I Heart Freckles

TONIGHT I LOVE

2012-01-22T21:57:00.002+01:00

ZOSI 1963 - 2012

2012-01-21T14:04:00.000+01:00

Mein geliebter Freund,

· Nie kannte ich jemanden, derzwischenmenschlich brillanter analysierte, faszinierendere Gedankengängeentwickelte und zusätzlich deine Tiefe erreichte

· Nie kannte ich jemanden, der inGesprächen mehr geben konnte – ein großes Geschenk für viele, die das Glückhatten, dir nahe zu sein

· Nie kannte ich jemanden, der seinenVorstellungen kompromissloser nachgegangen ist, nicht bereit, auch nur 1mmdavon abzuweichen – dies bedeutete Freiheit und Freiheit war alles für dich

Du warst ein wunderbarer Mensch, der nichtfür diese Welt geschaffen war, sich aber trotzdem nicht von ihr biegen lies,sondern immer seinen eigenen Weg gegangen ist. Ein Steppenwolf, der sichverirrt hatte und mit dem Herzen eines Löwen ums Überleben gekämpft hat.

Du hattest eine Größe, die man nurbewundern konnte – im Denken warst du uns immer einen Schritt voraus, hast uns dies jedoch niespüren lassen und schon gar nicht hättest du dies ausgenützt. Einzig deineBackgammongegner bekamen dies zu spüren und wurden reihenweise zerlegt.

Jedes deiner Worte war weise, wohl überlegtund von hohem Respekt geprägt – deine Ratschläge waren nicht nur von äußersthoher Qualität, sondern man konnte sie sogar annehmen, da sie aus einer sehrwohlwollenden Intension heraus gegeben wurden und viel Faszination vermittelten.Wenn man diese Chance erkannte, öffnete sich eine wunderbare Ebene zur Reflektion,die viele von uns entscheidend weitergebracht hat – ich werde dir jedenfallsfür alles, was du mir beigebracht hast, ewig dankbar sein, denn nie habe ichvon einem Menschen mehr gelernt.

Warum hattest du es so schwer? - vor einiger Zeit hast du mir zwischenden Zeilen nahe gelegt, das Tractat von Hesses Steppenwolf zu lesen, vielleichtdamit ich und alle, die dir nahe standen, dich besser verstehen können undvielleicht irgend wann in der Lage sein werden, dich gehen zu lassen. Jeder,der diesen Teil des Buches liest, wird möglicherweise ein wenig besser verstehen,wie es in dir ausgesehen hat, denn du hast immer gesagt, das Buch beschreibtdein Leben und ich denke, es diente dir bis zu einem gewissen Grad alsLeitfaden.

Obwohl du so viel ertragen musstest, hastdu uns bis zum Schluss nie damit belastet – ein weiteres Zeichen deiner Größe,denn du warst tapfer und hast mutig gekämpft, allein auf weiter Flur, wie einwahrer Krieger – nur ganz selten hast du dich gehen lassen und das hast du imStillen getan.

Du warst stets positiv undunternehmungslustig - ständiger Impulsgeber, vielschichtig und mit einem begnadeten Einfühlungsvermögengesegnet. Überdies warst du äußerst humorvoll – dein herzliches Lachen waransteckend und wird uns wohl für immer begleiten. Für mich warst du perfekt, sowie du warst.

Mit Wien verband dich eine Hassliebe – eineStadt, mit und ohne der du nicht leben konntest. Thomas Bernhard und Georg Kreislers schwarze Wiener Lieder konnten am besten ausdrücken, wie du zu Wiengestanden bist – es diente hauptsächlich als Zwischenlandung oder Wartehalle zwischenStädten wie New York, Buenos Aires, Bangkok oder Kiew, die dich am Leben hielten und in denen duatmen konntest – es war stets das pure und gespürte Leben, das Entstehen vonFreigeistern, Freiheit und Individualität, das dich stimulierte, auf der Suchenach anderen Steppenwölfen und dem eigenen Glück - dieser Lebensdurst war deineNahrung, deine Droge, war deine goldene Spur.

In den letzten Wochen wurdest du immerruhiger und gelöster, denn du hattest dich entschieden und konntest dich vonvielen Freunden verabschieden.

Mit einem Paukenschlag, der gezeigt hat, auswelchem Holz du geschnitzt bist, hast du dich von dieser Welt befreit, in derdu keine Perspektiven mehr gesehen hast – du hast dich von deinen Leiden erlöstund kannst positiv auf dein Leben zurückblicken, denn du warst dir immer treu,hast dir immer deine Freiheit erhalten und musstest nie deine Unabhängigkeitaufgeben – aus deiner Sicht jene echte, vom Geist gesuchte Menschwerdung, jenereinzige Weg zur Unsterblichkeit.

Viele von uns werden dich unendlichvermissen, denn du wurdest geliebt wie kein anderer. Dein Ausscheiden reißt eintiefes Loch in unser Leben und der Verlust wird unersetzlich bleiben, doch wirwerden versuchen so tapfer zu sein, wie du es warst und dich und dein Vermächtnistief in unseren Herzen tragen.

(von N.S.)

Zosi
1963 - 2012

SETTING FIRE TO OUR INSIDES FOR FUN

2012-01-20T08:47:00.002+01:00

by Daughter

EARLY SIGNS

2012-01-18T15:01:00.001+01:00

I just found a 20 year old moving box thought to be lost. In it was Modi, my stuffed animal black panther I cherished during my The Jungle Book area. Also, some letters and photos peeked out of the box. Here was something interesting: a piece of paper, a little bigger than letter size, but heavier stock. On it were quotes, seemingly written at different times according to the pens used. My name was under some of them. Well, it turns out I was already quite the romantic poet in my late teens.

"The pencil sharpener sharpens the pencil.

and you sharpen my soul."

"Real Love, even when interrupted, lasts forever."

Carrie thinks

2012-01-17T23:54:00.001+01:00

We will get what we wish for eventually, it might not be how we imagined it to look like.

If heaven exists, it sounds and looks like this

2011-10-02T22:45:00.000+02:00

Jeff Buckley

Love Letter 1935

2011-09-20T15:13:00.000+02:00

Vienna, July 1st, 1935

Beloved Chicken!
If you knew how much your letters bring me joy,
you would write me from dusk 'til dawn.
(Continues on the back)

Fräulein Kleidsam

2011-09-15T11:27:00.002+02:00

Fräulein Kleidsam is a Vintage store here in Vienna. The Fräulein just got back from a trip to Berlin and Paris and is presenting her new Vintage finds during special events this October and November. Love it!

TEDx Salzburg 2011 -- Registration Now Open

2011-09-05T08:54:00.002+02:00

Give me an hour of your day.

Watch these 4 videos.

And then tell me the reason why you don't want to come to TEDx Salzburg on September 30th.

Alain de Botton on a kinder gentler philosophy of success. Smart, funny and so true!

Liz Gilbert on genius. Inspirational for me as an artist.

Jill Bolte's powerful stroke of insight. My Fav! Watched this x times. Mind blowing every time.

Sir Ken Robinson says school kill creativity. A must see for parents and educators. Funny!

September 30th 2011, 9:00 - 18:00

Salzburg, Marionettentheater

2011-09-03T23:44:00.000+02:00

Things don't need to last forever, to be perfect.

Happiness Won Fabian

2011-08-31T10:54:00.000+02:00

It was my friend Fabian. He did it! It was him who really got me back into music. And I got back into music really once I moved to Vienna 3 years ago. I moved to a new city, a new apartment with strange TV stations. I turned to music. Luckily I had all his ReVisited mixes from the past few years. My taste of music developed and I got more and more nosy looking for more great music. I always turned to him for new land.
Today, he came out with his first own production, Happiness Won. And I am excited, delighted but not really shocked. Because what Fabian touches turnes to gold. This is beautiful, Fabian! Congratulations! I want more!
Fabian <a href="http://happinesswon.bandcamp.com/track/beginnings-happiness-won-remix">Beginnings (Happiness Won Remix) by Capital Cities</a>

The Tree

2011-08-28T22:15:00.000+02:00

The Tree

Full of beautiful symbolism and music. Tissue might be needed

"You have a choice to be happy or sad. And I chose to be happy."

