Etüden und Serenaden

Just had to remember my mother and me walking down the street, I think I was eleven years old. A warm summer day. She asked me what I want to work as when I’m an adult. “I want to be a writer”, I said and she just shook her head. “This is not a profession. You should find a proper one.” Ever since that incident, I have been told that I’m not good enough to make a living out of the words I’m writing resulting in me not telling her anything about my ambitions. She would just talk them down anyway without even reading one word of mine (and she hasn’t done that up to this day). Whenever that topic came up, I didn’t answer her question. She stopped asking me about it but she still thinks and says that I’m not going to be successful. Well, I don’t know it either and who am I to know? I can only talk about my dreams, my hopes, and I still think that dreams (in the meaning of aims for life) are binding.

I feel like a photographer of emotions. This is me today. This is me and my life as it is at the moment. I guess I’m a person “on the way” as well. This is what happened today – I scribbled it in my notebook whilst waiting for the bus.

I’m staring at the darkness behind the reflection of my face and the interior of the tram I’m sitting in. Lights flash up and go, the silhouette of my hometown fades away on the other side of the wagon. We pass the main railway station and a sudden urge grabs me. ‘Get off,’ a voice whispers in my head. I remain seated, I don’t move and don’t even dare to. Actually, I’m physically frozen as the tram continues its journey. I ask myself things I haven’t thought about for a while. There are those questions again, those questions that somehow form a golden thread throughout my life, that stitch the single patches of my life together like a quilt. Somehow they’re my net because I seem to have lost the majority of my human net. There are some threads left to support me but they can’t keep me from falling down from time to time. And I know that to an extent, I’m responsible for letting threads slip out of my human net. The majority of people doesn’t just pause their lives to wait for a year. Or more than a year. Or less. They change, yes, I know that all of us change but somehow I would have loved to hold onto a picture of people I hold dear. We used to take photographs whenever we could. Things like that stopped after a while, as if to say ‘these memories won’t last.’ I ask myself if I’m doing the right things. Do I study the right things? What am I actually doing here and why? What am I doing it for? I know that it’s for the bigger picture. I know that I have to finish things, even still it feels wrong. Why does a sudden melancholy strike me whenever I pass a railway station or an airport? Am I just too sensitive and exaggerate or am I too young to have these kind of thoughts? The reflection of my eyes appears in front of me again. I listen to people speak and think. I watch lives and remain passive. There are some people I deeply care about, no matter how long or short I have known them, and sometimes I would like to see the world through their eyes. Knowing that there are people out there who understand me and see a sense in the things I do touches me deeply. I get off the tram. As I step out into the cold evening, I watch the hustle and bustle of human beings. Maybe it’s because it’s winter that I ask myself about these things, maybe one is even supposed to reflect one’s life. Sometimes I wish that the lights that people put in their front gardens actually mean something, that it’s not about the nicest and brightest garden. It hurts me to see a discrepancy between the way things are and the way they’re supposed to be. But that’s just my humble opinion. The bus is coming to take me home. I still don’t know where that is and I won’t rest until I have found this place or this person or this feeling. I’ll do my best to help the people I hold dear to find their home. I think I might need some tea.

I’m busy coughing, having headaches and preparing for a test that is held tomorrow but I’m off to a concert tonight (I don’t want to spoil things for the rest of the audience, I’ll simply go outside to cough, that’s what I did at work on Sunday as well, miraculously I didn’t have to cough at the HOP-concert). It’s KYTE which I got to know in London at an Erased Tapes Records label night. Rival Consoles will not be supporting them as on the other gigs of the tour. By the way – RC is signed by the above mentioned label ETR. Thanks to ETR, I stumbled upon Ólafur Arnalds, The British Expeditionary Force and thus began my fascination for Postrock, Electronica, Instrumental et al. I find it pretty difficult to name music like that. If you have the time, please have a look at the ETR MySpace. It’ll be worth it, I promise. And, just to let you know, the label was founded by a German (Robert Raths) but is based in the UK.
By the way, I don’t know if I mentioned already that I think that the term ‘indie’ is pretty diverse. You can either stick to its traditional definiton but I rather use my own. Therefore it’s not an insult whenever I name a band an ‘indie band’ or as a band making ‘indie music’, it’s a compliment. Rather than combining this term with “That’s what XY sounds like and therefore it’s bad” (which I find horrible to say, I don’t like others to put this music in between biased borders), I prefer to use it as a term for music that can be widely varied but is still within certain boundaries. Hard to explain and to understand, I know but if I come up with a definition that could be put in a dictionary, I’ll share it with you.

I indulge myself in music and snow.
There are several things I’ve been thinking about recently. This weekend has probably been the best this year, especially the best weekend ever since I came “home” from London. You might call me a bit naive or romantic (whatever, yet again I don’t mind) but it feels as if I found a friend in a perfect stranger. And, on top of that, having spent this Saturday at a great concert, seeing Halo Of Pendor (shame on all of you who didn’t come to see him/them play) I really settled my opinion about the sector I’d love to work in. You probably could have guessed just by reading the blog and what I mostly write about. It’s music. I’d really love to work with and for musicians if I have the choice. Apart from that I still think that music journalism itself should work on its reputation. I know, I seem to “hype” bands but – in actual fact – I don’t write a long review/ feature/ article about bands or music I don’t like. Anyway, you might expect a new project coming up on this blog which I will tell you about when the time has come. At the moment I’m a bit busy with University (and my Swedish… I think I have to try that out on poor Merica) and other creative stuff I want to get done some time soon. Or at least before the year is over. I stumbled upon a fragment of a short story that I noted down whilst waiting for the bus and am amazed that it fits in my “People on the Way” short story cycle.
I’ll post some reviews about concerts I’ve been to last week some time soon, I hope. For now, all I can say is: I’m utterly impressed.

