Through my windowpane

Through my windowpane
Originally uploaded by drynwhyl

Growing toward the light...

"Exam Head"

I’m in the middle of my final examinations and it clearly is wearing me out. It is a sweet fatigue though. Part of me is a wreck already, but just the thought of having it all over very soon is pushing me further and is keeping me in a very strange hyper and overjoyed state. Still kind of puzzled at how mentally well I got through the whole process of researching, conducting and writing my master thesis (“The Varangians in the early medieval sources of Kievan Rus’”, if anyone is interested, which I hardly doubt, hehe).

Yesterday was the day scheduled for my written final exam on one of my major subjects – I had four hours time and got the assignment to write and assay on Eiríks saga rauða and the colonization of Greenland. Good times. I consider myself lucky, because this is a subject (among many others of course ;)) I’ve always found really fascinating and it had gotten me really sucked into while revising.
A handful more to go.


p.s. The first film titles for the Fantasy Filmfest here in Munich have been announced! HERE
p.p.s. No, I'm not a freak ;p

Dot points...

Quick update in dot point form. Gotta love dot points…

• So basically I have been reading my butt off the last couple of weeks. And during the “breaks” going to work, hanging out at libraries, copying stuff and lugging around old books. The end is near!

• I also have been trying to be more active, I mean, to exercise, since all I do all day every day is sit: in front of a pc, a desk, a kitchen table, on dusty chairs, cold stairs, etc., well, you get the drift. I’ve been doing the morning hula hula thingie for a while now, it was all going really well so I decided that maybe it’s time to force the pace and hop on the jogging wagon. I guess my enthusiasm got the best of me, because right now it looks like I’ll have to skip some of these activities for a couple of days because of a sore knee-cap. Doof.

• Went to the opening of the Brandhorst museum for contemporary art here in Munich. You can get the factual data about the whole concept here at wikipedia. Contrary to my expectations it wasn’t that packed which was quite nice. I originally planned to browse quickly and make it home early for a change, but ended up staying for three hours. What I really wanted to see and what I was most familiar with were Andy Warhol’s works, there are more than 100 pieces in the Brandhorst collection, weird, funky stuff. There were all sorts of other amazing and thought-provoking paintings and compositions. I particularly liked the Rose-cycle by American artist Cy Twombly and an installation by British artist Damien Hirst. Some smudgy phone pictures below.


Large rose paintins by Cy Twombly in Room 1.5


By Damien Hirst


the BASEMENT with a lot of Warhol's works


• „Thirst“ by Korean director Park Chan-wook (Vengeance trilogy) won the Grand Jury price at Cannes! They’ll be screening it at the Fantasy Film Festival here in September. Can’t wait!!

• I officially own the iTunes store now! Muaha! Well, not really, but let me explain. A couple of things were giving me a lot of headache lately. I am seriously bugged about the fact that all the brilliant stuff I desperately want and am willing to spend my cash on is usually only available either at the US or the UK iTunes Stores and there is no way I can get my hands on them with my German account. What’s the use of a credit card then, why do you need an US or UK billing address if it’s been processed from your credit card only anyway?! I don’t get it. And apparently there are also a shitload of legal issues that are hindering the music exchange. How greedy can you really get (major labels are pissing me off big time and it’s over for them, they’re going to burn to the ground and we’re all going to dance around the fire, but , er, that’s beside the point here)?? First I tried proxies, but this didn’t get me very far. Then I did a bit of research and found a lot of dodgy and suspicious methods to make it work. Decided to play safe though. So I bought an iTunes UK gift certificate off ebay, registered a new account at iTunes and put one of the London addresses of the company I used to work for. Oh, c’mon, they’ll never know unless you tell them.
The past few days I’ve been hunting down rare b-sides and live recordings by the exceptionally talented Scott Matthews. His new album was released yesterday, naturally it’s on my virtual shelf now along with a beautiful digital booklet and the official video for “Fractured“. But there will be another post where I’ll tell you a bit more about the wonderful fairy-tale I found myself captured in because of this guy.