Vincent Wish Cards

2011-08-27T19:53:00.001+02:00

My wish for Vincent is

that he will find himself soon and realizes who he is

that he will find someone who recognizes him.
( Happy First Birthday, little Angel )

Today I love

2011-08-24T19:28:00.000+02:00

Husky - History's Door from Byron Quandary on Vimeo.

i heart trees/ trees heart me

2011-08-15T13:09:00.000+02:00

Field Day, London 2011

2011-08-08T20:08:00.002+02:00

The Fashion

The crowd was around 25ish. Lots of Kate Mosses, tight jeans, ankle boots, over the butt flowy shirt toped with baggy knitted jumpers, hats. The boys, oh boy, the boys were Dressed, with a capital D. period. Tight rolled up jeans in all colors with funky socks, blunging V neck t-shirts, short back and sides haircut. The unisex accessory: black ray ban, breakfast at tiffany style.

The Atmosphere

There was excitement and let's do this quickly and I am so excited...! But it was also druggy and drunk which resulted in an overall feeling of agression, which I haven't experienced so drastically at other festivals. Sorry to say, I felt like people were there for the festival, not for the bands. The weather was kind, but the clouds were always there to remind us that we were lucky.

The Music

There were five stages, one main stage. The line up was not posted online, so I winged it and got there at 4pm, which was too late for Junip. Missed them :-( So be it -- SBTRKT, Jamie XX, Jamie Woon and James Blake performed at the same time, more or less on/ in smaller stages/ tents. Here is my problem: Tents don't do it for me acoustically. I learned that at Wiesen seeing Jose Gonzales. It was so bad, that I felt like sending the guy an apology facebook wall past. I didn't. It is too stale in there, no air gets through nor out and the sound gets trapped. I tried to see SBTRKT, but the crowd was so tight, that I could only be at the tail and could barley here anything. I had lunch on the gras by the main stage during a break and they played Ritual Union by Little Dragon, which made happy.

James Blake

I went to the tent where James Blake was going to perform half an hour earlier to make sure I would get a good space. Dubstep wise it was great. The sound of the subwoofer went through and through and I never heard anything so deep, concerning all senses. It was so big, that I had to leave and move to the back. It effected me too much, physically.

So I went to the back of the tent and placed myself just outside of it. After the first song, technical issues held him up for the next ten minutes. Not good. People were starting to leave the tent. Since there was another band following his act, he was limited in time and ended up performing only four or five more songs.

Favorite Moment

During James Blakes' performance of Limit To Your Love just when he sang "...like a waterfall in slow motion..." it started raining. A huge rainbow poped up over the tent. Do I need to say more? Oh, and thank you to shy and nameless Silver Fox, who shared his umbrella with me during this special moment. Ahw!

The original plan was to go with Jasmin, who came down with a cold and bailed. It's ok honey. This was not the first, nor will it be last concert I attended by myself. It's all good. She insisted that I would text her about every move I made and that I would not drink anything people would offer me and that I certainly should not get into anything else except a black, round cab. It did not come to that, because she picked me up later that night. The cabby said that I have a good friend. I agreed.

Update: The London riots broke out that day, which I learned about later that weekend. I was not confronted by any violence, but this "aggressive atmosphere" I noticed during the festival might have been a reflection of what was to come.

Catching something long gone

2011-08-03T21:50:00.000+02:00

I love being back in Vienna because I see things that I would not have seen anywhere else, because it does not exist anymore. Here it does. It is the european generation of people born before WW2. People who don't bother to learn what www. means because it is too far out for them. And it is Ladies that go out with wrist length, white lace gloves and Gentlemen with hats. You see them in your neighborhood, walking. They might do something mundane, like going grocery shopping together. But they don't even know what they do to me, when this couple, for example, walks home from the store with a basket. Not only do they share the load, they also hold hand doing it. How sweet is that? Bring old fashion back!

Then there are these two who fancied up this past Sunday. This is how it happens: I see them. I start chasing after them. Carefully because I don't want to scare them and certainly do not want them to notice me taking a picture. I grab the camera and slowly catch up with them. Then I start to walk behind them. As unassumingly as I can. And then I take a picture. These two were more aware of my existence then others in the past. They heard me and made room for me to pass them on the sidewalk. Shorty before I snapped this picture, she tured around and looked at me briefly.

I miss the LA Times

2011-07-27T19:34:00.000+02:00

TEDx Salzburg

2011-07-25T18:44:00.001+02:00

TEDx Salzburg
30.9.2011
Reserve your ticket.

Movie Poster Series by Exergian

2011-07-24T15:51:00.000+02:00

Fine work by the austrian design agency exergian.
available here.

Tears on your pillow will dry

2011-07-18T12:06:00.000+02:00

AMOREX

for Love Sickness and Separations

Titanic Letter

2011-07-09T00:15:00.000+02:00

by Sapling

Introducing: Poetique Electronique

2011-06-26T20:44:00.004+02:00

Poétique Électronique - Six Miles Below (feat. Julia Fuchs) from Poetique Electronique on Vimeo

Beautiful!
Poetique Electronique is a brand new band consisting of two Bavarian exports in their early twenties, Leon Engler and Moritz Gaudlitz. I met them only this past April sitting at a farmers market, with a notebook, a laptop and headsets sipping lattes. They just formed the band, which was still nameless at the time.
In the next two months that followed, they worked on an album and produced their first video with a handfull of friends who all met here in Vienna. Days were spent studying at University and nights were spent in their tiny bathroom, filming and developing the photographs for the video.
This production is an example of just the right match of people coming together to make something magical. One is more talented than the other and together they created something fantastic!

Leon Engler, the lead singer, is currently on his solo album "Bird" under the name Ben Auris, which he will be releasing soon. Moritz Gaudlitz is doing wonderful things over at soundcloud.com/moritzgaudlitz

Watch out for those guys!
poetiqueelectronique.tumblr.com

Look what I made today

2011-06-23T16:41:00.002+02:00

A blessing and a curse

2011-06-09T15:03:00.000+02:00

Somebody told her once that she has this beautiful character trait, which is a blessing and a curse at the same time: Instead of seeing people as who they are, she sees what they could be one day.

This results in unrealistic views of a character, without reality and a tweaked future.

When it comes to finding a mate, she has always been interested in the ones, who haven't reached their full potential yet, or younger men, or men who are troublemakers or men who wrestle with themselves; men who have not reached their full potential, or so she thought. Why is that so interesting to her?

Because, with these men, she still has the opportunity to paint them and and their future in the way she likes. With lots of imagination and optimism, but without any guarantees, coupled with lots of room for disappointment.

Wow. Now, if she knows that that's what she is doing, the world is wide open and realistic and without disappointments.

So here is to men who are living their full potential!
Good or bad.
Successful or just happy.
Just real.

2011-06-09T14:20:00.000+02:00

by Schnauzi

2011-05-30T17:24:00.000+02:00

Just beautiful!

Danish Singer/ Songwriter Agnes Obel. Beautiful videos, beautiful face, beautiful lyrics, beautiful arrangement, beautiful voice, beautiful music. Her fantastic album from head to toe is called Philharmonics.

Did I say that's it's beautiful?

2011-05-25T23:12:00.000+02:00

photo by Leon Engler

taken on a Viennese subway

2011-05-25T18:16:00.002+02:00

http://roland-brueckner.blogspot.com/
http://www.hansunstern.net/

2011-05-19T10:08:00.001+02:00

"Das Meer ist eitel und der Himmel nur ein Spiegel."
"The ocean is vain and the sky is only a mirror."

by Leon Engler

Happy Mothersday

2011-05-08T15:46:00.003+02:00

"Every dream that I dream let you have more than mine."
by Zero 7

2011-05-07T19:51:00.002+02:00

"I don't think there's anything beneath our dignity if it takes us places our dignity refuses to go."
from In treatment Season 1

2011-03-28T17:00:00.002+02:00

found letters, notes, shopping lists

found magazine

***** Hotel Innovation

2011-03-26T14:01:00.005+01:00

Secretive glass front building.

Carport to the door.

Apples in the lobby.

The staff is trying to read your mind in the hopes to know what you want, before you know. That's a 5 star hotel.

You know what to except from this point on -- until you get to the elevator.