Edit: 6.08PM
I was just on the phone with a dear friend of mine. You know, there are certain people that make you feel as if you were coming home, no matter how long or how short you’ve been friends or acquainted with them. This still amazes me and gives me strength to go on for as long as possible. To ‘create’ again. To… well, carry a tiny fracture with you that is actually worth to be called “home”.
I thought about why Saturday and HOP touched/s me as much. I know that I still sound like a hopeless romantic but I’m sure all of you have stumbled upon music that you feel deeply connected with. I found out why I’m as euphoric about Halo Of Pendor – it feels like home. In fact, it feels more like a home to me than my actual home. Ever since I can remember, I didn’t feel comfortable in Dresden, but not because of the city itself (you can fall in love with certain places here) but because of its atmosphere. Since my return from London, it has gotten worse. I nearly have this status message on my messenger at all times: “Uprooted. Wanderlust. Uprooted.” If I could, I’d leave straight away. In fact, to me – what is expressed by HOP is…. well, it’s the feeling I’ve been feeling for as long as I remember, it’s this feeling turned into music. A mixture of warmth, loneliness, restlessness, love and a fracture of a feeling that can’t be named. I’d love to help make it possible for this wonderful artist to be able to go on for as long as he wishes and I’ll do my best to spread the word about it. Seriously, apart from Tvärvägen’s September, it’s been quite a while that something touched me AS MUCH. And I thought I was completely captured by IMMANU EL’s “Killerwhale, Moaning” but I was wrong – I still like it though!
Anyway, enough of me talking about myself and my heart. I’ve been pretty emotional these past days and I cried a lot, which was actually relieving, mostly because of words spoken, unspoken, sung and written. And because of words I never said but that are at the bottom of my heart, waiting to come out.

I think I’ll kick the short story JAMIE?! out of my Russell Square collection.

Currently listening to: Halo Of Pendor – This is me walking by

I’ve just been out for a walk with my dog. He was running around me in circles. And mudd. Every move a picture. That’s what I look like at the moment (if you have a look at the photograph to the left).

I don’t like this cold shoulder of mine. This cold shoulder that is pushing away people I like. Out of insecurity? Out of shyness? Maybe it’s a combination of both. I can’t tell.

There are so many ideas in my head. Ideas connected with creativity. This time it’s about people “on the way”, say, people on the bus, on the tram, on the train, people walking from A to Z. I tend to keep an eye on people whenever I use public transport, trying to imagine their motives, or where they’re going. There was this incident with an old lady on the bus (on my way to uni in the early hours of a Monday morning). I wore Elling when I got on the bus and she stared at me the whole time. I’m used to people laughing or smiling whenever they see Elling and me, but she was different. It was very intimidating. I looked at her, which seemed to make her nervous, and the first thing that crossed my mind was: what a jaded aura. I didn’t like her but she inspired me to write a series of short stories about people on their way. Try not to get stuck in traffic.

My sister is coming back home in a few days. It’s been ages since we’ve seen each other. And I simply can’t express how much I’m looking forward to seeing her again. I remember her coming to the airport to see me off. April 24th, 2007. She came in with that cup of coffee in her hand, I think it must have been about 7AM. She had just finished work and looked incredibly tired. It took her about an hour to get back home. My father was crying, my sister smiled. I wish I could wait for her at the airport but since she’s flying to Berlin, I can’t (uni and that stuff). Just a slight prediction of mine: I’ll either scream the air out of my lungs or I won’t have a voice to speak. There are a lot of things that bind us together (not only blood) and that’s why I’m pretty emotional about anything that’s related to my sister. We beat each other up when we were younger, we used to argue a lot, but in the end we always stuck together. There are several memories that I treasure, the most vivid one being her protecting me in her way. ‘Come on, Anke, let’s go,’ she said. I know that it doesn’t sound like an extraordinary moment but it was. At least to me (and I simply don’t want to tell you why she said that – it’s family business). She’ll be home for about a month and will go back on the cruise ship in January. For another six months.

Snow just began to fall. I guess I stay at home (wanted to go to the city centre…). Damn, I have to go. It’s not as bad as rain.

Currently listening to: Elbow – Station Approach

Tomte concert last night: great. Incredible. Thees Uhlmann is my hero, seriously. 

Having a rather idée fixe, I decided to adapt the idea of Factory Records’ cataloguing system to my work (printed/ handmade, this blog won’t get a number). The first of my works which is going to get a “serial number” will be my next collection, Russell Square. Instead of FAC (for Factory) it will consist of Parlour followed by a number. Therefore, the collection will have the serial number Parlour 001, the mixtape for a friend of mine Parlour 002… and so on. I somehow like this idea (well, otherwise I wouldn’t carry it over) because it’s going to give my work a frame. Things I’ve been working on for a while or that I put a lot of efforts into will now be cataloguized.

Currently listening to: Tomte – Schreit den Namen meiner Mutter

Edit: gave it another thought. This blog is going to get a number. Parlour 000.