guys (yet again) & poems

okay, so there *are* still some nice guys out there, it seems. met one of them just now. and one of the "bad" guys has apologized in the meantime. so. i am inclined to believe in man-kind again. at least a little. ;)

yesterday i finished a poem i had begun in april, and i revised another one. they seem finished to me, although after all these months of not writing, i am a bit uncertain. but i am thrilled that i managed to write a few lines and not be utterly unhappy with them. here are a few lines from [metamorphosis]:

2 a.m. and the night is still digging
in its pockets for a slice of moon

clouds shift uneasily, as if for a moment
all the world unfolded their hands

someone learns that a hair on a blue pillow
can trigger a silence in the trees

[...]

have not been feeling too great the last few days, i suppose that's not such a big surprise after the cold and rainy spell we had. today i went for a walk though, at the new jewish section of central cemetery. i saw two deer - yes, in broad daylight, and not too far from the entrance!

still excited about leonard cohen - my brother martin will come to vienna for the occasion, too, yay! :)

song of the day: ever fallen in love by thea gilmore.

yes yes yes!

i had given up on this dream of mine coming true - but:

I JUST BOUGHT A TICKET FOR THE LEONARD COHEN CONCERT IN SEPTEMBER!

i am sooo thrilled!!

so, after all, "there's a concert hall in vienna ..." and his mouth might just get a thousand reviews.


song of the day: take this waltz by leonard cohen.

guys, again

do NOT mention them to me today. it's for your own safety. what have they done? well ...

a) cheating, and a call from an upset girlfriend
b) standing me up
c) not reacting to anything i told him, making me feel like an idiot

... can anybody blame me for my facebook status: "i may be the biggest female fool in the world, but at least i'm not a man"?

song of the day: you suck by the murmurs.

guys

date on saturday (central cemetery, ice cream, park). different date on sunday (spontaneous, champagne in front of a fountain on graben with piano music nearby, dinner, red wine, late night). no date on monday. confession of beingsomewhatinlovewithsomeone on tuesday. about to hide in a cave for the next, um, 42 years or so, starting now.

song of the day: a fool such as i by elvis presley.

things have changed ...

once again. i handed in my latest translation on wednesday, thinking that was that for the next few months, looking forward to working only afternoons in august and taking half of september off. but. then nathan told me about this book translation project that his wife had been offered and which she cannot do alone, because it is too much. and they were wondering whether i was interested in taking on half of the 600 pages ... the topic is not particularly fun, nothing light for the summer: the armenian massacres in ottoman turkey by guenter lewy. and the deadline is late september ... i must be mad. :)

* * * * *
yesterday evening i met up with harold, bruno, alina and some of her friends at museumsquartier (outdoors) where we saw a terrific performance: the manganiyar seduction, musicians from rajasthan who perform ballads about kings, sufi poems, and other songs. there were 43 singers and musicians (string instruments, drums, flute, mouth organ ...) seated in cubicles: four rows of nine cubicles, one row stacked upon another, beautiful light effects and fantastic music.










i also enjoyed watching the people, especially children - they were so into it, totally absorbed and fascinated!



* * * * *
no new writing. sigh.

but - some new people, and ... i have a date tomorrow! :)


song of the day: things have changed by bob dylan.

an evening, a night, and a morning

fortunately i felt relatively fit again on friday, so i was able to go to work, but only for the morning. how nice to hear that my students had missed me! :)

in the afternoon i slept a little in preparation for the all night open mic at café kafka. some of the usual suspects are away at the moment, but others gathered around the tables in hamid's cosy café: peter waugh, steve gander, sylvia petter, evelyn holloway, nathan horowitz, horst prillinger, janus zeitstein, bob hewis, ronnie niedermeyer, harold otto, alina serban. lilly and oxana dropped in for a while, too. it was a bit of a bumpy ride in the beginning, not as smooth as last time, but once we were on our way, it went really well. the special guest was estonian poet triin soomets, she brought poetry in german, english and estonian - what a language! i love that about these kafka nights, that we sometimes get to hear languages you don't normally come into contact with.


triin soomets


i first read two more of my alice poems since people enjoyed those i read last time. and later on, nathan and i read excerpts from small confessions & pebbles of regret, nathan reading three of alex's poems while i replied with three of mine. it was so quiet during the reading, always a good sign, and the feedback was really good, too. :) much later, i read tomas tranströmer's schubertiana and two poems from my elemental manuscript.


nathan & michi, small confessions & pebbles of regret


some of the stories, poems, performances, songs we heard that night were really good - i loved one of triin's poems about europe, some of nathan's work, particularly enjoyed the first part of sylvia's pippa story, laughed myself silly over nathan's reading of the spontaneous group poem i'd inadvertently started early that evening when i complained about men and nathan wrote downsome of my words. sylvia added to the heat in the café with one of her erotic stories, ronnie shared some lovely - and some weird - work, and i just adore what some people (a guy called mitch, i believe) can do with their voice. sophie and her partner briefly turned into frogs, peter read us very special football results, horst introduced us to a couple of freezing police officers, and evelyn lingered in the fruit & veg section for a while.

around 04.30, i went for a walk around the block, it was getting light, and it was quiet and nice outside. our wonderful host hamid served breakfast to the ones who'd made it through the night: ronnie, nathan, steve, evelyn, peter, janus, and me. sylvia had left only a little earlier.


the breakfast club: peter, janus, evelyn, steve


i don't know about the others, but i say: more all night open mics! :)

more pictures of the event in my flickr album.


instead of going home like a sensible person, i walked down to naschmarkt, vienna's most famous market, and instead of just having a quick look around, i was there until 08.45, spending money, enjoying the atmosphere, and - of course - taking lots of pictures. i should go there more often, such lovely colours, and such interesting people!


dried fruit & mixed nuts



sneaky monkey



vienna's high-tech gnomes waldemar and willibald



Big Ass Is Watching You


for more pictures, see my flickr album.


song of the day: scorpio rising by the 10,000 maniacs.

this girl has been ...

poorly, sickly, ill, and therefore at home and mostly in bed since monday afternoon. and no, it hasn't been fun. and the heat outside did not actually help. blah.

so nothing much is new, except that i finished a poem the other day - the first since late september. i am not sure i am happy with it yet, but it is a first tiny little step in the right direction. at the moment, i feel too weak and tired to celebrate this, but i will make up for that. :)

i have completed most of the boooooring translation (if you ever want to know anything about supplier management software, this is who you should turn to!) with the mid-july deadline, hooray!

a few days ago, i tidied up my flickr site - the sets are now neatly arranged in collections. the most recent one is the euro2008 collection, and the vienna collection has been updated.

and it appears i have been hispanified. which means that i am picking up spanish here and there, and that i seem to have gotten over my dislike for the language, and that - who would've thought? - i want to know more. according to one of my "teachers", i don't quite deserve una estrella dorada yet, but at least i am worthy of a tiny little little purple star. (gracias, valerio. not!)

pic of the day:


taken from my living-room window last week


song of the day: quedate luna by devendra banhart.