poetry in moving pictures

today i went to the cinema, for the first time again after about three weeks of abstinence. i couldn't really decide what to see, the choices were between "once", "the darjeeling limited" och "my blueberry nights". i ended up with "my blueberry nights", basically because it was the saloon with the most free seats (the less people in the room, the less they disturb, or so i thought..) and because i wanted to see it at some time anyway. it is wong kar-wai's first american movie, and it is also nora jones' debut on the screen, which, as numerous critics already have mentioned, is obvious. still i wouldn't take either of those facts as something negative, as the location gives a new touch to wong kar-wai's fascinating pictures, and as nora jones plays her role as naive as i think it was meant to be played.

the story that is told is rather simple, a girl with a broken heart and a lonely guy who owns a café in new york meet. he steals a kiss from her while she is sleeping on the counter, and the next day she is gone, on a trip through the states, sending postcards to him. on her way "over the street" (as she puts it), she meets different people, we see beautiful landscapes, and in the end we end up where we left: the café in new york. a road movie, as poetic as for examples the ones by wim wenders ("paris, texas",...) but poetic in a different way, maybe in a hong-kong-sort of way.

apart from the landscapes and city-subway-scapes (that are so typical for wong kar-wai) there were two scenes, or pictures, that impressed me a lot. they belong, in a way, together. the first one is a close-up on nora jones' face just before the first kiss (after which she leaves town). the second one takes up this picture again in the end and fulfills it.

then, there was this stunningly beautiful soundtrack as well. of course it was partly nora jones, but the song that stayed with me now for the evening was cat powers "the greatest". poetic, interesting, melodic, the perfect soundtrack for a dream.

uneasy listening

i just recieved one of those very unfrequent newsletters of a band which i at some point in my life some years ago found interesting, called t i m e s b o l d. they kind of almost got forgotten by me, apart from one song, which i love tremendously, "bone song". i kind of never took the time to learn liking their other stuff as well, and i still cannot decide whether to buy one of their cds or not. i guess that was becouse they didn't seem to have some kind of a red line in their music, it's not easy to open up to it, and it's definitely what they themselves call uneasy listening. it makes you uneasy in your skin, in your room, it's mysterious in a western-desert kind of style, which is probably why i like it anyway.
a broken voice, a dark bass, a swelling melody,...

The Puppini Sisters

do you like the 40s and 50s?
well, i do (and the 60s and 70s..), and i also like feel-good music.
thanks to my friend rana, i found out about this absolutely ravishing girl-band called The Puppini Sisters, who combine this cool 40s-50s-diva-feeling with superb music and style. Three girls singing and fingersnipping, performing old and well-known songs (such as Dusty Springfields "Spooky" or the all-time-classic "Bei mir bist du schön"), giving them a new, jazzy, feel-good sound. And as if this wasn't enough, their homepage even features beauty-tips (for that 40s-style), recipes and other nice stuff.. To complete the whole thing, they got to wear Vivienne Westwood in their video "Jilted"!! Take a look, it's fun and gorgeous!!

Bertine

the soundtrack to my first visit to Oslo in 2003 featured, above all, a norwegian singer who is just beautiful. her name is bertine zetlitz and her voice is light and airy, like a young girl's voice, and so stunningly melodic. her then new album "sweet injections" went into my possession after i had heard only one or two of its songs, and i never regretted buying it. it's fantastic.

now i finally managed to obtain her next two cds, "rollerskating" and "my italian greyhound", and i am not at all disappointed. the lyrics are mystical, playfull, perfectly fitting her personality and her voice. the music is just as playfull, it is danceable, electronic, fun, intense - well, just perfect.
go listen to her on myspace, my recommendation is "abigail" and "girl like you".

Solche Geschenke

after a long day of studying and searching for a new room, i usually read a little bit in some book or novel, to relax before sleeping. in december, i met this nice young german writer, franziska gerstenberg, at a reading. she was then just about to end a scholarship she had in lüneburg. we had a really interesting conversation and even went to the cinema together, with the result that i bought her first book, "Wie viel Vögel", and read it within a week or two. for christmas, i got her other book "Solche Geschenke", out of which i am reading some pages every evening now.

those books are short stories, erzählungen (in german). franziska writes about normal people and their lives. sometimes we follow them for a few hours through their lives, sometimes a few days or months, never more. it's never dramatic in a sense of big things happening, but the small things that happen sometimes have a huge impact. for example, there is this girl who doesn't really have anything to do, she just wants to get out of her apartment, take the tram to the station, buy a magazine and maybe a t-shirt and get back home. instead, she finds herself helping an elderly and confused lady with her hamsters that went lose in the tram. or there is this middle-aged man who has been travelling around for two years in his camping bus, all on his own. just one day, he has a teenage girl next to him, asking "we are going to spain, aren't we?", and so they go, even though he never really wanted to take her along, as she obviously is running away from home. and suddenly, there is something like friendship.

