Framed And Defined

A Twisted View

"Let me tell you how she makes me laugh,... she had a word with angels in the past, they agreed to disagree...Every single thing's political."

If only the outro had been this compelling in Heerlen at the time!

Pastoral

Corsendonk - Belgium
The refectory entitled 'Ridderzaal/ Knights Hall' although it had been a monastery was draped with 17th century tapestry depicting pastoral scenes.

Some other sort of pastoral scene from TV this weekend, though Jean-Marie Berckmans was a punk poet.

Startled

 When all of a sudden reality still applies

Iconoclasm

So Charlemagne destroyed the Irminsul, either because he believed it to be possessed of some demonic or divine power or he knew it wasn't, either just for himself or to demonstrate something to others.
The cruel option would be that he destroyed it because he knew it wasn't divine and just to present himself as the hero.

Stillleben - Still Life - Nature Morte

almost and since I do not actually possess a green thumb, it was a prediction of things to come - alas ;).

Outlook

taken at my former school while my eldest daughter was attending it

"I mean that to train a citizen is to train a critic. The whole point of education is that it should give a man abstract and eternal standards, by which he can judge material and fugitive conditions. If a citizen is to be a reformer, he must start with some ideal which he does not merely obtain by gazing reverently at the unreformed institutions. And if any one aks, as so many are asking:'What is the use of my son learning about ancient Athens and remote China and medieval guilds and monasteries, and all sorts of dead and distant things, when he is going to be a superior scientific plumber in Pimlico?', the answer is obvious enough. 'The use of it is that he may have some power of comparison, which will not only prevent him from supposing that Pimlico covers the whole planet, but also enable him, while doing full credit to the beauties and virtues of Pimlico, to point out that, here and there, as revealed by alternative experiments, even Pimlico may conceal somewhere a defect.'" G. K. Chesterton, On Business Education

and I do not remember it having been there while I was a pupil

The Time Is Always Now

at least for the musician and the actor and most probably also for those fine artists, who are not into conceptual art, though I must profess that even a concept may happen on the spur of the moment and it's in fact the beholder who starts in both cases the process anew.

Though my son and me supported the great blues guitarist at the Castel Sant'Angelo in Rome who was asking for money to "buy a time machine and get back to the fifties" by applauding and giving four Euros to his cause, still I feel that no matter what time era his singular talent would be shining in the here and now. By the way one of the few instances I regreted not possessing a smartphone to record performances, his version of the Theme From Peter Gunn was compelling, just a man and his electric guitar.

"Christian Wolff"

Basically I'm only guessing at what complex a movie The Accountant is, though the story in itself isn't that complicated, but something I begin to see quite clearly is that some, a lot of (?) people do not see that "Christian Wolff" is a tragic character, apparently to some it feels like: "Wow, he is great in maths, he's a martial arts master, he's a great shot, he's a hero." Whereas I felt that he wanted to be anything but this, there is a hole in his life, there is a longing he cannot satisfy and it's in this one sentence: "I have trouble socializing with people...but I want to." And this pause, tells it all and the second part is of course the important part. If he felt fine with his incapility, there would be no tragedy. And his longing is also the reason why - I suppose - he loves Jackson Pollock.

Lalalalala Draw(ing)!

Contagious contagion and its expression by Naughty Boy and Emeli Sandé.



Have a wonderful day!

My Little Brown Bat

Flying around in my dreams or in Rome at the Ponte Sant'Angelo or upsetting my French friend Christine's mother, who believes that bats can get tangled up in women's hair.

Absolution

"There is a crack, a crack in everything that's how the light gets in." - Leonard Cohen

Brilliant in Brilliantine

I had a good laugh this morning. What the f***k was this?! Let's focus on the sitting figure, who is this supposed to be?! The blessing hand, the blue coat suggest Christ, the sitting posture Christ the King, on the banner there is ECC visible - "ECCE HOMO" the suffering Christ Leonard Cohen is singing about in You Want It Darker -, but then what is he doing wearing John the Baptist's coarse dress?! This actually feels so postmodern: Everything goes.
So if the content is not actually discernable, all that is left is the picture and what an effect - sometimes the motion is reversed. Wow ;)!

