the problem with projecting...

One night when he was out, his eyes met hers across a crowded dancefloor. As much as he was trying to avoid being with anyone, in spite of himself, he felt it happening. As their eyes met once again, he lost himself in a montage of romantic projections. Do you know the kind I mean? It's the future one can paint, between oneself and a stranger.



I think of writing to my friend, of saying to stay clear, to proceed with caution. And yet...I can't blame him. My views may have changed on such matters, but I'd be lying if I said i didn't understand.

It's like when I hooked up with him, who I don't even talk to anymore. Waking up the morning after, wishing I had something other to wear than the cocktail dress from the night before. I remember, hazily recounting in my head, what was not an altogether satisfying sexual experience, and yet still, I was doing it again...

I watched myself making polite conversation in his minimalist mitte flat. My mind was elsewhere. I was secretly fantasising about future mornings. We would sit at this table, sip dark strong coffee, lazily finishing our breakfast while listening to nu soul or hip hop. He would talk about what meetings he had to get on with that day, and I would talk about gigs I had coming up.

Maybe days after we'd meet at some film screening, and I would be his exotic new girlfriend. I'd get on so well with everyone, they wouldn't even mind that I didn't speak much german. When he came to my gigs and met my friends, all the auslander girls would be impressed that I scored a german boyfriend. Everyone would remark on how compatible we were. It would all be so easy, so effortless. We'd be perfect together, obviously. .

And I would think all this, after I'd known him for barely 24 hours , just after walking through his door.

But this was just a way of fooling myself, embarrassed by the reality. This was just one in a series, of inconsequential one night stands, with someone I had met in that least romantic of places, a night club. In weeks to come, him or I, would consider the other's number, once on our phone display, as something to ignore..

The truth is, you don't have any idea of a future with someone when you meet them. And if I've learned anything, it's very very dangerous, to project.... Yes you may feel a click , a connection, a chemistry, but when its really relevant, charged with true potential, in that very moment, all you're feeling... is that moment.

You can't begin to think beyond it then.

It is those moments, with that person, where there's no room in your head to consider, to conceive what will follow: That in five months time, the hand that just extended for you to shake, will be curved around your waist as if it belongs there...

Because by then, it does.

grocery shopping

There is rarely any food in my flat. Usually I would overcome this matter by eating out or at least buying takeaway, but it being the end of the month, I was pretty skint.

so he suggested that he could cook for us instead. But cooking requires groceries, and at the suggestion of grocery shopping together, his eyes turned... frantic.

You don't want me to go with you...

What?!.. No...

grocery shopping together...its too...domestic?

He laughed, attempting to deny it. I was unconvinced.

And when.. when you first encounter someone, when you find yourself attracted to them, you will imagine that first kiss. Then you may envision the embrace, the discarding of clothes. You may think of mornings after, that are cozy rather than awkward. Or maybe you think of being out with them, seeing them across the room, animated, talking to friends, thinking, I can't wait until we get back into bed...

But you do not, you do not fantasise about.... grocery shopping together.

Well, what if you go instead?

I'd go but I'm not cooking. I wouldn't know what to get.

A lull follows.

He pulls on his coat, plays with his hair, adjusts his glasses,

I guess.. it's just... It's been a long time since I've been grocery shopping with someone.

And I think about another person.. How he always needed to go to Tescos, just as I'd arrived in London. And how, any sense of joy in seeing him,was soon after obstructed by the frustration struggling to follow, laden down with my luggage. When he would always ask

Do you want anything?

As I'd mumble

not really

As it became clear to him, that the only thing I really wanted, was for him to make his way to the check out, so I could make my way with my heavy suitcase, out the door.

And then I think of how for my mother, going to the supermarket, was some kind of social event. How she knew every single sales assistant by name, and how they knew hers as well. How she loved it if I went with her, because then she could introduce me to all of them, until i wanted to crawl under her shopping cart, begging to wait outside for her on the pavement.

My father never did the grocery shopping then. But now mum has no interest in driving, so every week he gamely he makes it down the aisles, squinting at my mother's list, often failing to find some of its contents. When I go with him, he is always impressed that I understand, what to him is a mysterious logic. How is it that I know what and where all of it is? He considers me clever, treating me like a supermarket shopping genius.

But back to how my story began...

In the end, I do go with him. And when we walk in, I get distracted by red wines on offer, and he goes off to buy vegetables or spatzle or something, And actually, the whole expedition is over fairly quickly. Its all really quite painless. We remark on this on the way back to my place, amused at making it through this new threshhold of our relationship, as we once again, return through my front door.

inscription

I wanted to show him an excerpt , a few lines of dialogue that I felt rhymed with me. When I found the book, tucked in the back corner of my battered book shelf, I flicked through the front, searching not for the quote, but curious to see if there was an inscription (most of the hardback books i have are inscribed, generally being gifts from friends or family, or former lovers)


But the title page, and those that followed, were blank. As I look for the quote I want to share with him, I am thrust back into the romantic context of purchasing this book. I had bought it at a reading, and had it signed by the author for a girl i was seeing at the time. I couldn't afford to buy two copies then, so only hers had the inscription. i must have bought this one later, meaning no inscription from the author, meaning mine... was blank.


I think of her, this ex lover, and think of her having the book signed by one of our favourite authors. we're still on good terms the girl and I, but maybe not quite friends.

