Zimbabwe

Here is something that I enjoy very much.




:)

Leidenschaft

Today, a friend asked me

,,Was ist Leidenschaft in deinen Augen?"

What is passion in your eyes?

The german noun for passion, ,Leidenschaft' , comes from the verb ,leiden', to suffer. I replied

,,Man leidet, weil das, wofür man es tut, einem äußerst wichtig ist."

You suffer, because that for which you do is exceedingly important to you.

,,Das ist Leidenschaft" she answered

Now I'm the lazy poster...

...despite Johnathan's stellar reviews, I'm not up to writing anything respectable at the moment, so you have my silly fragment (which I deleted, then I realised, that everyone will see it on their dashboard, so I restored it), and now another translation. Again from Bertolt Brecht, a love poem.

Ich will mit dem gehen, den ich liebe.
Ich will nicht ausrechnen, was es kostet.
Ich will nicht nachdenken, ob es gut ist.
Ich will nicht wissen, ob er mich liebt.
Ich will mit ihm gehen, den ich liebe.

I want to go with the one I love.
I want not to calculate what it costs.
I want not to think about whether it is good.
I want not to know if he loves me.
I want to go with whom I love.



What do you think about that?

Fragment #1

I wish to remove "interesting" and "nice" from my vocabulary.

Or at least reserve them for matters, for whose mediocrity or for whose lukewarm effect on me I desire to express my disdain.

but it's tuff slipping out of old habits.

More (less depressing) excerpts from ,,Die Leiden des jungen Werthers"

This is for Brandon, to whom I recommended the book.

am 15. Aug.

,,Es ist doch gewiß, daß in der Welt den Menschen nichts nothwendig macht als die Liebe. Ich fühl's an Lotten, daß sie mich ungern verlöhre, und die Kinder haben keine andre Idee, als daß ich immer morgen wiederkommen würde. Heut war ich hinausgegangen, Lottens Clavier zu stimmen, ich konnte aber nicht dazu kommen, denn die Kleinen verfolgten mich um ein Mährgen, und Lotte sagte denn selbst, ich sollte ihnen den Willen thun. Ich schnitt ihnen das Abendbrod, das sie nun fast so gerne von mir als von Lotten annehmen und erzählte ihnen das Hauptstückgen von der Prinzeßinn, die von Händen bedient wird. Ich lerne viel dabey, das versichr' ich dich, und ich bin erstaunt, was es auf sie für Eindrükke macht. Weil ich manchmal einen Inzidenzpunkt erfinden muß, den ich bey'm zweytenmal vergesse, sagen sie gleich, das vorigemal wär's anders gewest, so daß ich mich jezt übe, sie unveränderlich in einem singenden Sylbenfall an einem Schnürgen weg zu rezitiren. Ich habe daraus gelernt wie ein Autor, durch eine zweyte veränderte Auflage seiner Geschichte, und wenn sie noch so poetisch besser geworden wäre, nothwendig seinem Buche schaden muß. Der erste Eindruk findet uns willig, und der Mensch ist so gemacht, daß man ihm das abenteuerlichste überreden kann, das haftet aber auch gleich so fest, und wehe dem, der es wieder auskrazzen und austilgen will."

August 15

It is but certain, that nothing in the world necessitates a person as love does. I feel it with Lotte, that she would be unhappy to lose me, that the children have no other idea, than that I would always come again tomorrow. Today I had gone out, to tune Lotte's piano, yet I couldn't get around to it, for the little ones hounded me for a fairy tale, and Lotte herself said, I should do their will. I cut them their evening bread, which they receive from me almost as happily as from Lotte and told them the main part from the princess, who is served by hands. I learn a lot doing this, of that I assure you, and I am amazed, what impressions it makes on them. Because sometimes I have to invent an incidence point, which the second time I forget, they say, that was different last time, so that I now practice telling them unchanged, in a singing syllable fall to recite them away on one twine. I have learned from this how an author, through a second changed edition of his story, and even if it has become poetically so much better, must necessarily damage his book. The first impression finds us willing, and the human is made in such a way, that one can convince him of the most adventerous thing, which yet immediately takes such a firm hold, and woe to the one who will scratch it out and blot it out.
_________________________________________________________