Vogelfrei - Free As a Bird

but in fact taken by its predominant meaning in German nowadays - the sinister side of freedom, which means being outlawed or not being protected by the law at all.

And yet there is one hell of a freedom and fun to be had here. "I'm a bird!" - "Till someone's gonna shoot me down."

"A Murderous Desire For Love"

maybe just as daring as to say "Love is my sin". - Incongruity at its best ;).

Those Miserable Rich Who

...are bored by their snobbery because their belief in social disparity renders them unable to enjoy and experience life in its full richness.

Eroticism

Last weekend I tried to watch a documentary about the sexploitation film and porn business in the 1970s and it turned out to be quite appalling. For what they did for example was to invite some apparently rich people who allegedly owned private jets to a place in Amsterdam and basically filmed them while they were having group sex. It was like watching people eat to quench one's hunger or appetite - and it looked really ridiculous and boring. This reminded me of a story my neighbour once told me: She and her husband were having sex, when suddenly their younger son appears and says: "This is unfair. I have to go to bed whereas you are doing exercises."

I'd rather have this.


Absynthe Minded - Heaven Knows from Absynthe Minded on Vimeo.

Lieve - Liebe - Love(ly)

Lieve Joris concludes that the big issue today is dehumanisation and that the only way to fight it, especially in people who have been dehumanised by their experiences and subsequently dehumanised others through their actions, is to love and forgive them as human beings.

Een dikke aanbeveling - Highly, Highly Recommended

A great interview: Wanderlust - Lieve Joris - a Flemish traveler and writer, who has lived in Congo, the Middle East and Eastern Europe

She remembers sitting at her desk in Amsterdam, talking to a rebel in Congo on the phone and to calm him describing the scene of people cruising outside her window. And despite the fact that she was well aware of the fact that he was a killer, an executioner, all the awful and terrible things he did, she still wanted to hear his side of the story, in order to understand.

And this passage is revealing and reflects me as well:
"Do you feel more Flemish or more Dutch?" - "I'm Flemish, very distinctively. The religion here (i.e. Amsterdam), the Protestantism, is nothing I recognize myself in. I'm really somebody who comes from the South - let's define this as Flemish. Sometimes people say that's typically Catholic" - "You feel rooted in Catholicism." - "Yes, of course, in the way I act, in my being, in the forgiveness. I think that's what very much defines me, culturally."

Lieve Joris - The Rebels' Hour

PS: "It's Father's Day and Everybody's Wounded"

"Christian Wolff" suffering from Asperger is exposed to two kinds of abuse. First his father who is unable to cope with his son's affliction and deals with it the only way he can by exposing him to the Spartan rule of what doesn't kill you just makes you stronger because he feel that is the only way to protect his son. Then after a funeral that went terribly wrong "Christian" gets arrested and the state discovering his mathematical skills uses him to go after terrorists. So again abused as a tool "Christian" learns the skills to make him a brilliant accountant and assuming the state should be a father two fathers have failed him so far.

In prison he gets to know Francis Silverberg, who introduces him into the criminal world of accounting for the mob, who also from the little glimpses we get of their relationship acts like a father to him. Once he learns that Silverberg was brutally tortured to death his path is set and he takes revenge. Yet and this is important he meets yet another father J.K. Simmons' Ray King. And there will be another "father" John Lithgow's Lamar Black, who will go to any length to protect his "child".

And this is only one aspect under which to watch this movie because it also deals with for example art. I certainly enjoyed it and will most probably watch it a second time.

Father Figures

True I did not want to write any more about The Accountant, but this came to my mind just now:

"Christian Wolff" suffering from Asperger is exposed to two kinds of abuse. First his father who is unable to cope with his son's affliction and deals with it the only way he can by exposing him to the Spartan rule of what doesn't kill you just makes you stronger because he feel that is the only way to protect his son. Then after a funeral that went terribly wrong "Christian" gets arrested and the state discovering his mathematical skills uses him to go after terrorists. So again abused as a tool "Christian" learns the skills to make him a brilliant accountant and assuming the state should be a father two fathers have failed him so far.