i like those stories. they are warm and sometimes a bit funny, but never ever is anyone made ridiculous. never. which is what i like even more. and they are easy to read. calming, in a sense.
and they make me want to translate them to swedish. i really want to try.

the bear

for a long time, i wasn't into videogames (or computergames) at all. now, with my boyfriend a. working in the computergames industry, things started to change, but even though i play guild wars online with him, and sometimes civilization or pirates, i still haven't made my way into videogames - i'm still watching a. play. it's almost like watching a movie, the difference being that the main character actually hears what you are saying and responds on it - or not.

the last game a. played and i watched was a pretty weird one, it is called "psychonauts" and takes place in a kids-summer-camp, where they learn how to fight their way into and through other people's brains. of course the main character (called raz) finds out about some kind of conspiracy when he realizes that one of his camp-mates doesn't have a brain and he encounters some nightmare about that when visiting his own mind. we didn't get any further than that until now, but it's a lot of fun and i guess the people who made the game had a lot of fun when they made it.

in the game, there is also one russian kid, mikhail, standing close to the woods. the dialogue with him is the one that stuck with me until now: "Have you seen bear lurking in woods, with skin where hair should be? In Russia bears are smaller, and more fur, less lurking... always eager to wrestle." a bit later, he adds: "Cannot lurk forever, bear." i read in some other blog about this little scene, a journalist-student stating that writing was her own private bear that she had and was eager to wrestle, and got to think that this bear is a good picture for different challenges in life. my own private bear right now is rather like the russian bears the kid is missing. it's not lurking at all but coming with bigger and bigger steps towards me, and i have to admit, i start to get frightened. in exactly two weeks i'll have the first of three final oral exams, and even though this is the smallest one and even though i usually don't have a problem with oral exams, i feel out of practice and would prefer to be able to push it back. it's just that i can't. i have to get through with the wrestling, and all i can do is prepare myself.

back to studying. hard.

happy new year

it's a new year and time to start blogging again.
last time, i wrote about christmas and what we usually do then - well, this year everything was different, not only because my brother florian and his girlfriend linda would be there (though only later in the evening), but also because a. came down to germany to be with me for christmas. the reason is a longer story which i won't tell here, but it was a great time, and my family was really happy to have him with us.

some days later we went off to oslo, and stayed here for new years eve, which we celebrated quietly with some nice nice food, videogame-playing, some reading and alcohol-free cider. at around half past eleven, we met with my colleague dagmar and her partner thorsten at the vigeland park (a huge park with a lot of weird sculptures) where we watched the fireworks. norwegian people are really strange, they start fireworking at around half past eleven and don't stop until one in the morning. anyway, it was not too cold and not too warm, the only thing missing was some snow, and we had a good time there.

as for food, my friend vroni introduced me to "dates with bacon", which tastes delicious. and it's so simple: you just take as many dates as you would like to eat, wrap them in pieces of bacon, and put them in an heated oven (180 degrees) for about ten minutes until the bacon is nice and crispy. the sweet dates with salt bacon are really gorgeous. *recommendation!!*

my christmas day

i just read another blog where the writer called everybody to write about how their christmas looks like, how they spend their christmas day or days. so that's what i'll try to do here:

on the morning of the 24th of december, my father usually puts up the christmas tree in the livingroom, which confuses our cat tremendously, each year again. my mother fetches all the christmastree-decorations from the cellar, and even the lights. then my younger brother Till puts up the lights and i decorate the tree.
we don't have any special lunch that day, as everybody is still really busy preparing the last presents or whatever we have to do. around two or three in the afternoon, i usually go and visit soem friends of mine, tine and jochen, in the neighbour-village. depending on the weather i either walk there, bike or take the train. this has been a tradition for at least 7 years now, i think, and it's really nice. we sit with their family and drink tea and talk and eat biscuits.

until last year, i always left them at around halv past four at the latest to go to church and attend the service there at 5pm. this year, we will - for the first time in my entire life - visit the service at 10pm instead, but i'll still have to leave tine and jochen around halv past four to be home for dinner.
dinner on christmas eve is usually something that doesn't take long o prepare, we have had raclette, but also cheese fondue or sauseges with potatoesallad, depending on what ideas my mother had. before or after dinner we go and get the presents and put them under the tree (the time depends on whatever we think is suitable..), and my father takes out some old or newer record to play - he even has som sort of really old thing to play special sorts of records with, but i don't even know what it's called in german..
anyway, we eat and spend the evening in the living room, with a fire in the well, closed fireside=)
at some time around eight we start handing out presents, which happens usually in the way that my brothers and me go and search for presents and hand them over to the person who is supposed to get it. then it's the huge unpacking session and everybody is watching, which is really really nice, and then, if there are things to be used in one or another way (such as games, cds, dvds etc.) they have - of course - to be tried out. also, my parents take out books with christmas-stories and read one or two of them.