The sleek double doors of the elevator open, which reminds you of Snowhite's private glass coffin. You get in and press 2, if your room is 202, for example. The doors close silently, matrixly behind you and your eyes wonder from the ever-increasing-in-size-people below to the shiny chrome handlebars to -- a velvet bag?

If the load is too heavy.

Drop a sandbag.

You are on your way.

-- posted from the road.

Position: Steinbach, Österreich

2011-03-24T16:23:00.003+01:00

"Classically beautiful women should be left to men without imagination."
by Prost

(this goes both ways. naturally.)

2011-03-24T14:34:00.000+01:00

for my english speaking friends: This shrink's last name means so much as "screw loose".

Christian Screw Loose
Person Centered
Psychotherapist

2011-03-15T16:18:00.003+01:00

A few years ago, I took Burt to the Doctor in my Mini. Always interested and conscious about innovative design, he loved riding in my car the most, he told me in confidence. The whole drive he reassured me, that it is not far, but too far for him to walk. He hoped not to keep me too long from much more important work I promptly had to do.

Then he lifted his finger and pointed outside the window.

“There it is.”

This 87 year old man gracefully folded out of my little car, turned around half way and waved.

“Thank you Dany! Good Bye.”

“Yeah, but Burt!” I said, “I would like to come in with you, if that’s OK? I’ll park the car and will be right in.”

“Oh, OK.” Said Burt while slowly putting one step in front of the other towards the two entrance doors.

I saw Burt sit by the window in the waiting room, looking straight ahead. I sat down next to him. A few minutes passed, while we talked about artists of the American Abstract Expressionist Movement -- our favorite.

Then the door opened, a man in a white overcoat stepped forward, looked at Burt and smiled.

“Hello Burt!” then he looked at me, “And so I see you make acquaintances with pretty women here in my office! Good for you, Burt!”

Burt’s posture straightened. He looked at me, looked back at the Doctor and with the conviction of a bull fighter he said:

“SHE is with ME!”

The entire waiting room of people broke out in laughter, being charmed by Burt, my dear neighbor of four years on 12th Street in Santa Monica, California.

Beauty

2011-03-15T15:49:00.000+01:00

Does beauty give birth to love or does love give birth to beauty? Did I love Chloe because she was beautiful or was she beautiful because I loved her? Surrounded by an infinite number of people, we may ask (staring at our lover while they talk on the phone or lie opposite us in the bath) why our desire has chosen to settle on this particular face, this particular mouth or nose or ear, why this curve of the neck or dimple in the cheek has come to answer so precisely to our criterion of perfection? Every one of our lovers offers different solutions to the problem of beauty, and yet succeeds in redefining our notions of attractiveness in a way that is as original and as idiosyncratic as the landscape of their face.

Excerpt of Essays in Love by Alain de Botton

Poetry at an Airport Terminal

2011-03-08T15:55:00.000+01:00

Motopony

2011-03-07T19:22:00.008+01:00

a girl who wants the things I want
a girl who doesn't come a long
but she is already where I am going

Daniel Blue of Motopony spotted him at off ramp @ Hwy 16 & Union.
"I hooked the brother up."

free download wait fo me by motopony (album out may 24th 2011)
and: Motopony "King of Diamonds" (Demo) by tinyogre

Google now provides directions for Jesus

2011-03-07T19:07:00.002+01:00

I just wanted to get from LA to San Diego.

Da spricht mir wer aus der Seele

2011-02-15T17:29:00.002+01:00

„Ich glaube daran, dass das größte Geschenk das ich von jemandem empfangen kann, gesehen, gehört, verstanden und berührt zu werden. Das größte Geschenk das ich geben kann ist den anderen zu sehen, zu hören, zu verstehen und zu berühren. Wenn dies geschieht entsteht Beziehung."

Virginia Satir

Be specific. Always. Happy Valentines Day!

2011-02-14T11:52:00.002+01:00

Mumbles by Clark Terry

James Yuill in Vienna

2011-02-10T00:42:00.003+01:00

Vienna, February 6th, 2011

He had his switchboards set up in an L shape, starting with a mac, switches, a keyboard and drums at the end. He had an acoustic guitar strapped around his torso and drum sticks under his armpit. Two mics, one for each position he happened to be in at the moment, I guess. Now this is all speculation, because I really don't know how this all works.

How can one man produce a live show like this, by himself? I was stunned and I hope nobody watched me because I must have looked like an Aborigine seeing LA's 405 highway for the first time.

And his glasses; when they started to slide down, he just nudged them back up with the help of one of the mics.

He is a genius, nice guy who had his first boob sign request a few days earlier, a modern English gentleman and a kick ass musician.

I think I thanked him five times and for me, that did not even seem to be enough.

James Yuill

Always say what's on your mind

2011-01-31T21:55:00.000+01:00

2011-01-27T22:18:00.005+01:00

2011-01-18T15:01:00.002+01:00

Go see it!

Patti Smith & Robert Mapplethorpe

2011-01-09T13:01:00.001+01:00

I just heard Terry Gross interview Patti Smith. Here she is talking about life after the death of her ex lover, best friend and soul mate Robert Mapplethorpe.

"The idea of Time heals all wounds is not really true. Our wounds aren't ever really healed. We just learn to walk with them. We learn that some days we are going to feel intense pain all over again and we just have to say: Ok. I know you. You can come along with me today. The same way that we just start laughing out in the middle of nowhere, remembering something that happened with someone we've lost.
Life is the best thing we have. We each have a life. We each have to negotiate it and navigate it. I think it's very important that we enjoy our life. That we get everything we can out of it. And it doesn't take away from our love of the departed. We have our own life but we can still live with the people that we miss or that we lose."

Her book Just Kids won the National Book Award in 2010.

Photo by Judy Linn, Norman Seeff

wie schwarze tinte

2011-01-03T11:33:00.003+01:00

gedanken kann man weglegen
erinnerungen kann man auf und zu schlagen wie ein buch
aber
gefühle lassen sich nicht so leicht bängigen

sie sind wie ein see der sich ausbreitet
manchmal wie ein gebirgssee
manchmal wie tinte,
dass sich auf einem löschblatt ausbreitet

gefühle sind wie schwarze tinte auf weisem löschblatt

Why did I not like living in Utah?

2010-12-15T22:21:00.005+01:00

First watch this video. Then we'll talk.

When people ask me for how long I have lived in Utah, I usually answer correctly: 13 months, 11 days, 9 hours and 26 minutes.

And why did you leave?

This Salt Lake City CBS2 news clip of January 2010 about Banksy could have been the reason.

This clip is real.

It is not a spoof, as I first thought.

The British street artist works appear in cities all over the world. People are known to have stolen entire public walls with his artwork on it. The Tate, the Met and the Louvre, just to name a few, own his work.

When Men Bake

2010-12-14T20:53:00.000+01:00

Soulmeet

2010-12-13T18:17:00.007+01:00

“I don’t believe that your soulmate is something you ATTRACT, rather is something that you ARE. Your soulmate is simply an expression of your Self. As you connect more with your soul, that perfect mate will come to you as a mirror manifestation of who and what you are. It is not about finding your soulmate, but removing the barriers, illusions and blocks to the realization of yourself as Love.“

By Kute

Martin Klein in der Roten Bar

2010-12-13T17:56:00.000+01:00

Martin Klein

11. Dezember 2010

First Snow in Vienna

2010-12-01T15:15:00.002+01:00

Taken on my way home last Sunday.

Letterpress Print

2010-11-30T11:41:00.002+01:00

Red by Ophelia Chong

Blue Bird Festival 2010

2010-11-29T23:16:00.002+01:00

Scout Nibblet performed as the last act on the first night. Half of the audience left by midnight, so her performance became even more intimate. Her energy reminds me of Björk's. Although their style of music is totally different, they both have so much passion and emotion bottled up, letting go of it only what's necessary during their performances. It’s pure and honest. If it’s it dirty, they’ll give you dirty. If it’s wired, they’ll give you wired. What you see is what you get. No apologies. She is one artist you have to see live. Amazing!

On Language

2010-11-29T22:14:00.002+01:00

I have been studying, living and working using the English language from the age of nineteen and have been hesitant to embrace my native German language for these past two years I have been back in Vienna.

