what one night of entertaining insomnia can involve -
most certainly a welcome brisk walk
to the local medical center to book an appointment
with a doctor -
i figured: if their surname sounds asian
or arabic - i'll be greeted by a familiar face -
a helpful face... just like today...
a dr. nazim... the most radiant face at
20 past 9am i was yet to see...
i broke the ice with insomnia...
she immediately jumped at telling me about
max richter... i asked about my 24h test
measuring my blood-pressure...
she told me the results didn't come through,
i asked for a repeat prescription
of amitripytine and that i was going
to visit my family for 6 weeks...
she filled out the sick note for 6 months...
she counted from today:
the 29th of august...
the expiry date landed on the 29th of february...
- wow, there really is a 29th of february
- imagine having your birthday on the 29th
of february
(we giggled)
- well yeah, once you get older...
people would ask you how old you were...
and you'd say 20 when being 80...
- yeah, dog's years in reverse...
and as she was about to sign it
with a dr. sura having done so for quiet
some time...
she read the words: psychosis - not fit for work,
i don't think she was expecting
such an innocent genesis from insomnia...
such heavy words borrowed from
medicine and applied to pop culture...
how sparingly you can hear the words:
psychotic and schizoid...
used by people who have never actually
met a psychotic individual such as myself...
stigma died with jesus christ on the cross...
one step further: to feel some variation
of stigmata...
but what a fine morning...
4 round trips to the medical center...
2km one way...
coming back the 2nd time i had to celebrate
the 16°C cool morning air and
the pristine azure of the sky...
so walked a golden ale home...
made dinner for today and for tomorrow...
did the washing - attempted to fake
a group of birds sitting on a wire as some
interlude into orchestra while i pegged
the washing to the washing line...
tended to sun-drying chillies...
but the night is where everything became apparent...
a return to drinking to cure the sleeplessness...
two options...
head over to the old-men's club of people
my age making political / socio-political
commentators...
the old-men commentary club -
a mongrel crowd of... something between
a cynic and an idealist crowd...
i can't do this... i can't allow the world
to crash in on me...
if i make it to 50+ years... only then i'll define
myself as... whether a cynic, or an idealist /
optimist... being a sceptic would work...
but the current examples of sceptics employ
ridicule as their canvas for doubt...
not so much doubt: out of a concern for
the overall architecture of one's thought:
and subsequent will -
more... scepticism out of forny waspish ridicule-comedy...
as long as the gob-shite ditto-head
bit is working... no doubt has to be
translated into thought - it has to be immediately
purged with a ridicule echo...
the old-young men of these socio-political
commentary... i can't let the world crash in on me...
the world is not invited...
all this talk makes the head boil
nothing more than an egg shell
with no yoke or white to be ever found within it...
somewhat sober last night...
i taped the whole Bergman season on
4movies in 2011...
not all of them... but some...
how grand these movies: grand in that...
they really require you to watch them once...
and no more: burn after reading...
cinematic existentialism of european cinema...
after a while you stop even reading
the subtitles... even though you once suggested...
if the subtitles ran above the screen rather than
below... it is much easier to look
at the "problem" in the old excuse for
the chinese writing:
l - s - f - - h - - t - - t
i - o - r - - e - - o - - o
k - - - o - - a - - - - - e
e - - - m - - d - - - - - -
it would be easier to read obtitles,
to subsequently look down at the faces...
rather than have to strain your eyes
to look up...
i can't even imagine this movie
was made in 1980... comparing this
to what h'american cinema was like in
1980? it did help that it was made by
a Swede who decided to use German...
1980: from the life of Marionettes...
interlude - a single word - 'ennui'...
and then the critical moment -
when the actors face off a monologue -
per se - and a monologue drifting away
from a dialogue - having to rob
the dialogue of the other -
when talking becomes thinking -
when the actor has to face
the horror mask of the solipsist -
perhaps even a vague cousin of a poet...
but watching this movie i thought
about europe and the holocaust...
if only the holocaust was only
the body count of the hebrews...
i could see the two-edged sword of
the holocaust -
after all, from a european perspective...
we didn't have a vietnam...
we didn't have anything close until
the fall of the berlin wall...
and the "reconquista" of the Balkans...
if asked... the holocaust is probably
the most major event to have happened
in europe... from what pedagogy spewed...
from this movie i came thinking:
the hebrew body count...
combined with the collective death
of the german soul...
from a period of time when europe
started to grasp some out-of-this-world
existential depths came
a semitic naivety...
which probably infuriated the depth seekers
even more...
i can almost see them in their
existentialist anguish...
having to "deal" with people who didn't
mind the depth of the immediate materialism:
the immediate materialism of
the divine intervention in egypt
(true or false is beyond the point)...
that somehow... people who didn't see
or pass on this overtly simplified version of
events from the perspective of
the protected / and the victors...
wouldn't come across a people from
the depth... who had to begin in reverse
with metaphysics... a people who didn't invent
metaphysics... who's culture didn't entertain
judaism from the classical times of
egypt, greece, persia...
not even via rome...