Suddenly thinking of her owning the signed copy, I feel irritated, jealous.
I try to shake the memory off.


He's asking me if I've found the excerpt i wanted to share. I find the quote, and read it to him.

sounds like you

he says.


This cheers me up. I'm happy he sees that.


Days later, I'm tidying the living room. I come across the book, and before I find a place for it on my bookshelf, I open it again. I flip through the front pages. This time I notice something. On the very first page, inside the cover, very faint as it had been written in pencil, is an inscription.

"Whoever tries to find refuge in any one place, in any one moment, will
never be where they think they are. xx N."

And then I feel guilty. I had completely forgotten him, this long lost
friend.

Now more than ever, this quote feels especially poignant. I put the book back on the shelf, wondering on the whereabouts of this long lost friend, thanking him, for this perfect missive from the past..

addictive...

He makes it so easy, so pleasurable, so simple and wonderful to be, exactly where I am, with him, present. Present in moment after moment. But then those moments with him are so delicious, so addictive that it becomes very difficult not to push, to make them extend.

Last week he said, he needed time apart to focus. he needed to get back to working.

And i did too. It seemed logical, beneficial for both of us.

After all, It would only be until the weekend.

It would only be for a week.

Of course we could handle that.

But in days, he was calling, and as for me, it took no consideration to find myself walking into the rainy streets, winding towards him again.

Then days later he was saying again, he needed to take a little break, get focus. And I agreed.

So today I am writing, and cleaning, and organizing and planning. Today I can congratulate myself on being terribly productive but, i can' t help it, i'm still thinking of, being with him again. And I tell myself that sometimes, sometimes the waiting, is part of the pleasure .

Nicht Falsches...

I am running over my lines, before being called to the stage. He comes over to me, and without introducing himself, or even uttering any form of greeting, looks me dead in the eyes and says

Nicht falsches sagen.

I looked perplexed. So this time he says

Nichts falsches auf der Buhne sagen.

And the thing is, Had he said this in english, I would have written him off. Had he said this in in english, i would have ignored him, maybe even told him to fuck off. Who says such a thing to a stranger before they perform? What right has he to...

But in german, in german the statement comes across as almost official, took on a profound relevance, made me stop and meditate. Stopped me from my line check and had me repeating as a mantra to myself
nichts falsches nicht falches nicht falsches

Do I, Do I speak.. Do I write.. truthfully? Is this real? Is this honest? Is this true? If words have power, do i feel power in the words I choose to say?

Before, being entertaining was paramount to me. Before all i wanted was to come across as a clever kind of post modern cabaret. It's addictive this feeling of entertaining. It's glorious the sensation of making people laugh. I've often said, causing hundreds of people in a venue to laugh, is easily like the best orgasm you've ever had (And I know comedians who may argue its even better than that).

Lately however, I'm less interested in doing that. I enjoy it, the art of amusing a crowd, but i want something else now, something more. I want to reveal something about myself, unravel new elements, i want to engage on a level that is personal, intimate. More than anything ,I have a desire to be truthful to be honest. So for this reason, the words from this random stranger become powerful, play on and on with a crisp insistance in my head.

nichts falsches nichts falsches nichts falches.

What's so funny?

She was always the funny one. She was certainly, out of all of them, one of the most entertaining. Many envied her for this. Then one day she came with a different sensibility. A new mood within her prevailed. One day, she went to the slam, her name met with rapturous applause. She stepped up to the mic, and by way of introduction said..

This text is... sad

The crowd...laughed

I am very serious

They all laughed again (this time somewhat nervously)

She began. They only half listened. They did not hear her words. They laughed because they wanted to, needed to. More importantly, they expected to laugh. So regardless of what she said, they laughed and laughed and laughed again.

She paused, asked them

Why are you laughing?

(a few anxious giggles)

Are you listening to me? I am quite serious. This is a serious text.

(a confused smattering of chuckles)

Today I don't feel like being funny. Today I am sad

The crowd, the crowd did not feel comfortable with the sound of that. As she cotinued her text, they no longer laughed. There was a growing sense of tension, of unrest. When the next performer stepped to the mic, beginning with a funny introduction, a relieved laughter spilled through the audience again.

Meanwhile, she who had been on before, ordered a beer , stood alone at the bar. Applauding politely for the performer as he finished, she took a sip of her drink, lit a ciggarette, sighed inaudibly, before staring longingly at the door.

the run in, the confession, the accident

I hadn’t seen her in years.
She was just as, if not more, attractive than I remembered.

And from the glassy sheen of her brown black eyes...I could see that she was seriously drunk.

The look she gave me when I greeted her, made it abundantly clear she had no idea who I was,

but in any case if I was unknown to her, she seemed more than happy to make my acquaintance.