This morning I am still in bed, thinking about people in Island and why they are the way they are. Last summer I spent a week with eighteen of them and was smittened by their children who all spoke English, so loving with each other and their parents who give them undivided attention, love and support without smothering them.

Could this ease have anything to do with the vast space Islanders have available to run around in? Only 300.000 people inhabit this island -- 3 Islanders/km. They have all this vast space to grow and develop in.

Funny, because to develop in German literally means to unfold – sich enfalten. Like a wrinkled paper which needs to be unfolded and smoothed out.

German is not such a bad languages after all. It has lots of facets. Despite it’s harsh, stiff and chrrch-reputation, German is a very poetic language, actually. There are lots of words, which can be taken literally. Only new students of the German language are made aware of this literacy. Native speakers are so use to the meaning and used to the word, that they don’t see the beauty or the origin or true meaning of it anymore. I might be more aware, because I am relearning German, in a sense, having spoken it little throughout my adult life.

Enfaltet.

Would be a great name for a paper store…

The little things

2010-11-29T22:01:00.001+01:00

by cake with giants

Anselm Kiefer

2010-11-25T13:58:00.001+01:00

Margarete by Anselm Kiefer

I love, love, love his work.
It is sad, but happy. It's ugly but beautiful. It's very moving.

Just beautiful

2010-11-20T01:38:00.005+01:00

Grant me the serenity

to accept the things I cannot change;

courage to change the things I can;

and wisdom to know the difference.

(Serenity prayer by Reinhold Niebuhr)

This American Life

2010-11-20T01:16:00.003+01:00

I have been listening to this award winning WHYY Radio Show for many years now. Before the invention of podcasts, I had a date with my radio every Sunday at noon. It is mind boggling, funny, wired and always inspiring.

My favorite moments are: "Peed in the puddn", the best voicemail message ever, or like the guy kept an ongoing record of everything he did, phone calls, what he ate and why. Or Act V, the show about prisoners learning and performing Shakespeare, meanwhile transforming their outlook on life. Through this show, I found David Sedaris, and the guy who created Found Magazine.

I think this show taught me to see importance in little things, find something interesting in the ordinary, and think longer and harder about something trying to find meaning in it.

Egg-xactly

2010-11-15T23:20:00.000+01:00

Ein Buch für Männer von Männern.

Dennis Hopper, the Acting Collector

2010-11-14T20:05:00.005+01:00

Dennis Hopper’s first time working on a film set was on the set of Rebels Without a Cause (1955) working with an eight years older James Dean. He later returned working with Dean on the movie Giant (1956).

Undoubtedly, working with Dean, at the tender age of 18, had an enormous impact on Hopper’s development as an artist. He talks about the off times on set when he sat in a car with Dean, talking about acting and racing cars. He seamed more like a teacher to him then a friend or a colleague. Hopper wanted to learn and absorb about acting as much as he could from Dean and just watching him act helped him tremendously. Dean’s plans to express himself artistically beyond directing movies were cut short in 1955. Dean crashed his Porsche in California and died instantly, two weeks before the production of the award-winning movie Giant wrapped. Hopper felt a deep void and did not understand how such a brilliantly artistic life could have been cut so short. Dean only made three movies.

“I miss him. I wish I would have seen his work.”

Dennis Hopper is most famously known for his role in the cult movie Easy Rider (1969), which he also directed. This movie lead a movement and spoke to a whole generation in the US and Europe. Hopper had no idea that this movie would become as successful, let alone shift cultural thinking. He wanted to make a movie, which makes the Cannes Film Festival. Not unlike James Dean, he wanted to make an Art Movie.

What people are just now finding out, after his death in May 2010, is that Hopper was also a photographer, painter and sculptor. His photographs toured outside the US and he shows his first American retrospective at the MOCA in Los Angeles in the summer after his death, curated by his long time friend artist and director Julian Schnabel. Schnabel had asked Hopper if he would star in his directorial début Basquiat (1996), a movie about the young street artist Jean-Michel Basquiat. They were friends and Hopper signed on to the project first, so other actors would find it more appealing to come on. In return, Schnabel presented Hopper with the painting Portrait of Dennis Hopper (1999). This painting and others, which hung in Hopper’s Californian home, were auctioned off at Christies in New York in the fall of 2010.

"It’s an artist’s collection, it’s not the collection of a banker or mogul.” Said Marc Porter, the chairman of Christie’s Americas. In the fifties Dennis Hopper started collecting abstract expressionistic art by artists like Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Rauschenberg, David Salle, Andy Warhol and others. In fact, he bought a Soup Can Painting for 75 US Dollars in 1962 from Warhol during his first show in California.

“I probably collect things I wish I’d made.”

Hopper can be seen and heard in a documentary talking about his wish to have his collection end up in a Museum somewhere, together. Unfortunately, the collection was ripped apart in the course of four divorces over the years.

“My idea of collecting is not going and buying bankable names, but buying people, I believe, are contributing something to my artistic life.”

(Excerpt taken from my Master Thesis "Hunting for Art - Art Collecting as a Passion and Addiction")

Update:

The auction results of this collection on November 11th 2010 didn't make it into any newspapers. Beautiful Basquiats and Rauschenbergs went between 80.000 and 400.000 US Dollars. The state of the economy might have had something to do with these disappointing numbers. But, hey! It was a great day to find a "schnäppchen".

Action is Character

2010-11-06T20:13:00.003+01:00

A quote from the movie An Education.

About Language

2010-11-03T14:59:00.003+01:00

Language, that most human invention, can enable what in principal should not be possible. It can allow all of us, even the congenital blind, to see with another person's eyes.

Last sentence in the book The Mind's Eye by Oliver Sacks

A Canyon, Little Wings & Feist

2010-11-01T21:32:00.005+01:00

Inspiration

2010-11-01T20:43:00.001+01:00

Photo by Vee Speers

... A very special thanks to my chameleon Sienna - the Rat Catcher, the Duck, the Diva, the Harlequin, the Girl wearing the Sad Mask, the Nurse, the Beauty Pageant, the Girl and the Pigeon, the Girl and the Rabbit, the Pig, the Girl with the Scissors and the Girl Blowing the Bubble ...

So it reads on the last pages of her book The Birthday Party, a collection of hauntingly beautiful images of little people seemingly more grown up.

Watch for the details

2010-10-28T12:03:00.008+02:00

"I am not waiting around for somebody to hand me comfortable shoes.

I am starting with the ones I have."

Edison Peña, a rescued Chilean coal miner on equipment after being offered to run the Manhattan marathon. I love how simple statements can turn out to be so insightful, inspiring and

beautifully poetic.

Know

2010-10-27T01:06:00.002+02:00

You don't know what you know.
You know only what you know you know.

How much of what you know you don't know is there?
Know, that you only know so little of what there is to know.

You know, I thought I knew more than what I know.
I also know that I can't know everything.

Knowing everything is knowing that you know.
So get to know what you know first, before you say
I know.

(Something I wrote in 2003 while living in San Luis Obispo, California. It was published in the San Luis Obispo Tribune that same year.)

The Seclusion Grandness Connection

2010-10-26T20:14:00.009+02:00

This has been on my mind for a while now: People who spent a substantial time secluded from society due to an illness during their childhood or teenage years to become important contributors to our culture life.

They’ve had time out from their pears, life stopped for them. They endured pain, loneliness, seclution and -- most importantly -- they had lots of quiet time. What does a young person do with this silence? Is it too far fetched to say that since they are away from their own age group, they grow better into themselves since they don't have comparisons any longer? In a group, there is no need to aim higher; all that counts is to be equal, just not below average. So when young people have nobody to match themselves with, they have to be the best they can and that is better then average. They can now allow themselves to become all they can become. All they have is themselves, in a bed, in a room for days on end. There must be some thinking going on and does that thinking lay the ground works for their later life doing something grand?

Dan Ariely, an Israeli behavioral economist who spent three years in a hospital after seventy percent of his body had burned in an accident talks to the National Post about his experience.

"I started looking at everything as strange. Why do we hold glasses like this? Why do we give people compliments? Everything was all of a sudden strange. I felt as if I was like a little alien coming and looking at things in a new perspective, and not understanding."

Frida Kahlo

Important Mexican female surrealist painter who spent her teenage years in bed healing from a bus accident.