Exasperated

I really am shit at organizing things (read things I'm not interested in).

I'd rather be in the park right now, running naked with my ipod blasting on full volume.

Scott Matthews

Last.fm има купища прелестни функции, които обаче сравнително рядко разцъквам. Радиото например е много куул и обикновено слушам това на приятели, съседи или дадени тематични групи, ненормални плейлисти се получават. Затова пък прикачените канали към всеки един артист, по които може да чуеш уж подобни и все още непознати изпълнители, винаги са ми се стрували изкуствена работа. Първо защото наистина „сходните“ така или иначе вече ги знаеш и второ – доста често таговете са порядъчно оплескани.

Поредното необяснимо късо съединение там горе ме накара точно днес да си пусна едно такова "фалшиво" радио, това на Jeff Buckley. Оставих го да се зарежда и тръгнах да си разчиствам кочината, прислушвайки се с кеф към отлежали класики, които се нареждаха една след друга – Tim, Nick Drake, Nick Cave, Fiona Apple… и някъде там, съвсем незабелязано се прокрадна един глас, който ми беше непознат. Всъщност не, напротив, бях убедена, че ми беше познат. Но нямах никаква идея откъде. И колкото повече се вслушвах, толкова повече се обърквах. На кого ми напомняше? На Jeff? Определено. На Eddie Vedder? Несъмнено. На Nick Drake? David Gray? Да, да, да! Първата ми мисъл беше: „Кой смее толкова безцеремонно да се ебава с мен?! Това не е възможно!”

В следващия половин час успях да насъбера толкова информация за Scott Matthews, че чак ми се зави свят. (Обичам интернет!!!!!) Без да ходя да го търся на майспейс моментално си издирих единствения му досега издаден албум (Passing Stranger), метнах го на плейъра и излезнах. Размотавах се няколко часа без цел и посока и превъртях албума три пъти. Имах чувството, че ще се удавя в déjà vu-та и jamais vu-та. Искаше ми се да се пусна по как мама ме е родила и да тичам в парка до безкрай.
Какво се случи??


Албумът е зашеметяващ!
Гласът е нереален, съчетава всички нюанси на онези горе вече изброени гиганти, понякога прелива повече към единия, понякога към другия, слуха ми се рееше, рееше.
И как може да е все още толкова непознат?! Гениалността явно не е на мода. Изключение може би прави родната му Англия, където благодарение на подкрепата на доста солидни радио водещи името на Scott Matthews започва да се чува по-често. Впоследствие парчето му Elusive дори печели наградата Ivor Novello за най-добра композиция.




... прекалено много изписах, думите стават излишни.

Sweet Scented Figure.



Dream Song.

www.myspace.com/scottmatthewsmusic
www.scottmatthewsmusic.co.uk


Скъпи Скот, моля те никога никога не позволявай да те повлекат мейнстрийма и музикалната индустрия! Пази се!

Last Life in the Universe

Every once in a while you stumble upon one of those movies which renews your faith in the power of film. Last Life in the Universe by Thai filmmaker Pen-Ek Ratanaruang is one of those movies. I still find it difficult to break through the hazy spell I fell into and finally organise my thoughts. I don't know why all of a sudden it seems so hard to form coherent sentences about something that stunningly beautiful.
While I was still pondering and looking for answers I came across a wonderfully written review by a guy who runs this blog. Loved every bit of his enigmatic and captivating analysis, thus, I decided to post it here. I know I could wait and dwell on my brainwaves and chaos of theories for a little longer, but I sort of get the feeling that something is going to be inevitably lost if I do so.





Godard (Jean-Luc Godard) says:
All you need for a movie is a gun and a girl.

Last Life in the Universe is about a Japanese man who finds a gun and then finds a girl.

Godard says:
Beauty is composed of an eternal, invariable element whose quantity is extremely difficult to determine, and a relative element which might be, either by turns or all at once, period, fashion, moral, passion.