I wanted to play along, but couldn’t control my amusement.

lady... hey!...its me! remember...?

her eyes, shifting and focusing, locking into place as if working out a complex equation and then...she throws her arms around me, i think we may even end up holding hands.

oh my god oh my god oh my god oh my god it’s you!

she says.

the bar I’d been heading to was closed. I manage to signal to the friend I’m with, that I’ve been kidnapped by this girl, as he joins her friend and we all walk along. And now she is talking in a breathless ramble, zigzagging down the pavement, clinging to me. I try my best to help her maintain her balance.

she tells me how happy she is to see me, but that she’d been very sad lately. she doesn’t want to tell me why, but she is very sad and most of all, she is very very drunk. i nod and smile and tell her again and again that its ok, that i'm happy to see her as well. funny to run into her really, as i don’t even live in the neighborhood , or the city, or the country any more. but then its such a small world isn’t it

she’s very drunk she says. maybe we should pass on having another drink i say. my friend seconds this, its thursday, we’re both skint. we’d really be fine with turning the corner and walking home.

but no no no no no the girl says. she hasn’t seen me in ages, and she’s not working tomorrow and all she wants is one or two more drinks, and her other friends have left so please could we not be so boring and walk five minutes with her to a very very very near pub.

so me, my friend, and this girl’s friend walk along. its a much longer walk than the promised five minutes. she gets my attention again. makes sure we’re walking a little further ahead, needs to make sure no one else is listening. its very important i listen. its very important i hear what she has to tell me. there’s something she’s always wanted to tell me, she can only tell me now, because she’s very drunk.

i really used to fancy you.

she says.

I say that.s very sweet of her to say, and feeling her struggle to walk straight, am about to suggest again, that maybe we should skip this drink. I’m feeling more and more like we should meet another time. but no no no we can go just-for-one just-for-one and did i hear her? did i hear her say she used to really fancy me? and no she isn’t a lesbian. that would be fine but she isn’t. and actually l’m the only girl she’s ever fancied but it used to really mess with her head.

I’m not sure what to say or how to take this.

but its ok because she’d worked out it wasn’t a sexual thing. she just really liked me then and thought i was really cool and beautiful, but its ok now.

it used to really mess with my head.

its cool, don’t worry about it.

And i appreciate its important for her to tell me this, but now more than ever, as her monologue repeats, it starts to make me feel incredibly anxious.

we get to the bar, we just about get last orders. afterwards she suggests that me and my friend go with her to another late night bar. but we don’t really have money, and its not really walking distance. but she says please, and she’s paying the cab fare, and she’ll get our drinks. and she’s so excited we’re going with her. she’s not working tomorrow. ok ok ok we say, and relent.

at the bar , after she gets a round, she disapears to the dance floor. i try to find her for a while, and then give up, going instead to the smoking courtyard. i get talking to a boy i think is my friend Florian from Berlin, only to discover it is really my friend Naruna’s friend Etienne from paris. Then some lovely east london gay boy is talking to me about how everyone here is spanish. shhh just listen he says. so i listen and he’s right and hey..

what happened to that girl I came in with? I ’m a little worried. should i look for her? should i be worried? no of course not my new friend says, its a nice local bar, a gay bar. nothing bad can happen. what bad thing could happen to a girl in a nice local gay bar.? relax. smoke another cigarette. he lights all of my cigarettes. I really like talking to him, this is turning out to be nice chilled evening and then..

a bouncer walks up to me and asks me to come out right now, something had happened to the girl i came in with.

when i walk out the front doors the first thing i see is the police cars, then the ambulance. i walk to the police car and peer through the back windows to see my long lost friend. her right eye puffed up and swollen. as if she’d been punched there. what happened? the police regard me with piercing glares. she was very drunk, how could i have left her by herself? she had walked out and hit her head on the pavement. if i could be at all helpful maybe i could convince her to get into the ambulance.

she insists everyone is making a big deal out of nothing. i somehow coax her into the ambulance. sobered by the sight of her , too broke to even get the bus. i walk the thirty or forty minutes it takes to get home. smoking the last of a ten pack of cigarettes. and all i can hear in my head, is the echo of the ambulance sirens, and her saying again and again.

i used to really fancy you , you know? you’re the only girl i have ever fancied.

and it really used to mess with my head...

the court jester of the U8

He sat down next to me in the ubahn, too tall to unfold into the fold out seats. He in the bright red jeans, flouro yellow trainers, sweatshirt of lime green.

His head is shaved, and clamped around it, are ginormous headphones. They are purple. This I think, is a lot of colour to be wearing, for a grey January afternoon.

He grins at the girls sat across from us. He raises his eyebrows coyly, turns and smirks at me.

As he lowers his eyes to his hand, I follow them and see what he holds, a rubix cube.The toy looks battered, definitely well used. The stickers have been peeled and reapplied many many times. He begins rotating it in his hands, makes fleeting glances at the girls and me again. Its important to him I suppose, that we are watching. His hands are flying over the thing, twisting, turning, locking.

1,2,3, red squares in a row.

Swwwwwwoooop

1,2,3,4 squares of yellow

his head is bobbing to the music only he can hear, I wonder if he is solving the thing to a beat.

Meanwhile the cube is twisting and turning. Every which way turning.

And in no less than two stops, he’s close to completion. Only two rows of mismatched colours left. With one swift thwwwwack the cube…snaps

A lone piece, blue, yellow and green, flies in the air,

lands just left of the two girls across from us.

The one closest to us smirks, picks the piece up. As she hands it back to him, it looks like he might be blushing. He takes it back, mock graciously bows his head, says

“thank you”

and as soon as he’s snapped it back into place, he’s off. The girls across are absorbed in his action. By the next stop, its all flush. Every side monochrome. In three stops. I think

well done.

He looks at the girls, he looks at me. The train pulls into kottbusser tor.

And as we all rise to exit, He throws the cube in the air and catches it, before strolling out ahead of us, adjusting his headphones and running up the stairs.

But the problem is...