Thomas Bernhard

Important German speaking writer who suffered from Tuberculosis spending time in and out of hospital during his late teen years.

Ernest Hemingway

Most influential US writer who spent three month in a hospital as a result of shrapnel wounds when he was eighteen.

Maurice Sendak

US children's book author and illustrator. Starting in elementary school, Sendak stayed home often due to exhaustion so he enjoyed books brought home to him by his sister.

Natascha Kampusch

Remarkable girl, who was secluded, tortured and raped for eight years by her capturer. All she had was a radio and listened to Ö1, the equivalent to NPR. She is far beyond her pears on an intellectual and emotional intelligence level.

Fabian Geyrhalter

Successful Graphic Designer who suffered from a heart problem and spent his school years in and out of hospitals.

Dan Ariely

Israeli behavioral economist who spent three years in a hospital after seventy percent of his body had burned in an accident.

Tom Jones
had TB and was bedridden from the age of twelve to fourteen.
Stephen King
had stripe throat and spent nine months in bed when he was seven years old.
"I read my way through approximatly six tons of comic books. At some point I began to write my own stories. Imagination preceded creation."

Postkarte von 1989

2010-10-26T18:07:00.001+02:00

Wo ist Anton?

Zoe's Aunt

2010-10-26T14:15:00.008+02:00

My niece just called me.

An emergency.

No, not that kind of emergency.

Worst.

The phone rings. I pick up. I hear Zoe's voice say something like this:

I wanted to make a birthday card for someone and wanted to use the glitter on it like you do and couldn’t find anything to glue on it and I did not even have glue and then I took the stuff inside off the pencil sharpener. And then I even found glue, so I glued everything and now it looks stupid.

That's when she starts to cry. Not the ugly cry, just a little cry. A wince.

I, as the artist Aunt in chief is struggling at this point to come up with a solution quickly. I want to console her without missing the change to encourage her. Calmly I say:

How about you take another envelope and start fresh?

No.

How about you put a blank piece of paper over everything?

Then I have 1.000.000 bumps.

How about you take a new envelope and start a new?

Ok. I’ll do that. But if it looks stupid then I don’t care. Bye.

(Why don't I believe that?) Bye.

Update:
As it turns out...the card was for me!

Dear Deny,

All the best to your Master, I wish you a good painting time.

I hope we will see each other soon and paint again,

as well as making bracelets for the Bazaar.

Kiss, Zoë

Martin Klein. Österreicher.

2010-10-24T10:27:00.009+02:00

Es gibt Musik, die man nur mit Kopfhörer hören sollte. Das ist Musik, die sich nicht gut als background music eignet. Sie verdient volle Aufmerksamkeit und totale Ruhe im Raum und mit sich selbst. Am besten eignet sich die Musik von Martin Klein am Sonntag Morgen. Noch im Bett. Mit Kopfhörer. Wie gesagt.

Man ist verliebt, hört seine Musik und wird noch verliebter. Ist man wehmütig, wird man wehmütiger, ist man kreativ, wird man kreativer. Sie ist ein emplifer seines Zustandes. Wenn Mensch und Instrument so im Einklang mit einander sind...man sollte eigentlich nicht einmal darüber schreiben. Ich möchte gar nicht weiter nachdenken, was diese Musik tut. Ich möchte sie nicht zerreden. Tut man ja auch nicht mit einer neuen Liebe, sie zerreden. Man sollte nicht darüber schreiben. Einfach zuhören.

Hier ist Kunst und Liebe nah beieinander. Sie fordert einen auf zu kreieren; Bilder, Kinder oder diesen Blog Eintrag.

Ich war lange in den Staaten und lebe seit zwei Jahren wieder in Wien. Die Umstellung war schwer. Ich wollte jeden Tag dieser zwei Jahre wieder zurück zu meinen Palmen, der weichen Luft und in die Hollywood Bowl. Die kreative Ausstrahlung von Los Angeles und der Angelinos mit ihrem nicht tot zu schlagenden Optimismus fehlte mir und ich dachte ich hätte sie für immer verloren.

Dann lernte ich langsam Künstler, Musiker und Denker -- Österreicher -- kennen. Es gibt sie doch. Auch hier, dachte ich. Zwei Jahre hats gedauert um mich einzuleben und um Österreich näher zu treten. Dieser Mann, Martin Klein, gehört da dazu. Er hat es geschafft mich noch einmal näher zu meinen Wurzeln zu lassen. Dieser Mann macht mich stolz Österreicher zu sein.

Update: Er kommt am 11. 12. 2010, 22.00 in die Rote Bar

Genau so soll er sein.

2010-10-11T12:43:00.005+02:00

Mehr im Hemd

2010-10-06T18:53:00.004+02:00

the gym for him.

Dreaming last night?

2010-07-27T11:54:00.004+02:00

Sometimes I want to be able to make a screen shot of my dreams I have at night, so I can remember them the next day.

Photo by *cinnamon

That Notion

2010-02-04T21:05:00.008+01:00

Listening to NPR and living in Austria again after 15 years, I learn about one new English or German word every week or so. It used to be more exciting when there were more words a week, but hey -- one word is better then none.

Then there are these words or phrases used over and over by presidents. It's a new word, to us at least, and all of a sudden it is back in fashion.

Thanks to Monica -- a woman we all now know on a first name basis -- the word unprecedented was one I heard a lot in the nineties. For the first few times I have heard it in relations (ha ha ha) with the Lewinsky case (she is in the spell checker and Obama is not! Now that's a scandal) I thought that it was a word which describes a president not behaving like a president. I thought it meant unpresidential. That is, of course, until I saw the word spelled.

The 00s, which nicely coincides with the then sitting in president, brought me the phrase Make no mistake about it. The word subliminal was a close contender!

Obama brought us the term ...that notion. Before Obama everybody used ...that idea or ...that concept. Now this term is everywhere; on NPR, in the NYT or on the pages of Elisabeth Gilbert's book Committed. It seems like people use it when they want to sound intellectual or Ombamish. They want to have it known that they are on his team. I say that because nobody on FOX News ever says it.

Dear Martijn,

2009-11-03T15:57:00.005+01:00

Last summer you made me this Gänseblümchen bracelet when I did not feel well. When you gave it to me I thought I saw who you truly are. You are a selfless, beautiful and caring person who's heart is in the right place for everybody to see and love.

I am sending it back to you today, because you need it more then me right now. Keep it as long as you need it.

I hope it makes you smile like it did when you gave it to me.

My thoughts are with you and and your family.

Warmly,

Wonderful quote by Jack Kerouac

2009-10-31T18:36:00.001+01:00

[Photo by Wilbur T. Pippin]

"I want to work in revelations, not just spin silly tales for money. I want to fish as deep down as possible into my own subconscious in the belief that once that far down, everyone will understand because they are the same as me that far down.”

-- Jack Kerouac

How sweet is that?

2009-10-28T12:05:00.004+01:00

Rules for my unborn son
by
Walker Lamond

*

Judy & Fabian

2009-10-15T18:50:00.007+02:00

Make Ms. me, Mrs. you.
*

Read this and you will feel better about yourself

2009-09-29T19:05:00.009+02:00

Put in the name "Mike" into your google search bar and the second suggestion is Mike Shinoda.

What's the big deal you shall ask? I shall tell you!

I first saw Mike on TV watching the Grammys, nudged my friend and said:"I know this guy! I went to art school with this guy!" In a way you would be explaining peanut butter to a four year old he gave me stunned look and started to educate me. "This is Mike Shinoda" from the band Linkin Park. Yes, the band which won 2 Grammys and sold over 50 Million albums worldwide. But who is counting? So there is no way that I could be knowing this guy because -- of course -- he is a superstar. Plus, he is obviously in the music business and does not draw pictures for a living.

Naturally, from that night on, whenever I saw anything from Linkin Park I kept thinking the same thing. This guy looks so much like the the guy I went to school with.

Today I went to my school's site and my puzzling "Linkin Park era" finally ended. Mike Shinoda's face glowed off the front page into my living room. On the site, he gives an interview as the famous rock star telling students about his time at Art Center.

I love these moments of clarity!

Please go to his charity website and donate, if you can!
Thank you!
www.forthebayou.org
.

