On December 21:

1118  Thomas Becket, Lord Chancellor of England and Archbishop of Canterbury was born.

1598  Battle of Curalaba: The revolting Mapuche, led by cacique Pelentaru, inflicted a major defeat on Spanish troops in southern Chile.

1620 William Bradford and the Mayflower Pilgrims landed on what is now known as Plymouth Rock in Plymouth, Massachusetts.

 The Landing of the Pilgrims., by Henry A. Bacon, 1877

1682 Calico Jack Rackham, English pirate, was born.

1804  Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, was born.

1815  Thomas Couture French painter and teacher, was born.

1843 Thomas Bracken, Irish-born New Zealand, was born.

1844 – The Rochdale Pioneers commenced business at their cooperative in Rochdale, England, starting the Cooperative movement.

1861  Medal of Honor: Public Resolution 82, containing a provision for a Navy Medal of Valor, was signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln.

1872  HMS Challenger, commanded by Captain George Nares, sailed from Portsmouth.

 Painting of Challenger by William Frederick Mitchell

1883 The first Permanent Force cavalry and infantry regiments of the Canadian Army were formed: The Royal Canadian Dragoons and The Royal Canadian Regiment.

1892  Rebecca West, British writer, was born.

1905  Anthony Powell, British author, was born.

1913 Arthur Wynne’s “word-cross”, the first crossword puzzle, was published in the New York World.

1917  Heinrich Böll, German writer and Nobel laureate, was born.

1937 – Jane Fonda, American actress, was born.

1937  Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the first full-length animated film, premiered at the Carthay Circle Theater.

1946 Carl Wilson, American musician (The Beach Boys), was born.

1958 Charles de Gaulle was elected President of France when his Union des Démocrates pour la République party gained 78.5% of the vote.

1964 More than 170 years of New Zealand whaling history came to a close when J. A. Perano and Company caught its last whale off the coast near Kaikoura.

1967  Louis Washkansky, the first man to undergo a heart transplant, died 18 days after the transplant.

1968 Apollo 8, the first manned mission to the moon, was launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. At 2h:50m:37s Mission elapsed time (MES), the crew performed the first ever manned Trans Lunar Injection and became the first humans to leave Earth’s gravity.

1971 New Zealand Railways (NZR) launched a new tourist-oriented steam passenger venture, the Kingston Flyer.

1979 Lancaster House Agreement: An independence agreement for Rhodesia was signed in London by Lord Carrington, Sir Ian Gilmour, Robert Mugabe, Joshua Nkomo, Bishop Abel Muzorewa and S.C. Mundawarara.

 Bishop Abel Muzorewa signing the Lancaster House Agreement seated next to British Foreign Secretary Lord Carrington.

1988  A bomb exploded on board Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland, killing 270.

 Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia.

As children my brother and I used to think, like I presume some other children also perhaps thought, whether celluloid heroes like Amitabh Bachchan and sporting ones like Sunil Gavaskar also had to answer nature’s call. For a brief period—at an age that I can’t pinpoint but can indicate by saying that it was characterised by an overwhelming feeling in which everything seemed larger than life—we found it difficult to place our heroes atop a commode. And precisely because our minds were in conflict we occasionally did wonder about what to us was then a profane thought. Nothing remarkable happened when the idea just dropped out of our consciousness; there was no ceremony and there is no memory of it and the only fact is that we grew out of that brief period as naturally and as simply as one season melts into another.

This unsanitary beginning is to make a point that childhood curiosity is one thing and a deep-seated interest in the life of others quite another; it would be a lie to say that I don’t have any interest in the lives of others but I will emphasize that with every passing year an interest in my own life has grown gradually while the interest in the lives of others has declined. And I think that is what happens with most people; my mistakes, just like those of most other people, can be traced back to me. The margin I am keeping here is for a small minority of good boys, who are capable of committing heinous acts and also ensuring that the trail never leads to them.

With that said allow me to start this post about the paparazzi culture and the Tiger Woods life uncovering mission which has become the latest obsession in the world. Is the Tiger Woods scandal a really big story with everything remarkable about it? Truth, by the way, is no defense in defamation cases and the saviour of a reporter and a publication is fair comment (public interest). I got to learn about the fact that it had become a big scandal only via a blog called Medium Term on December 1; and my comment to it suggested that I had reacted only to the last line and not the point of the whole post. Then I read a December 8 update to the blog and the various gormless comments on both the posts; including my own.

Tiger Woods is a genuine great on the golf course and he may not be an ideal husband but is there any shortage of less-than-ideal husbands that Tiger deserves to sit on top of that heap as well. This is typical Daily Mail journalism for you; just go to their website any day and you’ve got to give them credit that they do not lose a single opportunity to have two perfect images that would tell you how an X celebrity has lost or gained a stone since she was last spotted in public. Any female celebrity that walks out without wearing a bra underneath would be up on their website with her cup size and her success at keeping gravity at bay spelt out for the reader.