If I am trying to be in the moment, and being in the moment, makes me want to write about that moment.

and thinking about writing about the moment, takes me out it.

and what I want to reflect when I write, is a total representation of it, (outside of wanting to write about it),

but the desire to write, prevents me from being close to it,

(the very thing I need and want to write about),

Then what then?

And If he writes as he feels, but there are feelings he doesn’t express to me, and I know his writing is of the heart, clear and real, then how can I not react to the words he writes?

And if I do react, how will this effect how I write? But then the writing will become a response of writing to writing, not of touch and of feeling, it will become less real, a facsimile of something.

It will be less of us and more of what we are writing.

Then what then?

Why I don't go out in Mitte...

Hey-ey!

So I came here with Jacob. I’m friends with Karsten, who’s like running this party, and when I arrived I saw him do his whole emcee with the band thing, and that was cool, but I saw you were on the line up on the flyer, and I thought I’d finally get to see you perform. Yeah.. Yeah.. Yeah… I don’t know.. I think I’ve been here too long. No not here, I mean berlin… Its like, I don’t know how much you know about American hippie culture, but that band just split up, so there’s like this other party happening over at Bar 25 and it’s so end of an era, because Bar 25 is closing, and it makes me think of the rio, which is like this crazy place that used to be open, but closed ages ago, and peaches was always there, but you know it closed and anyway , whats up with this party??

What??

oh the other room is literally next door, they’re playing disco and hip hop, no but seriously, I totally thought this place would be packed with hot heterosexual graffiti writers… but clearly not.. whatever.. you’ve got to meet my friend Jacob, I wasn’t even going to come out tonight but then he called me and had drugs so whatever . he’s so beautiful. I love him…. ,

Revision

You make me rewrite my rules. You are always having that effect. You calm me, quiet any anxiousness, make me pause, revel with me in this. A new part of me is evolving, a playful side of myself, a bold side of myself celebrate it.

You made me want this, This is what I want now, you are showing me. I am laughing inside, humming, making up silly songs and sound effects. I call out to myself:

go on and do it. drink it in. savour it.

don’t apologise. Don’t make excuses. Hold on. Be now. Be here. Be here.

if you stare into the void, the void stares into....

one my favourite quotes from the film Humoresque

“ A French philosopher once cited ten thousand ways to commit suicide, He missed one:

Falling in love with an artist”

Sometimes when I listen to myself, I am not sure if it is my head or my heart talking.

It’s crude to make this distinction I know, but it can shed light on the influences of your actions. And there is always a voice inside of me that says:

Do what you’re most afraid of! Be brave.!

But I am not brave. And I am afraid. and I am especially afraid of…

falling in love with an artist.

definitely avoid writers

a panicked version of my inner voice adds.

You would be crazy to fall for a writer.
Every outcome is fraught with emotional danger!!!

They will always love their work more than you!

And what if they are a terrible writer and constantly wanting feedback from you? Or what if they don’t like your work? Or like it so much they start to write like you?

What if they write about you? This is the worst certainly. Think of if and how it could all end between you, and then what would they say, what could they write? What if they write about everyone else they know except you?

(is this a good or bad thing, I’m not actually sure)

What if they are a better writer?

What if they become hugely successful, So much so that when you go to events, your work is invisible, you are no longer a writer, you are merely the partner of a writer, the best case maybe,to those who know both of you, you are the failed or lesser important writer, who just happens to be involved with a successful writer?

And even then if your career then takes off, others will say it was just because of you being the partner of...and then..

and then I think, this is not my head or my heart speaking,

and relaxed in this knowledge, I decide not to listen.

immediacy, artistic shapeshifting, and documentation...

I used to film every single gig I performed. I told myself this was the only way I was going to learn anything, direct myself, be objective. The problem was, it became an obsession. I didn’t know how a gig went until I was home after, watching back the video on my computer screen.

The problem with documenting is, the documentation begins to supercede the reality. The documentation is the memory. Sometimes when I look at pictures from my childhood I think, do I really remember this? Is this static image the only memory? The mind plays tricks when we let it, when we want it, when its nicer to think we remember than to admit we forget.

When other performers asked me to film their performances for them, sometimes I would feel a need to tell them this: That the truth of a moment has many sides. The truth is somewhere between how you felt at that moment performing, and what you see afterwards on the screen.

I left the medium of film for theatre. It’s a comical chain of events, because a long time ago, I left the medium of theatre for film. I thought, I don’t want to work in an art form that only occurs in a moment, seen once or twice. I wanted to create visual stories that could be seen again and again, captured for all time.

I remember I used to always say, a film is forever, even a silly little short can be programmed at some odd hour, on some strange channel on the other side of the world in ten years time. A live performance, when it finishes a run, dies.

So why did I change my mind?

I now work in a form that is intimate and immediate, temporary. I write a piece, and I need no one but myself to complete it.

I can rehearse it and perform it within days or weeks of writing it, If I don’t like it, If it doesn’t work the way I initially intended, I can easily scrap it and start it again.

If you are with me in that audience, if I engage with you, and you connect with me, you may not remember my words in months that follow, but you will remember a feeling, you will remember my presence. And if I have done what have set out for, hopefully, I will have imbued that instant with a total passion for that moment. Why did this matter to me so much,? Well maybe because outside of performing, I had begun to find being present in a moment much more of a test..

