few minutes of waiting she reappeared with a frown and said: “Nous sommes très desolés mais la passage a eu determiné interdite pour vous, Monsieur. Votre condition permet pas de passage pour la lune.” Instantly I got up and excused myself to the lady being up for extensively explaining further. I was not ready for futile discussions and instead submitted to the verdict of authority.
Back at my parents’ cottage, again I was out in the snow at night, taking a breath of fresh air, watching the crisp silhouette of shades cast by the moonlight. An idea struck me again. I took off my glasses and the Moon and the snow suddenly became one.
The ride to the center
Recently, I have been doing some more driving than I used to. Fortune has had it that I got into the possession of a car. A modified VW Polo, fitted with a few modifications (twin turbo charger, super-flat tyres and a gun in the front). So anyway. A few days ago I was invited to participate in a seminar near Utrecht, a town in Holland that is right in the geographic centre of the country.
I was warned NOT to take the car, due to impossible traffic situation that have to do with the Netherlands being the most densely populated country in Europe. After an extensive amount of very strong morning coffee I finally got moving. It was around 6 o clock so I was bound to encounter the pure joy of rush-hour traffic.
But fortunately my car was equipped with James-Bond-style gadgets, so my enthusiastic smile stayed on, speeding along the emergency lane. The gun was also very useful to motivate the yellow-license-plated snails in front of me.
I can’t remember much of the rest of the trip but a faint sense of being out in the woods made me aware of approaching the goalpoint (I had been only looking at the satnav screen all of the time).
I did it. I was in the center of the Netherlands. A place some miles away from Utrecht city. There is not much but woods and a large car park. It was quite cold and snow stuck beneath. But It did not scare me. I had a large amount of whiskey and German “Mettwurst” with me, so I endured, cutting a loaf of bread and making Mettwurstbreads, devouring them soonafter.
When I got tired of Mettwurst, I decided to go back home. I was also beginning to feel a bit cold, after 3 days of living in the car with wintery conditions outside. So I stretched my bones and made the decision. It was time to leave.
I drove up to the exit but there was a closed gate. It wouldnt open so I had to call the operater using the communication device attached to it. I shouted something in dutch at him, and finally the gate opened. I sped away, with the cheeky feeling to have saved the parking money. I honked and fired the front gun in joyful satiscation.