on christmas day then it's a big dinner at noon with my grandmother and her companion, and coffee in the afternoon and a walk through the village (if the weather is nice)...

i guess i have forgotten and mixed up a whole lot of things, but they are changing each year anyway, so it won't matter...

moving

next year in march, i'll have lived in the 4th apartment within nine months - i never moved that often in such a short period of time. why that?

well, the guy who i share my apartment with right now (or better, he shares the apartment with me) is supposed to move out in the end of march, as the owner of the house wants to renovate the attic which is directly above the apartment. nothing wrong with that, but.
the thing is, he already knew about this when i moved in, but didn't tell me then. quote: "well, i couldn't tell you then because you wouldn't have moved in if you had known".
and the best thing is, if i hadn't heard from somebody else living in this house about that we might have to move out some time sooner or later, he wouldn't even have told me now - as a matter of fact, he only told me after i asked him if what i had heard was true.

(oh, and did i write that i got exams in january and a paper to write in february and that i actually don't have time at all for moving and packing??)

damn.

christmas gifts

this year, i really tried hard to have all christmas presents ready before december.. of course, i didn't manage, but at least i knew what to give away. as i still haven't bought everything (just, almost..) i really have to get started, and i also need to get finished those presents that i make on my own - liqueur.

in the end of october, i got the thought that it would be a lot of fun to try out some of these fruity alcoholic stuff, and when i thought a bit more about it, i decided to make not only a little bit, but so much that it would be enough to last for christmas presents.
so i obtained a lot of fruit (rosehips, quinces and plums), huge glasses, a considerable amount of strong liquor, some raw sugar and some spices as well (such as cinnamon-pieces). i cut down the fruit into smaller pieces (well, not the rosehips, those i just cut of the ends) and stuffed the pieces with sugar and spices into the glasses - two with quinces, two with rosehips and two with plums. then i filled the glasses up with different sorts of booze (vodka for the plums, korn for the quinces and brandy for the rosehips) and put them under my desk.

they were standing there until today, but now will be the time for truth - did everything go well?? (of course i've already tried all of them earlier..)
anyway, today i'll take out the fruit and spices and fill the liqueur into nice bottles to take to my grandmother and my parents. i really hope they'll like it..

kino kino

it's december, outside it's not even white, just grey and rainy, perfect cinema-time.last week i went to see two totally different movies in lüneburgs most charming cinema, the scala.

on thursday, together with a new acquaintance i went to see ulrich seidl's "import/export", a disturbing and hopeless picture about two young people looking for a way out of their miserable place in life. olga, a young mother from ukraine working as a nurse doesn't earn enough to live on, so she tries to make some extra money with online sex-services. it doesn't work out really, as she cannot understand anything of what the austrian callers expect her to do in front of the running camera. then, she recieves a letter, offering her to start a new life in austria - where she ends up as a cleaning woman in a hospital for elderly people, struggling with her impulse to take care of the patients, suffering both verbal and even physical attacs from a jealous and racist nurse.

the other part od the story follows a young austrian called pauli, who loses his job as security guard after a humiliating attac by a gang with immigrant background. he ows a lot of money to different people, including his stepfather, and after some weeks being unemployed, pauli has to follow his stepfather to ukraina, where they are supposed to put up chewinggum-machines and one-armed- bandits. he feels a deep digust for his stepfather who uses the time they got free to teach pauli the easiest way to find girls to fuck and who constantly displays the power he got over other people. in the end, pauli decides in the middle of deepwinter-ukraina to leave this life behind himself and start all over in that country totally strange to him.

Far away

i really miss a. a lot.
a few minutes ago, he sent a link with this comic here:









and it's just so true.
(i don't know who did the comic, but here is the link.)

Ach, Glück - Monica Maron

tonight i went to a reading with the german author monica maron, who read out of her newest novel "Ach, Glück". it was part of a reading-series called LiteraturNord, the third part to be exact, and of all three readings up to now it was the most solid one, but also the most proper and, i have to admit, the most boring.

the book itself was easy and nice to read (if you don't know what to give your mom for a christmas-present and she likes to read - take this one!) , had some depths in it and just the right amount of comic moments, and it gave me something to think about. questions i consider important popped up in my mind while i read, about what it is that i want to do with my life, how i want to spend the time i have here and if i'm really living my own life - or somebody elses? what is it that makes my life worth living, and what to need to do to spice it up more? where am i stuck in old, quaving traditions and conventions and how did i end up there?