At any rate, I am no longer obsessed with filming my performances, What matters more is how I feel the moment I start and finish a set, my pauses and the sensation of my breaths..

a secret for *you*

Are you ready?

Are you sure you want to hear it?

Well its like this...I know...where this is all going...

No I can’t tell you.

Not yet.

No I can’t. I’m sorry….

Its kind of like making a wish. You see, if I tell you, it might not happen. And I want it to happen. I know it could go there, that I could take you there with me, So I have to forget about it a for a while.

Don’t you think that fate is a funny thing? Fate is only what is most likely to happen, if events continue in the pattern they seem to be. But there are always factors we can not be aware of, And that, that could change .. everything.

So until then I have to keep it to myself, content with the idea that maybe, maybe I know where this is all going..

I’ve got to go now. Excuse me…

Back???

Welcome Back! Do you ever go back? When are you going back? When will you be back? Are you back? Are you coming back? When are you going back? So, how long has it been… since you’e been..back?

Why is it that all questions that end with the word “back” always leave me feeling so nervous?

bengtsson by bengtsson

A week or so ago, I had a writing date with Martin and Victor Bengtsson. This meant that we met in a café' , only to ignore one another completely, and write. After a couple hours of this, I suggested a writing game, we would write about the moment we were in, what our impressions of one another were. This is what we came up with.. .


PAULA'S INTRO...

(they)
they occupy that corner of the café' as if it belongs to them. Heads down, hiding behind lit up apple icons, lost in whatever narrative they may be creating, making all the space around them theirs. I notice now they look similar. Definitely a kind of likeness. I think to myself.. They could be brothers, but then why not sit together? and if not, why even bother coming to the same place?

(he: victor)
he is all concentration. Painfully serious. Focused on, lost in the words that flow and stop and start. He is considering, he is certain. . He came here to get away from something. But being here just makes him think of it more. Its always that way when you leave a place.

(Him: martin)
typing typing typing. So loud his typing. Staccato, frenetic.
he types like he's playing a drum kit. He's found a new percussion. When I type like that, when my fingers are racing over keys, it is so they can catch up with the pace of my thoughts. He likes to shut himself off, not just a computer, but headphones. Block it all out, he wants to. His foot taps to a beat I cannot hear. And then I hear him laugh to himself. A grin spreads across his face, and more than anything. It makes me nervous

(I, we)
I feel like I’m trespassing. I feel like I have entered this world of them. We make up a new formation. Now we make a triangle, I wonder if somehow just by sitting here, these words we write independently of each other,
will somehow, connect.

MARTIN (AS PAULA)

I try to understand the people in the café.
What on earth they are thinking about?
Look! Two handsome boys just came in! What if I attempt a little challenge?
Ask they if the want to try to read my mind.?
”Read my mind boys. ”
OK, that´s a good start of the poem.


Read my mind boys. I might finish that one after…I…oh no…something is happening…
No!
I see myself from an outside perspective. What a mind fuck? Hello! Can you hear me Paula? I´n the outside Paula screaming at you. I want contact. I want you to know that I'm without a body. A ghost. But wait, with this liquid light body I can move around.


I wonder what the two boys are doing, I´m gonna fly over and oversee there writing.
Swisssch. (sound of a weightless body moving.)


Wow. He´s writing META. That´s so sexy. META writing. Just taste the word. META.
He´s writing about a girl.
He´s good.
I mean his fingers are good. Move fast over the letters.
He´s dancing between F & I now.


Like. FIFIFIFiFiFiFIFiFiFiFiFiFiFiFiFiFiFi


Very ground breaking. Original.
It´s probably for his new theatre masterpiece.

Ok, enough, don´t get caught Paula, move on. There´s another boy, on the red couch.

He´s actually even better looking.

”Hello Stranger, I´m 2 centimetres from your face and you don´t see me.
How does it feel? Can you feel the magnet field between my ghost persona and the top of your forehead?
I wonder if it´s even possible to get in to the head. I´ll try.


Chrcuk. (sound of getting in to someone else’s head).


Wow what a strange place.
It´s like abandoned. Dancing echoes. Even shadows have left.
He must be troubled this young man. Weird...he looks so nice and friendly.

I´m gonna do it. I´m gonna write a poem about this strange place. About this young and empty man. It´s gonna start like.
”Read my mind girls”


It´s gonna be connected to ”Read my mind boys”
but have a different gender focus.


In the poem, the boy is going to fall in love with someone he sees on TV.
And he´s going to be able to send her thoughts while she´s reading the news
& all the news are going to become news only for him.
News about watermelons & signs.
Whispered sentences of knowledge.

VICTOR (as victor)

My thinking.
Weirdly, I think it´s very exciting sitting here with Paula and Marty.
It´s giving me issues about not being a good writer. I find my mind comparing and competing. It´s very interesting to feel the feeling of envy, deal with it. I thought I had just now,. Its as if this makes my writing better or worse sitting here with them. Just now I came to the understanding that it will make it better.
Since they have a nice energy,
and they make me feel safe and secure.

After I finish dealing with my envy and comparing myself to them, I realize that I look up to both of them for their work efforts. And maybe that is what I’m truly envious of, their way of working so hard. I am not a hard worker. Paula and Marty are hard workers. Compared to me, I’m more of a slacker.

This is good though, being close to them, because I feel like I can't fuck around that much. it makes me realize I have to work on my discipline. Stop imagining that I will work the way they do. I need to find my own process of working. Maybe that is slack? Or maybe it is actually this:
Being close to them,but not at the same table.
This works for me.