Last Life in the Universe captures this eternal element of beauty so well that Pen-Ek Ratanaruang almost dares the audience not to see it. He throws floating garbage, stacks of dirty dishes, physical abuse, tattered clothes, animal carcasses, slapstick moments, messy hair, bathroom humour, assassins, grating noises, and trivialities at the viewer, while knowing at every moment that he has found the true beauty of his subjects, his characters, and his story. Whereas most films try to cover an ugly core with superficial beauty, Last Life in the Universe tries to cover a beautiful core with superficial ugliness.

Godard says:
Photography is truth.

Beginning with a series of nearly still shots (linked by a theme of twos or pairs), Christopher Doyle imbues The Last Life in the Universe with a sense of truth in much the same way as Pen-Ek Ratanaruang imbues it with beauty. And despite the escalating level of randomness and improbability in the film, the camera never falters in its depiction of emotional truths. In fact, it is when the film veers into almost complete zaniness with a cameo appearance by Japanese director Takashi Miike as a Yakuza hitman that the film connects the most. At its most unrealistic and artificial, Last Life in the Universe is also at its most true.

Godard says:
To be or not to be. That's not really a question.

Indeed. The main character of Last Life in the Universe attempts suicide several times, but never with any real conviction. He’s not even entirely sure why he wants to kill himself (and ends up citing a book, which calls the experience relaxing). He can't answer a question that doesn't exist. Furthermore, the only deaths that occur in the film are sudden and unexpected; answers without questions.

Godard says:
I pity the French Cinema because it has no money. I pity the American Cinema because it has no ideas.

And I pity both, because they have no soul. The best cinema now comes from the fringes of the industrialized world. It seems we are forever going East.

Mono + Verstärker

There was no soul in sight when I marched through Hansapark after work, heading for Feierwerk. Yes, Feierwerk once again. I guess there is hardly any other place here in Munich I visit that often, all the concert halls and bars there that hold so many dear and unforgettable memories. And this time it promised to be quite a night too, I knew it, because in my hand I had a “Mono + support Verstärker” ticket.

The guys who came first on stage - Verstärker – are a local band I’ve grown to really appreciate and admire. They are not much of an active band, but on the rare occasions I see them I’m always amazed at how mature (composition-wise) they are becoming, developing more and more new techniques. Their sound was much more solid and multi-layered now since they have two new members, a guitarist and a kid on bass keys. They played a few new tracks that got me really excited; beautiful harmonies and explosive crescendos raising goosebumps and I thought I could even feel butterflies in my stomach battering away. Truly remarkable was the track they played before the last one. It stretched out to about 15 minutes (or so it felt) plugging in one delicate interludes, groovy riffs, vast soundwalls and in the middle of all this they just felt like throwing a part that sounded as if taken out off a Fennesz set! It’s a crime they are so underrated. How is this even possible?!
This is their myspace page. Unfortunately their official site, where they had a lot of free stuff, died a while ago and it doesn’t look like a new one will be up soon.
And then Mono were set to come up. This time they had two roadies on board who were very quick and arranged the whole equipment in no time. In the background you could hear some orchestral samples from their new album Hymns to the Immortal Wind. Some minutes later and now a couple of seconds into the intro I stopped dead and couldn’t believe my ears. This was the 3rd symphony by Górecki. They had Górecki as their intro!!!!!! Waaaa.

Mono finally showed up, grabbed their instruments and without further hesitation dove into the first chords of "Ashes in the Snow". From this moment on time borders disappeared and everything around me seemed to dissolve into a blissful disorder, I was numb and my limbs felt like an over boiled penne.

Usually I’m really good at playlists, but this time I failed. I hazily remember the second track being "Burial at Sea" and that somewhere in the middle of the set I nearly lost it in the brachial whirl of "com(?)".
What a trip.
There was a guy with us who had never seen Mono before. Only after downing two beers in one swig he regained the power of speech. Not that it was of much use anyway. We just sat outside and remained silent for a while.


p.s. All pictures © laxmag.de