am 9. Mai

,,...Ich gieng den Fluß hinab, bis an einen gewissen Hof, das war sonst auch mein Weg, und die Pläzgen da wir Knaben uns übten, die meisten Sprünge der flachen Steine im Wasser hervorzubringen. Ich erinnere mich so lebhaft, wenn ich manchmal stand, und dem Wasser nachsah, mit wie wunderbaren Ahndungen ich das verfolgte, wie abenteuerlich ich mir die Gegenden vorstellte, wo es nun hinflösse, und wie ich da so bald Grenzen meiner Vorstellungskraft fand, und doch mußte das weiter gehn, immer weiter, bis ich mich ganz in dem Anschauen einer unsichtbaren Ferne verlohr. Siehe mein Lieber, das ist doch eben das Gefühl der herrlichen Altväter! Wenn Ulyß von dem ungemessenen Meere, und von der unendlichen Erde spricht, ist das nicht wahrer, menschlicher, inniger, als wenn jezzo jeder Schulknabe sich wunder weise dünkt, wenn er nachsagen kann, daß sie rund sey.
Nun bin ich hier auf dem fürstlichen Jagdschlosse. Es läßt sich noch ganz wohl mit dem Herrn leben, er ist ganz wahr, und einfach. Was mir noch manchmal leid thut, ist, daß er oft über Sachen redt, die er nur gehört und gelesen hat, und zwar aus eben dem Gesichtspunkte, wie sie ihm der andere darstellen mochte.
Auch schäzt er meinen Verstand und Talente mehr als dies Herz, das doch mein einziger Stolz ist, das ganz allein die Quelle von allem ist, aller Kraft, aller Seligkeit und alles Elends. Ach was ich weis, kann jeder wissen.- Mein Herz hab ich allein."

May 9th

...I walked down the river, until reaching a certain yard, that was always my path, and the place where we boys practiced bringing forth the most jumps of flat stones in the water. I remember so vividly, how I sometimes stood and observed the water, with what wonderful ideas I followed it, how adventurously I imagined the regions to which it would flow, and how I soon found borders to my power of imagination, and yet it had to go farther, always farther, until I completely lost myself in the viewing of an unseeable, faraway place. See, my dear friend, that is but precisely the feeling of the fathers of old! When Ulysses speaks of the unmeasured sea, and of the endless earth, is that not truer, more human, more innerly profound, than when now every schoolboy considers himself to be wondrously wise, merely because he can recite that she is round.
Now I am here at the princely hunting lodge. It is still quite easy to live with the lord, he is quite true, and simple. What sometimes hurts me, is that he often speaks of things, that he has only heard and read, and at that from the perspective, in which the other one wanted to present them to him.
He also treasures my understanding and talents more than this heart, which is but my only pride, which is quite alone the source of everything, of all power, of all bliss, and of all misery. Ah what I know, everyone can know.- I alone have my heart.

Re: The Moment Jars

The brain is a microcosm creating its own stories. People then live out these stories.
- Kirima Seiichi

If I had to define what a moment is, I would say it is the individual perspective of a specific event of which one has a memory. Maybe that doesn't sound very interesting, yet it is, when one considers how much we experience in our lives and how much we subsequently forget. If something stays with us, this is not without reason. It has somehow affected or impressed us. I suppose this might be different for people with photographic memories, or maybe for everyone- I have long been of the opinion that generalisations generally are dangerous.

I often stop and think about this, even while I'm in a completely ordinary, uninteresting situation. I feel I lose so much. Constantly. I realise that this is inevitable and that troubles me. Yet perhaps it must be so- in order for there to be an extraordinary, there must be an ordinary, and it would seem our life is spent creating this situation.

I remember so little from my childhood. I know it was good. I know my parents, they are good people. I see the photos, the child is always smiling, the child who was I, and yet is a stranger to me.

I am sometimes told by others that I have a great memory. But they are only comparing me to themselves.

In a dining area on a college campus, five, six years ago, I became painfully aware of this evanescence. I stared at a potted plant, more specifically its small green leaves, each one perhaps two inches long... you know what, I don't really know anymore what the plant looked like. The moment wasn't about the probably quite ordinary piece of decoration. It was about my desire to remember. I stared at it and thought, I will remember this moment, I will not let it be devoured by the void of time, I will keep and cherish it, it belongs to me.

I seem to have no choice but to agree with Devon, for it is surely a fact: a moment cannot be recreated. All we have is "the illusion of memories" (Kirima) Photos and videos can be surprisingly ineffectual triggers, nothing more.

I find it difficult to decide which moments are my most cherished. I cherish them all, they make up the the story- my story. Yet if I had to....

I might choose those in which I wept.












A reply to this post

Omaggio a Burri

I just read this in a CD-booklet, I assume it's from the composer, Salvatore Sciarrino, and I thought I would quickly type it here before returning the CD, since it's something I often think about:

The music of today barely touches the wider public. However, it is untrue that the public does not understand it. Maybe the problem is that people perceive immediately just how new it is, and that's why they reject it. If music today has a value, it is that of becoming closer to the thoughts and sounds of our age. But to follow music means to devote one's mind to it. In order to understand the language of music the idea of approaching it purely as a pastime is of no use whatsoever. If, therefore, we can learn how to concentrate on the transformation of sounds, of figures, then music will reveal its secrets to us.

We do not need to expend any great energy: only a moment is required of us. A moment in which it is necessary to empty the mind in order to fill it with something else, as when we observe a cloud scurrying overhead.