In prison he gets to know Francis Silverberg, who introduces him into the criminal world of accounting for the mob, who also from the little glimpses we get of their relationship acts like a father to him. Once he learns that Silverberg was brutally tortured to death his path is set and he takes revenge. Yet and this is important he meets yet another father J.K. Simmons' Ray King. And there will be another "father" John Lithgow's Lamar Black, who will go to any length to protect his "child".

And this is only one aspect under which to watch this movie because it also deals with for example art. I certainly enjoyed it and will most probably watch it a second time.

Authenticity

or ringing truth

Having seen many photos or even copies of Michaelangelo's Pietà I was overwhelmed to finally behold the original because no rendering comes close to it. There is an aura, a fragility, a strength radiating from it that no superficial copy can or could ever recapture - a sense of discovering this form which became an icon for the first time.

But this rings true in so many original works of art, one may drip like Pollock and feel the sense of liberation, but then Pollock did it because he owned it and others may only follow.

I've liked this song ever since I listened to it for the first time, and the truth is that it feels true, the loss is real and the transformation to the point - a monument errected in commemoration of a dead friend.

The Accountant or Mea Culpa

...or I swear I didn't know when I asked about the favourite painting.

There isn't really a lot to tell about the movie lest one would spoil it, though I'm kee to watch it again and this time in English because I feel tone, timbre, expression of the voice is very important to a performance as well.

Thus only this: At the end I was smiling because I remembered that Jochen Zellmann, my professor, once suggested to my fellow student Daniel to take a closer look at Jackson Pollock and he replied that he didn't like him because he believed Pollock's paintings to be too multicoloured, which made the rest of us laugh very hard.

I Did What I Did Before Love Came To Town

Powerful Image

to sit down in judgement - eschatology - the final things

The Art of Law

Fragments of a Moment

Insight

"Lieve Joris is a girl from the village...who went away from home to find home elsewhere. I don't know who I would be today if I hadn't travelled, if I hadn't met people who live in very different countries under very different circumstances and when you have lived with them for a while they become like you...This has been my occupation throughout my life, to have a better understanding, also for the perpetrator and the evildoer. Not an understanding that would exonorate them but that will bring me closer to understanding who we are."

Father Jansen's Outlook II

The nun and the toddler

An apparently Indian toddler dressed in a wide green skirt and a pink princess jacket was running across St. Peter's Square exposing the joy, curiosity and sudden speed that is characteristic to all toddlers. When she suddenly started to run the nun who was attending her had a hard time catching her and keeping her from running into the street and its traffic. When they returned nun and child were laughing all over their faces and obliviously the nun started playing with the child.

Father Jansen's Outlook

When departing for Rome Father Jansen told us that we would encounter a multitude of nations and cultures in Rome and adviced us to get inspired and at the same time be ambassadors of our nation.
Regretfully there were a lot of German people in Rome, several German dioceses with their respective bishops among them the arcdiocese of Cologne, the dioceses of Essen and Speyer. Since the arcdiocese of Cologne is important and powerful, I had the odd experience of climbing the cupola of St Peter's faintly hearing the German hymn "Großer Gott wir loben Dich" and even stepping out into the inner circle of the cupola to the sounds of this song. For beneath us was the Arcbishop of Cologne, Cardinal (!) Woelki, celebrating mass.

Life After Life

Jane Goodall - Is er leven na de dood/ Is there life after death?

Memories of Rome

Wandering around the Campo Santo Teutonico in thunder and lightening, literally stepping on graves, some of the tomb slabs being so old that on one of them only an engraved skeleton is faintly visible.
Discovering the burial site of a 'Bruderschaft/ brotherhood' where only two women are buried.

The Play's the Thing

in which to achieve unity, which is an interesting point because of the diversity of the members of the audience as explicitely referenced by Peter Brook. Yet the experience should be a common one, even more a unifying one.