Okay , now that I´be dealt with my feelings towards them, I came to the understanding of love. The energy gets better when you are together with friends and family. It's helping me cross barricades in my conscious and unconscious.. Love ya guys! Funny that I’m so self-absorbed that I chose to write bout myself.
What does that say about me as a character?
That I care more about my own thoughts than of others?
Maybe so.


Are my thoughts that valuable then? I hope so. It makes me uncomfortable thinking of my thoughts as not valuable. I think as a lesson to my self , I need to build up more confidence, and make my thoughts very pricey. They deserve it Like the soldiers in Iraq after fighting a war,
they deserve a good holiday.


When will my thoughts go on a holiday?
And where would they go?
Caribbean? Africa?
Maybe New York. Or maybe that's a stressful place for thinking?
Caribbean sounds better. Yeah Dominican it is then.

I need to buy my thoughts a trip to the Dominican islands.
They can sit there and sip on a gin and tonic as a reward for good thinking.
Good thinking Vic. Love ya.

saudades

I see my former self waiting for this. Sometimes before I fall asleep, sometimes even lying next to you, I feel her longing for that moment when we will meet. And sometimes, I see another doppelganger, in a future without you, missing this moment when you were there.

I board a plane. I go away from you. I board a coach and go further. I board a train and go further still. But I am travelling with the thought of you. It is close to me always. It is vivid, visceral. It haunts me with its form. If I focus on it enough, it is almost as if you are there. But you aren't there,

so I ask myself...

why did I go away?

The only way I can see you now, is on a screen. We exchange stories about our days. We tease and listen and laugh. I hear your voice, but I can't touch you. The more we speak, the more it frustrates. I find myself thinking, maybe if I smash through the screen I can graze my fingers against the stubble of your face. And in the early hours of hazy mornings when I wake, I toss and turn and search for you. but all I find is empty space. How can I, when can I, see you ?

All I want is to see you ...

No, its not that I just want to see you, I want to draw in the warmth of you. I want to wrap it arround me. I want to wear it. be smug with it, plush and rich as a floor length fur coat. and my eyes want to speak to you, want to whisper to you secretly what my words never say.

You are in the spaces of conversations I lose interest in. You are in the quiet pauses of the day. It is not that I am incomplete without you, it's that I am more myself with you, than when I am by myself again.

When we meet weeks later, finally, Your appearance through the arrival gate is confusing. difficult to understand. I can't comprehend. are you really here? i try to find the answer, but it is impossible for me to concentrate. How did you do that? How did you become... real again?

we kiss.

and it's... glorious deliciousness . we are giddy and giggly. probably speaking too fast, not making much sense. or maybe its just that seeing you is too much for me, and I can't make any sense. I have to remind myself there are others here. We're in a airport, surrounded by strangers. I almost forget my name.

You have returned to me. I have been waiting for you. But the best part of separating is reuniting.

Can you understand? Can you tell me my name?

Now hear this!!! - Broken Dimanche Press

It’s a new year and a new season of literati delights on Now Hear This.

Tonight at 22h berlin time, 9pm london time live and direct
on http://www.reboot.fm

Paula Varjack opens up the studio doors to a series of publishers, magazines and literary collectives. How better to kick things off with a big bold bang, than with the brilliant Broken Dimanche Press?


Broken Dimanche Press is a rootless, free-floating publishing house based between Oslo, Berlin and Dublin. It is interested in facilitating challenging literary and political work with a strong focus on translation and connecting artists and writers to new audiences across Europe. As well as books, it publishes the occasional journal The Kakofonie.
http://www.brokendimanche.eu

Ann Cotten
has published numerous work including Fremdwörterbuchsonette (Suhrkamp) which won in the Reinhard-Priessnitz-Preis. She also published a book on concrete poetry Nach der Welt: Die Listen der Konkreten Poesie und ihre Folgen (Klever Verlag) in 2008. The same year saw her receive the George-Saiko-Reisestipendium and the Clemens Brentano Förderpreis für Literatur der Stadt Heidelberg. Her latest book came out in August from Suhrkamp and is called Florida-Räume. Also in 2010 Broken Dimanche Press published I, Coleoptile, her first full length book in English.


Kerstin Cmelka
is a visual artist and was born in 1974 in Mödling, Austria.
Most recently she has taken part in Gestures - Performance and Sound Art at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Roskilde, Denmark (2010), Scorpio's Garden in the Temporäre Kunsthalle Berlin (2010) and Playing Homage, Contamporary Art Gallery, Vancouver (2009). She colloborated with Ann Cotten on I, Coleoptile.








Visual artist Gabi Schaffner

(b.1965, Offenbach/Main) works as a traveling artist and storyteller whose main mediums are photography, text (written and spoken) and audio (field recordings).




And if all that wasn't exciting enough, we end the show with our marvelous musical guests

(drum roll please......)



