Bild des Tages #47

Calvin couldn't have done it better.

Street Music in Oslo

The Karl Johans Street in Oslo runs in a straigt line from Central Station to the Royal Castle, passing the Norwegian parliament Stortinget. It's one of the busiest shopping streets in town: Famous brands sharing space with crappy souvenir shops and shady pubs. In winter the sidewalks are heated to melt snow and ice.

Somewhat halfway to the castle is the hightest point, forming a small, nameless square. All year long you can meet great street artists there: it's probably one of the most lucrative spots in Europe. During high season in summer they get exactly one hour each to present their shows.

I've seen young elflike women singing there in December nights, playing with icecold fingers and blowing everybodys minds and hearts away with their voices.

Strangely enough I could find only one video on youtube. But what!? We all get a chance to listen to this great Hang-player Daniel Waples! Follow this minute into a footenotefull of great street music...

Claudia Sárkány - Colour me beautiful

Dieses wunderschön schräge Video kommt mir vor wie der perfekte Nachhall zu Karneval! 

Leider kann ich es nicht direkt einbetten: Klickt auf das Bild, um zu Claudia Sárkánys Seite zu gelangen. Es ist das dritte Video von oben. Und wer noch Lust auf ein schönes Minütchen hat, dem sei auch gleich das Milchmädchen darunter empfohlen.

te quiero

This wallpainting crossed my tracks when I tried to avoid the last of this season's carnival parades. On Tuesday, on the sixth day of the annual Cologne mayhem, most neighbourhoods stage their own, small Carnival processions.
Completely forgetting about this I went out for a walk and aimed right for the middle of it. But I found this painting in a small alley, and its longing expression very much reminded me...

... that once someone wrote these two words on a piece of paper and taped them to a yellow door. I passed through that door each day, dressed, undressed, took showers and joked with the other guys. I remember the green rubber floor and the smell of training clothes old, forgotten and dusty.

That was nine years ago. I didn't understand the meaning of those words. I was too dumb too hard too blind and too unwise to get them. Seeing them painted on that wall on Tuesday I was reminded of what felt like a whale mistake.

The person who wrote those two words now lives on the other side of the planet. I can't just call and ask if we could have a cup of coffee together and talk about the paper, the door, the smell and everything connected to them. We are seperated by an ocean, by 7.000 miles, by nine years and meanwhile even by languages. But still. If she would see me, I would go. I would cross the ocean for a cup of coffee and two spoons full of talk.

Clean Windows

Times when you feel worn out
come again and again
- every couple of months
every couple of years
the well runs dry for a while

you feel like an old leather cloth
that's been used too many times
to clean windows
and when you're picked up once more
to clean yet another one
you plainly refuse

refuse and crawl away into a dark
preferably warm corner
and you stop moving
until the worn-out feeling has left your body
your heart your soul your spirit
your cells your breath your mind
your voice your ear your eye
your luck your courage your sixth sense
and your seventh

and maybe while you lie there
huddled into your corner comfortably
and undisturbed - you might even
find the nourishment
that feeds you
find cuddling, find talking, find company

to come out again
to clean windows

mighty soon

Examples of Cool #2

I wrote the last "Examples of Cool" almost two years ago. That's not because I haven't been thinking about more posts or even forgot them, but because really cool people (or things that people do) are rare by definition. 

Before I pin down more examples of cool, let's take a closer look at what "cool" might actually mean: In the beautifully written book "Birth of the Cool" American poet-writer Lewis MacAdams traces the word back to its African origins and follows it all through Jazz, the Beat Generation and the wild 60's right into what's become "popular culuture" in the past three decades, when "Cool" sort of washed-out bit by bit. 

The origins of "Cool" root in music, in drumming: Keeping one's cool means to keep the rhythm, not to let oneself get carried away (by ego) but to think of the music and only the music. Later "Cool" becomes opposed by "Heat". Heat means disorder, chaos, legal problems, drug problems - not being in charge, not being in control. A cool person is reliable and keeps control even if things start falling apart. 

And yet another meaning is added: Cool needs faith. A person without a certain faith cannot be cool. One has to believe in oneself, in fate or in God (or all three of them) to be cool. In the end, cool is always related to action, like Marcel Duchamp cutting off a footlong piece of canvas of the painting "Stampede" by Jackson Pollock - just because it's too large for the wall in Peggy Guggenheims apartment - or like Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassady who traveled across the United States several times with no money at all and drank every image, every experience, every conversation they could get hold on. 

Simply to look cool hasn't got much to do with it: Even Snoopy knows that. Right now I have at least two examples of cool in store. To be continued.. 

Bild des Tages #46

Mosaik-Relief am Bürgerzentrum Ehrenfeld

Texte aus dem Schuhkarton #6

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