Spine

Tragedy and Dignity

Thinking about Ferdinand von Schirach's play 'Terror' in which an army pilot shoots down a civil plane that has been hijacked by a terrorist in order to save the people in a stadium that is targeted by said terrorist. A trial ensues and the audience is the jury. This play is very popular in Germany and at the end of most performances so far the pilot has been acquitted, though most lawyers would argue that the pilot is guilty according to the German law since he violated the first article of the Grundgesetz, the German constitution: Die Würde des Menschen ist unantastbar/ The dignity of a human being is inviolable.
Since it is a play it made me think about tragedy and guilt in general. And at one point it became quite obvious to me that one purpose of a tragedy might be to make the audience and the character see what exactly went wrong and to see - and for the character to embrace - the guilt and this is essential to the character's dignity, it feels like only this way it might be restored.

Beuys' Logic

The artist Joseph Beuys loathed the developer who loved his art, because he was turning cheap housing into expensive, driving away the former tennants. Nevertheless Beuys sold his art to him, but only to financially support the tennants.

Scars

Some have to wear them openly because of the way and the place they were applied. There is a kind of strength to be had from it.

"Rage, rage against the dying of the light."

Souvenir

While passing some columns on our way to ascend the cupola of St Peter's Basilica in Rome I noticed some loose pieces of marble lying at  foot of one of them. I showed my daughter and she snatched one larger piece. So now we have a piece of the cathedral at home.

The Apostle's Toe and the Snail

As we were passing the statue of St Paul in front of the cathedral St Paul Outside the Walls I noticed something odd at the Apostle's right little toe. First thinking it was some plaque or at least something made of metal I approached and discovered that it was in fact the shell of a snail resting at the Apostle's toe.

Some Reassuring Experience

Usually people with machine guns guarding a place make me nervous. Instead of adding a feeling of security they make me feel afraid. But when the guard told us to put our hands up and express our joy, he made me for the first time feel secure in the presence of a heavily armed person, because he was a human being (and probably a little bit bored by his duty).

Oh What Fun We Had

Maybe I was sort of to blame for the actions of the soldier, a slight retort, for I was yahooing some people in a quad scull at the Tiber near the Castel Sant'Angelo the evening before.

Misericordes Sicut Pater

Just like the soldier with the machine gun outside St Paul Outside the Walls greeted us pilgrims: "Welcome to Rome! Put your hands up in the air and say: Juuhuuu!"

Alas it was our final day and time to say 'Arrividerci Roma', but oh the fun we had ;)!

Abstraction

Incidental Music

explained: The scene is always the same, a man going down the stairs into the basement but the lights do not work. Yet three different options of incidental music set a different tone.



First case: If the actor is little known he most likely will not survive the next sixty seconds - and yet he moves on
Second case: Something bad will happen but the children are allowed to watch.
Third case: Only the children do want to watch.

The Final Scene

of a great movie

What's Going On

Back in late 1989 or early 1990 I was walking across the Domplatz in Münster, when a man came up to me begging for money. Yet he did it with a sense of entitlement, like I owed him something, stating that he was from Eastern Germany and I had to support him financially just for being this. At the time I was very annoyed and realized - though I do not recall if I actually told him - that I have more in common with the Italian, Portuguese, even the Turkish people whom I grew up with than this man.

In the light of some recent events in Dresden I definitely wonder if this peculiar sense of entitlement deriving from some perceived birthright is still prevailing in some people.

What If

people started working together instead of competing with one another.

If There is

one artist of the 20th century who would be my favourite, Barnett Newman would be it.


Curating Barnett Newman: The Late Works from The Menil Collection on Vimeo.

And while you are at it, check out his writings as well. They are at once profound and hilarious. I certainly would have liked to know him, and indeed I once listened to somebody who actually did.

A Philosophical Question

"Scheint die Sonne auch für Nazis/ Does the sun also shine for Nazis?"

My answer: Since everything is but perception and a Nazi cannot escape his/ her distorted mind, they will never ever be able to simply enjoy it.

Cloud

"One day the rain fell down...





...two roads crossed two of a kind."

Blood Sugar Sex Magik

Happy Anniversary and this is my favourite!

Happy memories of dancing on the furniture  ;)!