Blue in the Face.
'Berlin's local avantgarde sonic stalwarts, blend elements borrowed from Hip-hop, Pop, Rock and Industrial to create a sophisticated, visceral sound that oscillates from Noise to Pop and ultimately leaves you slack-jawed in its sedative weirdness' -Styx
http://www.myspace.com/tothesnake
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Blue-in-the-Face/113345582010421

coup de foudre

a pretty dark haired girl on her bike, stops you at the corner, asks you very shyly, very politely, in german, if you know a street called... ? and you will tell her shyly, very politely, in german, that you don't know it, but you are also trying to find out where it is.

so you make the kind of small talk on the way that your second language just about allows you to make, and when you get to the door, you discover that she is austrailian, and she discovers you re english-american, and both of you will find it hilarious, that you were speaking german .

you meet the bartenders. you meet the other performers. everyone is ever so friendly. as you wait for things to begin, you fall into conversation with someone, then you fall into conversation with someone else, its relaxed, it's pleasant. you feel lady-like in four inch heels, a black lace and chiffon cocktail dress. you take a sip of your glass of wine, light your cigarette and...and..

who, who are you talking to?
what, what are you talking about?
you were talking about... what? where? iceland?!?

nod, pretend to follow along...

who was that?

maybe you are talking about brazil? or no, it was about how you can't write a novel, don't have the stamina and...

who was that? where has he gone?

yes you have been doing sooo much performing lately. you're really thrilled about the summer

he's back. he's sitting down.

now you're taking to some girl about poetry, no maybe you're talking about literature, don't you remember that you met her before? it was in the fall, at that english bookstore...? don't you remember? no... i mean of course.. yes.

he's sitting next to you.

that one... him.

the first sentences he says float high into the air over your head.

are you performing?

are you performing tonight?

you say....

yes...

he says...

well ... be sure to be entertaining..

and when you're on, you're still enraged by that comment. how could he be so patronising??!! now you...you are a full blown unadulterated cabaret act. all singing and fireworks. if you were a musical, there would be a chorus line of dancing girls waving jazz hands.

and he will have no idea, that it is all because...of him.

concept words and overused phrases

we were on tour together. there was a piece of his that i liked more than anything in our whole show, and a line, a line that stayed with me, the fragment of which is

“this... this must be...love. or some other overused phrase”

the thing with words, is no matter how much you love them, love them the way i do, is at times, at times when you are striving to express something right, true, accurate, to find a new way of saying that which has been said by so many before, so many times before, that even you have said many times before, that suddenly...

suddenly what you want is new words, new phrases, maybe even a new dictionary of words to express that this feeling, this feeling you have presently, comes attached with new sensations and thoughts and revelations. maybe you should have put more into learning those second and third languages after all? maybe then you could always find the right words for what you wanted to say.

This performer i toured with spoke at least five languages. His knowledge of poetry, literature and pop culture spanned everything from baudelaire to keats to mos def to polish poets i’d never heard of. He knew something about various forms of written expression that i didn’t. So I put it to him.

English didn’t have enough concept words, I said. concept words the way japanese or portuguese or german or french seemed to have. I told him how every so often i learned words in these other languages, that sometimes can’t be translated, and longed for my language to have more words like this. It might even change the way i wrote. I said.

he disagreed with me, said that i was shortchanging the english language. he’s probably right, it’s silly to blame my failure to express myself on my language.
after all, isn’t that akin to a craftsmen blaming his tools?

and then i think, maybe the real joy is, feeling something that i don’t quite know how to say.

new pack of smokes...

Sometimes we come across someone we once knew intimately, only to realise that now we don't know them at all. That the memory we have carried of them is just that. A memory. Frozen in that period where our lives failed to connect.,went on in different directions, in absence of each other. What makes us aware of this can be the smallest detail. It can be the tiniest thing. And yet still ever so jarring.

I met a woman once, in a bar most likely. I don't remember much about her, or about how we started talking. but I will never forget when she told me that every time she ended an affair, ended a relationship, she would get another tattoo. The reason she did this was to have something of hers, something intimate on her body, that the other lover would never know. I was inspired by this. It has always stayed with me.

And if I think of those three tattoos on my body, the second and third definitely occurred not long after major relationships ended. I have the inclination now to mark myself, to claim myself for myself again. To have a part of me that he will never see. For her she saw it as a way of cutting off he who had come previously, but i always liked to see it in two ways. not just something to be kept from the other, but a new part of yourself to give.

.........

In the first moments of seeing one another again , he asks about my upcoming trip to budapest. asks if i'm going alone. when I say i'm going with someone I am seeing , he actually dares to correct me, says,

You mean you are going with him...

I say no, and say again,

with someone I have started seeing.

And then our friend starts asking me questions about my recent travels, and i'm telling stories, and trying not to slip on the icy pavement, and meanwhile the other is silent. He says nothing until we enter the bar, sit down, raise our glasses, toast the upcoming new year, and the moment the conversation reaches another pause he says

so you broke up with...?

I say yes. he asks what happened. I say it didn't work out. And though that may be some kind of gross understatement, it suddenly feels perfectly accurate. all the back story and back and forth of it, all covered in those four words.

It - didn't - work - out.

The conversation moves on, plans are made for the weekend, we talk about films we've seen, albums we're listening to, mutual friends, future plans. Our friend tells me how much he likes this guy i'm seeing, how happy he is that i'm happy. The other catches his name, repeats it. At every chance is inserting question after question. Where is he from? Does he live here? What is he doing here? How long ago did we meet?

I ask him about his girlfriend. I know her. She and I used to be friends. Maybe we still are. But she seemed distant the last time I saw her. Since they started seeing each other. The dynamic between her and I had changed. After we said goodbye, I walked home, understanding but not understanding. It upset me.

