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.