"Kein Mann war vollständiger dem Untergang geweiht als der,
der seine ganze Zufriedenheit daraus bezog,
einen guten Eindruck auf eine ganz bestimmte Frau zu machen."
(Neal Stephenson - "Quicksilver", Seite 482)
I take a fancy to a lot of music and by now I know enough bands that I like and that have an impact on my moneybag with their regular new records such that I do not follow music reviews or fanzines anymore in order to find new interesting bands. But yesterday I encountered a strange unknown band! Yesterday evening around 10pm, it was getting darker and darker, we were at a small lake in an old open pit area and listened to Soundgarden on Radio Fritz when they played the song Sweet Love for Planet Earth from Fuck Buttons.
Tonight I went to the cinema. I watched "Mein Bruder ist ein Einzelkind" (Mio fratello è un figlio unico) - a really good movie about the political situation and especially the relationship of two brothers in Southern Italy around the sixties. Because everyone else watched the football game between Germany and Austria I was the only one in the whole auditorium!
Am 26. März bringt Deutschlandradio Kultur eine Sendung über Alexander Grothendieck mit dem Titel: "Geometrie und Revolte - Die radikale Wende im Leben des Mathematikers A.G." Ein Fields-Medaillen Gewinner, der politisch sehr engagiert war, seit zwei Jahrzehnten aber völlig aus dem öffentlichen Leben verschwunden ist.
At present there is an interesting exhibition at the Bucerius Kunstforum in Hamburg. It is about fright and delight. Everyone who enjoys paintings of H. Bosch could be interested.
Seit gestern besitze ich das neue The Mars Volta Album The Bedlam in Goliath. Am Sonntag spielen sie hier in Berlin, sodass ich vorher unbedingt das Album gehört haben wollte. Eigentlich bestelle ich mir meistens meine CDs bei Mailordern oder Amazon, weil es günstiger ist. Letzte Woche bin ich jedoch mal zu Dussmann (und Saturn) gegangen, in der Hoffnung es dort zu einem halbwegs fairem Preis zu bekommen - es hätte dort 18,95 Euro gekostet. Diese modernen Raubritter! CDs für fast 19 Euro zu verkaufen!? Wie kommt man zu solchen Preisen? Bei amazon.com (in den USA) kostet das Album derzeit 12,99 Dollar - das sind weniger als 10 Euro. Ich habe es bei diesen Verbrechern natürlich nicht gekauft.
Nachdem ich das Album gestern und heute tagsüber immer mal angespielt habe, um mit den Songs vertraut zu werden, habe ich es mir heute Abend bei einer Flasche (Weiß)Wein über Kopfhörer angehört. Mir fallen auf Anhieb drei Bands ein, deren Alben man von Anfang bis Ende, ohne dabei gestört zu werden, unbedingt mal in einem berauschten Zustand über Kopfhörer gehört haben sollte. Das sind die letzten Alben von Neurosis, alle Alben von Devil Doll und eben die Alben von The Mars Volta! Ich bin mir noch nicht ganz sicher, worüber die Texte von "The Bedlam in Goliath" genau handeln (ich habe irgendwo irgendetwas von Mörderbiographien gelesen). Die Songs sind in jedem Fall unglaublich komplex und es wird noch einige Durchläufe brauchen, bis ich die vertrackten Strukturen aufgesogen habe. Aber ich bin mir schon jetzt sicher, dass es mich genauso fesseln wird, wie "Frances the Mute". Unbedingt anhören - mehrmals!
If you got a(n unknown) sequence of integers and you would like to know their meaning, then try your luck on the on-line encyclopedia of integer sequences. Probably you will get an answer or more than you expected. Do you know what 6, 0, 7, 9, 2, 7 is for?
The Mars Volta will be playing at Huxley's new world in Berlin at the end of February. I bought already a ticket - it costs 31 euros.
I have also read that Current 93 try to give two concerts in Berlin around April.
Anathema, one of my favourite bands, has put three new songs online. They can be downloaded (and listened) for free. Check them out, because they are great.
Since I have stated my favourite playlist, I also want to state my favourite books from 2007.
It's hard to decide but:
1. Neal Stephenson - "Snow crash"
I read this book several years ago, but decided to reread it after I found it in a second hand bookstore and especially because I only remembered that I really liked it but couldn't remember the plot.
2. George Orwell - "Down and out in Paris and London"
I read this (together with his book about the Spanish civil war) during my trip to Bosnia and it is absolutely worth reading. He describes his contact with poverty in a honest but also humorous way. Somehow it gave me strength while I was traveling alone in Bosnia.
3. The books from Béla Hamvas.
Here you can see the old and new Colosseum in Rome. I suppose everyone knows the first. The second was built for the world exposition (that didn't take place because of the second World War) during the reign of Mussolini.
My provider had some server problems some weeks ago. There were also problems with the backup (of the database), so I have lost my blog entries. That means I will start from scratch.
Tomorrow a new year begins and before I start my first entry I wish everyone a happy and peaceful new year.
Because the year is almost over I will give my personal "playlist" of 2007.
I have attended only three concerts in 2007, but all three were really good:
Wooven Hand (06/07 in Budapest)
Bohren und der Club of Gore (01/07 in Budapest)
Ortega (11/07 in Berlin)
I have been in cinemas in Budapest regularly and saw some good movies. To be honest I do not remember all the names because they generally were in Hungarian. Here are three movies I liked:
Az álom tudománya (The science of sleep)
The fountain
4 Monate, 3 Wochen, 2 Tage
This is only an extract. There were other good ones like Zodiac, The wind that shakes the barley, Babel,...
And here are my three music discoveries. I won't state records only the composer/bands:
My greatest discovery this year were the records of Nicholas Lens.
My second discovery this year was Wooven Hand.
I knew 16 Horsepower for years, but somehow I didn't check out Woven Hand until this year.
And during the last weeks I got to know and listened often to Choir Of Young Believers.
Here you can see the old and new Colosseum in Rome. I suppose everyone knows the first. The second was built for the world exposition (that didn't take place because of the second World War) during the reign of Mussolini.