unfortunately, the author wasn't at all interested in answering questions afterwards, but didn't just say so. she showed that she was bored by the questions, but still tried to answer them, as part of the necessary process of the LiteraturNord, which is not only a series of readings but also a tournament where a jury and the audience give a price to the "best" of six authors. the atmosphere changed all the time between really stiff and kind of humorous (mostly when the author once again blocked a question by "well, i really can't answer this, it's just part of the writing process" or "of course she returns to the dog, i wrote that"), which felt kind of funny. i guess i mostly felt sorry for herr kramer who did his best trying to moderate the non-existing discussion..

i hereby declare it to be unisex!

last friday, on my trip to oslo, i couldn't get myself not to walk through the tax-free at bremen's airport and check out their perfumes. actually, i had been looking for some new fragrance for quite some time now. i am still really content with my "eau par kenzo", which feels sporty and refreshing, but already last winter i felt i could need something new, something that felt a bit warmer, more spicy and less fresh. for some time, i had been walking about "l'eau de cartier" (i guess i got a thing for watery perfumes, my first one being "cool water" by davidoff, the second one the above namend water by kenzo and now cartier's water..), which i also found at the tax free and thought i'd test it one more time, but..

directly next to the flacon, they had another one, as well by cartier, "déclaration", which i thought i might test as well - and it tested good. real good. i liked it so much that i bought it, more or less directly (well, after consulting a total stranger by putting my wrist under her nose and asking "what do you think??"). as i myself am rather untalented in describing perfumes, i quote some online shop selling the thing: "A fragrance introduced by the sensuality of birch wood, bergamot and bitter orange; juniper wood and artemisia mingle with cardamom, underlined by cold spices for the middle note; the base note finally emerges, sensually, releasing oak, cedarwood and vetiver, as an echo of the birch wood."
anyway, it feels warm and spicy and elegant enough to use for theatre or opera (and university as well=) and those who i asked all thought it fitted me well. the only thing that really made me wonder now was that when i was looking for a description of the fragrance, all onlineshops seemed to think it was a perfume for men??
i guess they all got something wrong, so now i hereby declare it to be unisex!!

beowulf

back in lüneburg, after a wonderful weekend with a. in oslo. he moved into a new apartment last wedneday, so i helped him unpack a bit and, most important of all, build up his new bed. we just love swedish furniture to build up on your own=) not complicated at all... öhhhh...

it was a.'s birthday on saturday, so the plan was to invade the cinema "colosseum", which lies about 50m from his new place, and see "beowulf" in 3d. the cinema has, as far as i know, the world's greatest thx-hall, with 978 seats under a huge cupola. gorgeous! if you are looking for THE cinema-experience and you happen to be in oslo, go there. it's worth it. unfortunately, "beowulf" wasn't to be shown in the big hall, but in a smaller one, but that wasn't the worst thing: when we went there to buy tickets (the online selling was out of work) during the afternoon, they had problems with one of the ticketprinters, but instead of telling the people who were standing waiting what the problem was and to ask us to go to another ticket-counter, we were standing there for about 20min at least, getting rather pissed. the result was, that we went without tickets, and in the evening when we came back, the movie was sold out. bad luck. even more bad luck was, that our alternative (the new western with brad pitt with the horribly long title "the assassination of jesse james by the coward robert ford") had started about 30min before "beowulf, in another cinema. we decided on renting a movie instead, which was to be (after aproximately 45min of undeciding discussions..) the last james bond, "casino royale". good entertainment!
anyway, the plan to see jesse james on sunday and beowulf on saturday was gone, and as a. really wanted to see beowulf, we decided on one more try, got lucky and purchased two tickets. after the additional purchase of snacks and drinks (non-alcoholic - we are still in norway..), we got one of those fancy 3d-goggles outside the hall and tried to find our seats, which were somewhere in the middle and surrounded by a lot of people. we even managed to sqeeze through the masses to get there and sit down, and after about 15min of boring norwegian commercials and one (!) trailer, we were finally allowed to put on those fancy glasses and enjoy the movie.
well. enjoy and enjoy. while my nose was exposed to rather unpleasant smells (think "unwashed dog") from the right (it was not a.!!) and had to endure the weight of two pairs of glasses for almost two hours, my eyes got pretty soon irritated by all those 3d-effects. at times, the 3d was done really well and felt like something exciting and interesting, but most of the time it was too much we-want-to-use-this-effect-as-much-as-possible-in-your-face. then - well, i'm not very much into seeing ugly things, like slimy stuff dropping down of some monsters foul mouth, so grendel wasn't a nice experience.

most of all, i guess i was disappointed that the filmmakers didn't use the potential the story had, there were large time-gaps and basically no character-study or -development at all. a bit more focus on story/plot and characters and a wee bit less on the technical side (cgi-animation + 3d = no need for a good story??) would have helped. but that's only my opinion, and as a. said: "for you, the best movies are black and white, coarse-grained and by alfred hitchcock." he definitely had a point there...