Sho'at Yehudei Polin - "oddly enough":
to byli moi tubylcy...
jak ich zwano tak ich zwano -
to have, done more?
two things can't be resurrected from this...
something playfuly germanic
from some borrowed time...
after all... even the hebrews felt more
at home in germany than in poland...
wasn't yiddish a mongrel-tongue
fusing german with hebrew?
yet most of the hebrews ended up living
in poland... i guess they did business in
germany - crafting yiddish kept
them in check - speak a mingle of
hebrew and german: amongst each
other - just in case you come across
a german protestant and remember
to speak german...
oh how they butchered the polish
tongue... accent and all...

as much was sacrificed by hebrew naivety -
as was sacrificed by the german
in him seeking transcendence from
butchery - industrial butchery -
even william burroughs cites...
how you trained an SS-mensch...
each cadet was given a kitten to care for...
1 month... however long...
pet it, feed it...
in the end? to pass the grade?
the cadet would have to gauge out
the eyes of the kitten...
truly - both sides didn't suffer?
these days it's called p.t.s.d. -
it's not so much what pain can be inflicted
on you... rather: what you are capable of...
post-traumatic is a vague synonym...
a trauma of the perpetrator is as allowed
as the trauma of the victim -
unless... psychopathic -
with the concept of conscience being...
non-existent -
never the nagging sensation / a voice in your head?

i can just imagine the frustration
of the german at the naivety of the hebrews...
because it became almost too simple...
it didn't involve:
the Hounds of Zaroff...
i guess the word: ennui - used in
ingmar bergman's film i watched last night...
it had to be staged for some ulterior motive...
i just imagine the horrific ennui
at Auschwitz creeping in...
it had to have reached fever pitch
down the chain of command...
even butchering animals can't be much
a cure for boredom...
but at least there's a distant dot of light
in the distance... people will be fed...
hardly a time to think of eating human ash...
is it?

arbeit macht frei -
if the work was pointless -
then the orders for said "work"
were also pointless -
some might say...
out of auschwitz a giza pyramid
could have risen from
the ground... instead...
they levelled golgotha
to the ground... golgotha...
the already ominous term.

i once thought that watching back to the future
was the perfect way to pass a bout
of insomnia through the night...
but then, european existential cinema gave
me the better answer...
movies to only watch once:
but to really watch them...
by watching i imply: also reading them...
not distracted by fast paced action,
heavily ladden with kaleidoscopic /
epileptic editing...
the distraction of the subtitles and the slow
action on the screen...
a different depth...

and then... come the second night
when all the slips of paper are collected...
back on a diet of music...
back into the realm of pretentious things...
well... "pretentious"...
something to let you think...
even if this thinking has to be dislodged
from your head and onto a piece of paper...
even if this thinking lasts as long
as what is being written...
but not... not this turkey feeding
of FREEDOM OF SPEECH!
FREEDOM OF THE GOB!
i'm tired of the world crashing in on me
so uninvited...
what a horrible freedom this
freedom to talk is...
unless... you're in a fish market...
or a greengrocer...
all the talk in the world that's ever required
is found in places where
fresh food is being sold...restricted talk?
in places were vinyls are sold...
in a proper market of ideas...
something is scribbled... past in silence...
and then silently implemented...
nothing is stuck to placards or marched
with in a drone mantra chanting b'aah b'aah.