Best Version of You

2009-09-08T19:00:00.009+02:00

I am at a show selling my jewelry. A lady comes up to my table. She is in her mid sixties with flat, short hair and wears a thin stringed purse strapped diagonally across her torso.
"Do you also have boat pendants?"
"No, but I can refer you to somebody who is a gold smith that can help you."
"No that's ok. It was just an idea."
In a soft voice she starts to tell me about a trip she took with a friend recently. It was a cruise down the Danube - a nice trip, which she recommends me taking one day.
"Did you go with your husband?" I asked.
She gazed out of the window and told me that her husband passed away at the same time her friend's husband did. They take trips spending their men's retirement money.
"We always have nice weather."
She is certain that their husbands provide those widows with lots of sunshine.
"I am sorry for your loss." I pause "What a coincidence that your husbands died at the same time" I continue, wishing I could ask her how they died, but I refrain from getting too personal.
"Oh no, no. We met at grievances counseling. This was our 5th trip this year. It is such luck that we found each other."
I nodded. Then she leans in to me. That's when I noticed a twinkle in her eye.
"I was with my husband for 35 years and now it's a women."

I think about that woman a lot. It was as if she just woke up from a long sleep. Only now she seems to realize what life is for. She had to go through 35 years of hetero marriage to meet the love of her life who was a women. Meeting her felt as if she was still under shock that THIS is what happiness feels like.
Many, many more happy years with your "friend".

Photo by Laura Ward
.

If Men were TV Channels

2009-08-08T16:50:00.017+02:00

ESPN
On your honeymoon you wont go to a destination chosen for its romantic characteristics but for its recreational assortment. Let me explain: You will honeymoon at the Maldives, if you fancy the next Kelly Slater; Augusta, if he idols Tiger Wood and it would be a winter wedding in the alps if you fell for a red bull drinking mountain goat. If you'd decide to use your honeymoon money on something else other then a trip, say bye bye to your biggest white wall of your home, because that is reserved for the flat screen. A product that might come in handy for you 5 nights a week, when your man of steel is at the gym. Use those nights wisely I tell you! This is the time to watch all your chick flicks, tearjerkers and reality shows because when he gets a hold of the remote, it will be -- what else -- ESPN all the way. Either he is home and safe or out and in constant danger trying everything from kite surfing to rock climbing.

Conclusion: If you are not a cook, he is a great match. Nothing can be possibly better then the energy bars he eats on the go or a bag of chips with beer for him and his friends during the game. Positives: He is chiseled and always horny. You know all hospitals in the area.

The Philosophy Program/Arte Channel
He is calm, moving slowly and is always deep in thoughts. He takes a long deep breath and double checks his thought one last time, before he speaks it. Everything he says is said in a proclaiming way. He has new theories on everything, puts everything into question and wants to write a book one day on a subject not known to him yet since there is so much you could be writing about. His hobbies are reading long into the night and lonesome walks in the forest. He likes to leave a party unnoticed, preferably through the back door and -- even better -- with you driving him home because he is a little tipsy and would prefer not to fall asleep alone that night. He works for himself, creating something or is in an innovative business. He is different then other people and proud of it. He can't have a boss, because everything he does is the better way, so why waste time listening to a boss, when he turns around and does it himself. His way and better.

Conclusion: Great if you like to be stimulated intellectually 101% of the day and only want to be stimulated 101% of the day.

The Comedy Channel
He wakes up and cracks a joke. He enters a room and he yells HELLO to everybody. Sex and other private information, anything from bodily functions to pillow talks would be openly available to all and is used as material for entertaining. You fall and the first thing this man would do is laugh. The second thing he would do is tell the world about it. He visits a friend at the hospital and doesn't ask how he is doing but how the pain meds are working for him and if he could try some later. He sings and dances when he cooks, cleans or sits on the toilette. He wants your attention; he wants everybody's attention. In fact, he sees the attention you give him as his birth right. He does everything possible to make everybody happy all the time, so he takes it for granted that you'd do the same in return.

Conclusion: Great if you like to laugh and like to avoid reality because life is too beautiful to spend time worrying about things like -- let's say -- bills.

The Movie Channel
He looks stunning. Handsome from top to bottom with a great voice and charming smile and easy walk. He has good teeth and knows it. In conversation with you, he never really sees you because he is occupied looking at the image of himself playing in his head. He is constantly aware of how people see him. When he looks at you he does not see nor listen to you because he is busy wondering how other people proceed him. His outfits are perfect and up to date, his friends wonder if he is gay, he continues to plug his eyebrows and disregards speculations about his sexuality. Bad press is good press. He moves smoothly and puts an arm around you leaving a busy restaurant. Depending on how good you look he will repeat or multiply this action because you are, in this case, the perfect extension of himself. If you look good, he looks better. He'll enjoy and repeat that. He is not sure what the next steps are in life. The movie has not ended yet, so how can he know how it ends. He is riding out life how it comes, always looking good doing it.

Conclusion: Perfect if you always wanted to be with Gary Grant or Gregory Peck. If you mind stares from other women or mind that he takes longer in the bathroom then you, or if you like to live in reality this man is not for you.

MTV
He most likely is a musician or wants to be one. He has a dark side about him. He is always the victim. Nobody knows why, not even he can explain it, nor does he want to because he uses this dark cloud following him for inspiration. His childhood was hard. He loves his mom and seems to always suffer. He sighs a lot. He wears black, smokes pot and would reach out to stronger stuff but is hindered by insufficient funds. If he cannot make money with his music, he does not want to make money at all and rather stays in the poverty bracket, forever. Music is always playing. If not in the car, the house or the beach, he brings one of his many guitars. One is permanently placed in the trunk of his car, just in case. He is sick a lot proclaiming that's because the world is against him.

Conclusion: If you thought it might be nice to have a song written about you, go get him! If you don't like rain, go look for sunnier pastures.

The Health Channel
You sneeze and he grabs the car key to run to the pharmacy because you must be coming down with something terrible, obviously. When he comes back he demands for you to lay down so he can make you chamomile tea. In the right hand corner of his desk at work sits a blood pressure measuring device, where others place a framed photograph of a loved one or a give away toy from the last office party. He counts his and your calorie intake with the help of a chart he carries with him in his wallet, which he laminated after last year's healthy-living-convention. He loves nordic walking and rollerblading and wishes that you could combine those two somehow. His clothes are made out of 100% cotton and linen and are always bought under the fair trade agreement. He dreams of living in the country and can't wait to film you while you bare his children without anesthesia.

Conclusion: If you like your french fries, hot chocolate and lazy Sunday mornings reading the paper in the city, there is only one thing for you to do: Get out as fast as you can say "Balconies are for planting Echinacea".

Photo by:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kros/

She rocks

2009-06-25T18:17:00.008+02:00

C found this beautiful black rock on the beach one day, thought it to be beautiful and took it home. She put it on a little table underneath her mirror. Then, a few months later, she went to the beach again and found another rock. The rock had the same shape, size, feeling, texture. The only difference was that this new find was white this time. She took it home and placed it on top of the first rock to find out if it really was the same size. And it was. It fit perfectly.
Without her knowing she found two rocks that perfectly fit the other. They were the same in every sense but it's color.

Where am I going with this? Well, that is a no brainer. The black one stands for a man. And the white one stands for herself, naturally.

Of course she found a third rock and it's color was gray. (Do I need to explain?)(I didn't think so.)

If C can find 3 random rocks on the beach that fit so perfectly together, then isn't it absolutely, positively possible to find your perfect match too? It's easy as 1,2,3.
.

Daniela says Martijn says

2009-03-23T09:39:00.010+01:00

"Never try to understand how it works or you'll loose the magic."

This hit home. This statement was said referring to the creative process of designing a product. It spoke to me on a personal level. When we meet somebody, we are instantly smittened. In other words, when we fall in love, we start to analyze the feelings we are having. This might sound familiar: "He reminds me of my dad, that's why I might like him." Or "he calls me instead of texting. He must REALLY like me." Or "he has pictures of his niece up on his facebook page, so I bet he wants children soon."

Hold your horses ladies!

If you try to explain or make sense of all the reasons and the ifs and whys you like somebody you already killed it. That moment of young, fresh, virgin love might never come back. The minute you start to analyze, it's gone. Puff. It's gone, because you switched to the other side of your brain. Welcome to the left side of your brain! This side of the brain is where you do your bills, choose a pension plan, and read rental agreements. Is this really where you want to strip naked and feel love?