And our friend is unaware of all of this. Misses the eb and flow of the subtext. And towards the end of the night, before we leave , the other asks me for a light. My eyes drift down to his cigarettes. Something not right about the pack. I can't work out what it is. He lights up, and then it clicks. I say

Since when did you smoke these...? He shrugs.

I started liking them. He holds up my pack of Marlboros. Stopped smoking Gaulouise then?

Oh..yeah....I don't know why i stopped smoking them...

Yeah it happens like that sometimes. he says.

I nod, and staring at his pack of cigarettes, I remember...they are her brand.

the writing on his arm...

I'm waiting for a train at Warren street. I see a girl, who looks like a boy. who looks like a girl I used to fancy. I turn my head and notice him. He's bobbing his head to some heavy electro beat, I can hear it through his headphones. he's carrying two massive levi's shopping bags.

When the train pulls in it's rammed. I deliberate over whether to force my way in, only to suddenly go for it. And at the very last minute, just as the doors have been forced open by someone, and are about to close again, He gets in beside me, standing right against the doors. He leans forward to look at something, or get something from, or arrange something in his levi's bag when I see it... his arm.

Adorning that dark muscled skin are words... a few words...no... a sentence?... no? a paragraph.?.. no?... a few paragraphs, in black ink, in a curly cursive as if from an quill pen. I strain to make out any of it, any of it at all. But the print is too small, and he's moving, it's impossible. I start to go a little mad with wondering. What is it? Song lyrics? Scripture? A poem? Something he's written?

I want so badly to ask him. No, I don't want to ask him. I just want to take his arm, calmly, as if its a perfectly ordinary thing to take someone's arm to read on the train, as if it was like picking up a copy of the free city paper. I want to take his arm and read it, as if I have every right to. Maybe I won't even want to discuss the meaning of it after. Maybe I'll just read it, nod in understanding, and give it back. I just want to read it. I can't think about anything else. I'm on the verge of asking him. What would I say? Definitely not...

“What's that on your arm?”

No.. I would say.

“ Can I read it? Your arm? Please?”

He's getting something from one of his bags, a puffa jacket. He's pulling a black padded sleeve over his arm, covering up all that writing, covering it from me. Now I definitely can't ask him. I'm annoyed with him. I look away.

Two stops later, I turn to the door, just as the train pulls into the station.

“You getting off here?” he says.

“Um... Yeah...” I say.

Hearing our voices out loud, hearing us acknowledging one another, disappoints me for some reason . The doors open, I get off the train. As he attempts to get on again (he had had to disembark, so I could leave). I see that arm , his jacketed arm, thrown up in the air to maintain balance. I watch him get on. I watch the train disappear through the tunnel. I turn to the platform, only to realise I have gotten off at the wrong station. I set all of my shopping bags on the floor, and impatiently wait for the next train....

*My* city?

This is your city.

These are your neighborhoods.

Colour them in.

Colour outside the lines even, if you like.

What colours do you choose?

What do they signify?

Go ahead and do it. It comes naturally to you . Go on, make yourself streamlined. Assimilate. Here your heart beats in sync. Here you can pass through crowds with enviable ease. You're not rushing here, but you like to keep up a pace.

For the days that you are back again, you have a perfect sense of direction. Its instinctive. Its flawless. No one impedes your flow.

Trains arrive as you step onto platforms. Tourists carrying suitcases up stairs, stop, smile, and gesture for you to go by. Doors are held open for you, as you enter and exit busy stores. Maybe you are meant to be here.

But then again don't forget... These streets are now off limits. Take caution when going to these places. This is your modified map.

“You've forgotten how big london is.” she said.

and yes of course, It is a big city, but... it is a city of villages. so many people following the same grooves again and again in circles. Spinning and repeating themselves over and over like scratched records.

In the tube you accept that the speed and length of the journey is out of your hands. You occupy yourself by writing, reading, people watching. You like people watching.You especially like making eye contact.

It's not quite the done thing here. It amuses you how most don't even acknowledge your gaze. A few return it with shyness, blushing maybe, or worse, return aggressive glares. so you give up the game. , and write the following in your notebook.

This morning I noticed a gorgeous young man walking into angel station. He had cheekbones you could cut something on.He wore this eccentric but chic ensemble of tweeds and tartan. something viv westwood about it, striking, set off by his massive afro. I have no idea who he is.But I saw him this morning at angel, and I just saw him an hour again this evening, walking out of marble arch.

It is a large city yes, but it is also just a series of connected parts.

Secret

He was right about one thing...The more you feel it, the harder it is to say...

There had been so many times she had come perilously close. There were times she wanted to say those words so badly, had to, needed to, that she would release them in childish ways. Would murmur them inaudibly into his chest, whisper them to him as he slept.

Each time taking care there was no way he could hear them. These words, and how they related to him, felt precious, fragile, slippery. They were hers but also more than her.

They were never quite in her grasp.

She liked to imagine them, these words, what they would look like. She thought of them as if in a cartoon speech bubble, or on a billboard, or balloon tied to a string she could suddenly release into the heavens or.. or. or maybe more solid, more concrete, heavier, made up of iron letters cast aside from an ancient printing press.

And the more she visualised them, the more tactile they seemed, the more inviting they seemed, the less she was afraid. But still, she was uncertain, unsure if she could ever say them. Of the consequences of saying them. Of whether it was a better idea perhaps, to never say them at all.