I say, just enjoy the company. Enjoy the flowers he brings you. Except the coat he helps you into and call him, when you feel like it. Look in his eyes and just see him. Listen to how he speaks and just simply receive the compliment he gives you even if YOU think you look like shit in the morning. Grab his hand on the street and touch his back when you are having dinner with his parents. Order desert, drink another glass of wine, and laugh as loud as you feel like. Put on your favorite jeans instead of the red dress, which usually brings the cows home.
Do all the things you usually do. Ok, don't open the door with your curlers on, always brush your teeth before he comes over and always shave. Everywhere.

Creatively thinking, I would say that this is also true. When I work on commissioned paintings, my Warren-Buffet-side-of-the-brain kicks in. The client is king and wants it this way, so I have to watch this and don't do that. Wrong! Only one body mass should demand control over my holding the brush and the shifting of my eyes over the paper; my very own right side of the brain. This is the side where we love, taste, feel, cry, smell, sing and do many more beautiful things. This is the side where everything is possible, so use it!

Note to self: Read when needed.
.

What is the best compliment you have ever gotten?

2009-03-01T23:58:00.009+01:00

"You look like a figure on top of a cake."
"You are one of us."
"You get me."
"Now there is so much in your glass, which means there will be about that much left in it a while from now. When there is only that much left in your glass, that means that you will go soon."
"Danke, dass es Dich gibt."
"Ich kann noch viel von Dir lernen."

{please share yours and treasure them!}

Photo by Martha Stewart Weddings

When People leave us

2009-03-01T23:08:00.013+01:00

When people leave us and they make us sad or mad, we should thank them.

When somebody leaves us and breaks your juicy, skipping heart in two you should be grateful to that person having done so. In that moment of confusion and pain coupled with feeling lost, comes a moment of fog. It feels like you stepped into white space. Something stopped, therefor there is no now, no future, only the past. The past is all you have and will have from now on, so you think. It takes you a while to gain orientation in that white space. You think you know where you are. In reality (!) you can't possibly know where you are, because you are standing still.

You can only determine your position or gain orientation by moving. You can only determine your position in relation with the things that exist around you: We get up in the morning and we understand how we feel because of what had happened the night before (I had a few too many drinks), what's going on right now (I am still sleepy) and how we will projectively feel in the near future (after a cup of coffee and a walk, I'll be ok).

If nothing ever stops, how can new things start?
How do we know what our feelings are capable of, when everything stays the same?

If there is no wound,
there wouldn't be the need to heal.

Without healing,
no pain.

Without pain,
no awareness.

Without awareness,
no meaning.

Without meaning, why bother?

When something has been erased, no longer exists, never comes back or if there is no chance of mending something, how CAN we know what it is or how we should feel about it? Aha! So maybe we should not always know everything. Maybe we should just leave it be and just feel. Listen to how we feel.

And THAT is why we should be thanking the lover who crushed our heart and thanking god for taking people we love. It is in that moment and for that reason, when we present to ourselves how rich we are. We are as rich as we can ever be in that moment on the bathroom floor, longing. We are rich when our heart is heavy at a grave, sobbing.

Now, about that white space. It only lasts for a while. It is scary to be in it. You hate it. You are scared. You think it will never stop. You might even question life itself. But that white space WILL pass like fog on a Manhattan morning. And when it does, you have met yourself again. You learned something about yourself and you are proud the same way you'd be proud after running a marathon. Proud for getting through it and most of all: You will be proud of the feelings that you are capable of having.

Carrie(d away)

2009-02-25T12:04:00.013+01:00

This is a letter I received today from a dear, dear friend. It is too beautiful and insightful not to share.

Dear Dany,

I like to believe that a broken heart grows stronger and more passionate once mended. But, believe me I know how confused you must be at the moment and how surreal this must feel. He will have to be magical, profound, other worldly, surprising, a romantic fool, an absolute idiot who cannot find words to express the love he feels for you, a little boy vulnerable yet willing to show you how weak and sorry he is. I mean every word of that! You of course deserve no less, but there is no reason to go back to him without all of the above. Trust me, I’ve taken back many a boyfriend and the only ones with true intentions will go through every aforementioned step.

Pa – lease learn from my mistakes Dany. You & I are both fools for love and see the good in others through rose colored glasses. I don’t want you to get hurt.

Ok, so we haven’t spoken in centuries and I just got a bit carried away. I love you and you are too special to not have everything that you dream about. It’s out there and it’s painfully difficult to find which is what makes it so special and rare if you insist upon it.

Glad to be back in touch, you are right – I do think of you all the time. I think “what would Dany do?”, or “How would Dany feel about this”? or “I want to live life with all my spirit like Dany”. J Truly.

Love you soooo much!
You reach out, call me, write me – whatever you like. I will help you get through this, I promise.
Xoxoxxoxo
C

Image by the 14 year old Olivia Bee

Daily Inspiration

2009-02-24T18:37:00.006+01:00

So excited!
I found "the Actor's Studio" on one of the German channels. Today Billy Crystal ended on this advice: "Embrace all the brown spots on your apple"

I love that.
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Happy Valentine's Day

2009-02-16T13:41:00.005+01:00

More Cards http://danielaskrein.blogspot.com/
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Souls in Training

2009-02-07T10:33:00.004+01:00

Our souls act like dilettantes. They want us to be together, but let us do all the work.

Nail Him - Nail Studio for Men

2009-01-30T14:34:00.008+01:00

America! Canada! UK and Australia! -- Here is a business idea my friend Carrie and I have been talking about for years. I don't have any desire to become a businesswoman and Carrie is boosting rich people’s interior ego in San Fran, so I am passing this marvelous idea on to anybody wanting to have their own gig.

We are living in an ever-expanding Metro Sexual World. Increasingly, men can be seen in yoga studios, at the shrink or stepping out of sun tanning studios. We woman like the idea of this new men changing their underwear every day (if you just gasped, please leave this blog immediately) and showing up with flowers at our doorstep, held by clean and manicured fingers. What a sight! What a concept!

The problem is, that men don't want to be caught dead in a nail studio, heteros anyway. So ladies, it's up to us to provide them with an atmosphere they can be comfortable in and in which they forget what they are getting done.

I suggest a gray, black and white interior color palette. Big, black leather seats. Magazines like CARS, DETAIL, and THE SWIMSUIT ISSUE are neatly staked on the side tables. Pretty nail technicians in elegant but tight, floor length dresses revealing a leg when they walk by a slit up to the thigh serve Lattes and Red Bull. Flat screen TVs are turned on mute, showing "Sexiest Latin Women" on Sundays, The Godfather Series on Thursdays and ESPN all Monday. Relaxing lounge music plays in the background.

The exterior looks like a nightclub, a black unassuming front with white letters spelling the name of the studio: NAIL HIM

Now Ladies, close your eyes and imagine panning down a masculine leg dressed in jeans, standing proudly and full of confidence. We get to the flip-flops and tucked underneath the v-shaped straps are clean, lotioned feet gracing short and neatly cut toenails.

* Sigh *

goodbyeshitfuck.com

2009-01-23T13:28:00.003+01:00

goodbyeshitfuck.com
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Esperanza Spalding at the Konzerthaus

2009-01-21T16:41:00.011+01:00

When Jazz musicians perform live onstage they seem to be happy in their own world. The set is finished because of the realization that there are other people in the room, that their moves are being followed by thousands of highly expecting eyes. Esperanza is different when she performs. She is in her own world too but it's as if she invites us to be in it with her. This is what makes her performance so intimately charming and honest. Her performance seems to be happening for the people.

Twenty three year old hands play the Bass like a 60 year old Jazz Legend and birdlike sounds are being projected throughout a stunned Viennese audience. She is not unlike Erykah Badu or Lauryn Hill in her appearance; hair from the 70ies and style from the streets of Downtown NY coupled with an attitude of your boyfriend's best friend you hate because she is so damn cool.

"Tonight is a special night. Tonight I dressed like a girl -- just for you Vienna!" This is how Esperanza Spalding, the Jazz singer and Bass player opened her set at the Konzerthaus Monday night. Esperanza is Cuban, grew up in Boston and studied Music at Berkley where she now teaches.

"I have to make a confession" she whispered in the microphone and paused. "I am having an affair and he is in this room." She grabs the neck of the Bass like the hand of her lover, looked it up and down and said: "We met just a few minutes ago and it was love at first sight." Men in the audience were smiling throughout the 90 minute performance. Their wives sitting next to them could have taken this as an opportunity to be telling them about extramarital love children or any other painful family secrets, these men would have kept on smiling.

Trying to follow her thin, brown fingers working the strings felt like watching ants crawl up and down a fallen tree trunk in the forest. Come to think of it -- the entire performance had something jungly. It tasted like dirt, good dirt. The kind of dirt Scarlet O'Hara grabs a fist full of in Gone With The Wind proclaiming something about Tara homeland.

She was not playing the Bass, rather she was hovering over it, like a beetle lovingly devouring it's pray, but still showing respect while doing it. Her head pounced back and worth to the music without consciousness. Watching her seemed like watching a movie at only 20 frames a second. Her movements were quick and rhythmically jaggy.

In a vocal set accompanied only by her band member on the piano, her arms stretched out all the way to the back of the room, singing budaadadbbdbabaaas as serious as a hard attack. She meant every budaadadbbdbabaaa and the men I mentioned before understood the entire story she told.

If you missed her this time, don't sweat. We have not seen the last of this fresh new beetle.
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T said today

2009-01-19T11:08:00.007+01:00

It's a strength to show weakness.

W - der Film wie die Person von Verwirrung gezeichnet

2009-01-18T22:30:00.010+01:00

Mit großer Erwartung kommt der neue Film von dem provozierenden Hollywoodliebling Oliver Stone in die Kinos. Der Regisseur hat uns schon so manche Bewohner des Weißen House aus seiner oft umstrittenen Perspektive gezeigt. JFK und NIXON waren lang, komplex und wenn man nicht mit einem 24 Stunden Nachrichtenkanal aufgewachsen ist, hatte man es schwer zu folgen. Der Aufbau, die Story und die Art seiner Filme spiegeln die Eigenschaften der Portraitierten. So sollte es auch keine Überraschung sein, wenn W, der Film über den dümmsten Präsidenten der Geschichte Amerikas, von Verwirrung gezeichnet ist.

In einem Interview mit Terry Gross für Nation Puplic Radio hat Stone über die kurze Zeit geredet, die er für die Produktion des Filmes hatte. Da es ihm ein persönliches Anliegen war diesen Film noch vor den Obama/McCain Wahlen und an einem historisch gutbetuchtem Kinowochenende zu eröffnen, hatte der Regisseur nur 6 Wochen am Schneidetisch. Der Film spiegelt dieses Rennen mit der Zeit besonders in der Wahl der Filmmusik wieder. Gute Filmmusik hat zwei Möglichkeiten: Entweder Sie fällt auffallend gut auf oder sie ist so gut, dass sie eben nicht auffällt. Der Bildschirm wird mit texanisch angehauchter ländlicher Musik uebermahlt. Bush's Vorlieben und Herkunft wird dadurch verdeutlicht, ist aber fehl am Platz wenn wir uns im Oval Office oder im Situation Room befinden. Könnte das vielleicht eine sibliminale Botschaft der Deplatzierung Bushes von Stone gewesen sein?

Es wird mit uns von der Jetztzeit in die 60er, in die 80er und zurück gesprungen. Um die Verwirrung deutlicher zu machen, oder aus unerklärbaren Gründen zog Stone es vor ein Lied aus den 20er Jahren zu wählen um uns in eine 60er Jahre Szene einzuleiten. Man befand sich auf einem Picknick und wenn es damals keine Polka Dot Kleider gegeben hätte, hätte man mich in der Geschichte schon verloren. Die restliche Musikwahl erinnert an alten CA Werbungen und ich habe mich nicht nur einmal gefragt, ob Mr. Stone vielleicht ganz darauf vergessen hätte, die "placeholders" auszutauschen? Denn an Geldmängel kann es doch nicht gelegen haben. Oscar Gewinner Oliver Stone sowie der millionenschweren Demokratischen Partei lag doch etwas an dem Erfolg dieses Filmes.

Der talentierte Newcomer Josh Brolin in der Hauptrolle ist viel zu sympathisch um überzeugend die Geschichte eines Presidentens zu zeigen, der seinen Posten und sein geliebtes Land in finanziellen Chaos und als schwarzes Loch in der internationalen Landschaft mit einem Grinsen und Schulterzucken verlässt. Immer wieder musste ich mich erinnern, dass ich das Leben Bush's sehe und aufhören musste auf JR Ewing zu warten, bis dieser um eine Wolkenkratzterecke stiefelt.

Der Film hat den Charakter eines Fernsehfilm-Dreiteilers und nach 1 stunde 20 endete er auch so als ob man morgen mehr bekommen würde, ob man wolle oder nicht. Er endete mit einem anfänglich, zerfallenden W in den letzten Tagen seiner Amtszeit. Er schloss nach einer schwachen Pressekonferenz zwei Fluegeltueren hinter sich um alleine zu sein. Zum ersten Mal sieht man einen Menschen. Man sieht Schwäche, Unsicherheit geprägt von Zweifel mit einem Hauch von Scham. Jetzt wo es interessant wurde, fing der Nachspann an.

Wenn die Qualität der Verfilmungen von amerikanischen Präsidenten nach der Qualität der Regierung geht, dann hoffe ich, dass Stone mit der Verfilmung Obama's uns wieder das liefert, was wir von ihm gewohnt sind.
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I don't need you

2009-01-17T23:53:00.009+01:00

.
They didn't want you.
I didn't look for you.

You came.
I had you.

You think I didn't?
It felt as if.
I did.

I don't need you
the way you are today.

I don't need you.
I want you.
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St. Gilgen

2008-12-27T22:04:00.003+01:00

Fuji and I in the Alps

2008-12-24T10:56:00.002+01:00

Last year, this day, I was married with plans including children living in the states. This year everything is different -- but not so bad as the beginning of this blog might suggests.

Yesterday morning I left my 4 story apartment with all it's 100 stairs behind to spend Christmas with my Family in Kitzbuehl. For the first time I packed my cat fuji in between all presents in the back of the car. The drive was uneventful. Fuji only started making faint, annoyed noises when I drove over 100-km/hour. It was like having a live speedometer alarm in the car with me. During these 4 hours I listed to David Sedaris. He was reading from his book NAKED followed by an interview by Terry Gross with Philip Seymour Hoffman -- interesting and smart guy as it seemed. The road was wet, but it was always over zero degrees and I was coasting the whole drive.

I arrived in Kitzbuehl when it was dark and was greeted by my niece's big brown eyes and these words: "Where is fuji?" She wants to be a vet on day and she will be damn good one. I handed her the litterbox to sneak her away from the car full of christmas present which I was not suppose to have -- a) It's not the 24th yet. b) Do I look like Santa?

This trick worked great. I snuck the gifts into another room while she dragged the oversize litterbox up one story.
Then I got fuji out of the car and into our room where zoe, my niece was tiptoeingly waited for us. Fuji walked around the whole house for next 2 hours, checking out everything as if she is an Indian looking for John Wayne.

When we went to dinner, she was already asleep on the bed. I found her in the same position 3 hours later when I returned. I snuck into bed with her and read Laotse for a while, a present from Tee. When he gave it to me he said that this is the heavy stuff and you'll start with that first. So I did and he wasn't kidding.

It's the 24th. It's Christmas, a day full of different emotions for different people. For children this is the most important day of the year. For a wife who lost her husband it's a day she'd wish never existed. For my grandma it might very well be the last, my dad doesn't even celebrate it. He moved Christmas to the 25th after his 3 divorces, after his 3 children visiting form different places. For me -- it's bitter sweet. I love being with my family and having Fuji here with me is wonderful. I do have many different overlapping thoughts in my head about the future. I don't feel grounded, my life made another shortcut towards who knows what. I am scared and I think that Bjork is damn right when she says that "it's not up to you".

But I am in for the ride. I have to be. Most of all I do feel lucky for many, many reasons. But most importantly I feel blessed because I am loved and I do love.