There is no doubt that the public is interested but I have serious doubts on whether it is in public interest. It is in the interest of our gusto for the lurid that justifies such excavation. There is no moral high ground to claim but I would prefer some erotic literature over what to me is boring tabloid crap any day. How about a paper that unveils the life of tabloid scribes; would that be any less interesting?

I have learnt from friends, who have more than a passing interest in the range, that golf is a sport that mirrors life very closely. I know the rules but only those who play can tell you that it is a simple game if you can keep it simple and can get as entangled as life if you start messing with it. Mark McCormack—the man who founded the first sports management company with just under $500 in capital and thereby gave birth to a multi-billion dollar industry—loved the game of golf and wrote in his bestseller What They Don’t Teach You At The Harvard Business School: “I have often said that I can tell more about how someone is likely to react in a business situation from one round of golf than I can from a hundred hours of meetings. Maybe golf cuts more directly to the psyche than other games and situations. Or maybe it is the venue itself—green grass and rolling hills. It’s astonishing how so simple a game can reveal so much.” Tiger Woods pulling out of golf is already being seen as a threat to the sport that is struggling amid the recession and one newspaper reported that the Tiger Woods brand alone is 50 per cent of the sport.

In a statement published on his Website Tiger Woods said he was profoundly sorry and asked for forgiveness. Golfer John Daly said, “I’m in shock over it all, a lot of our players are in shock. I’m not happy with the way some of our players have responded—that’s their way of getting back because they know they can’t beat him at golf…”

Heinrich Böll, one of Germany’s leading post World War-II writers and the recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1972, wrote ‘a marvel of compression and irony’, The Lost Honour Of Katharina Blum, that was translated into English a year after its publication in 1974.

The back of the book cover reveals the plot: “Katharina Blum is pretty, bright, hard-working and at the centre of a big city scandal when, at a carnival party, she falls in love with a young radical on the run from the police. Portrayed by the city’s leading newspaper as a whore, a communist and an atheist, she becomes the target of anonymous phone calls and sexual threats. Her life is ruined by the distortions of a corrupt press; she shoots the offending journalist and gives herself up for arrest.

Step by step, and with an affecting forensic clarity, Katharina’s story is reconstructed for the reader, gradually disclosing an entire panorama of human relationship and motive. The novel is a masterful comment on the law and the press, the labyrinth of social truth and the relentless collusion of fact and fiction.”

The Times said, “Böll sustains a masterly and insidious tension to the end. He is detached, angry and totally in control.” Heinrich Böll served for several years as president of International P.E.N. and was a leading defender of the intellectual freedom of writers throughout the world. He died in 1985.

The plot is revealed because it is not the plot but the narration that makes the book great. On one side is Werner Tötges, the journalist behind all the falsification and on the other is Böll’s narrator, whose profession remains unmentioned, but he consistently separates facts from assumptions. The Sunday Times said: “Such is the force of Böll’s conviction, the clarity of his vision and the icy economy of his unemotive prose that within this short space he has distilled a spirit that burns into the palate the unmistakable and lasting tang of truth.”

The thickness of the book is inversely proportional to its impact—just about 140 pages. It is the social milieu of late 1960s and early 70s that the book attacks indirectly; especially the Alex Springer-owned Springer Press that controlled almost half of the newspaper circulation in West Germany.

“Art is always a good hiding-place, not for dynamite, but for intellectual explosives and social time bombs. Why would there otherwise have been the various Indices? And precisely in their despised and often even despicable beauty and lack of transparency lies the best hiding-place for the barb that brings about the sudden jerk or the sudden recognition.” (Heinrich Böll from Nobel Lecture, 1973)

exista un cuvant minunat: nimic.

Eén van de vele korte verhalen
In het programma Am Abend vorgelesen dat door de regionale Duitse zender NDR Kultur (Norddeutscher Rundfunk, Hamburg/Hannover) op dinsdag 17 november — tussen 22:00 uur en 22:35 uur — zal worden uitgezonden, zal de Duitse film- en televisie-acteur Hemut Zierl het verhaal Wanderer, kommst du nach Spa. . . voorlezen. Dit verhaal van de schrijver Heinrich Böll (1917-1985) stamt uit de beginperiode van diens oeuvre, en het is opgenomen in de gelijknamige bundel met 25 korte verhalen, voor het eerst tezamen uitgegeven in 1964. Verhalen van deze schrijver zijn in het Nederlands vertaald, eveneens gebundeld, en werden ook in onze contreien zeer gewaardeerd.

The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum
By Heinrich Boll

When I first read this 1974 novel, set in West Germany around the time of the Red Army Faction, it seemed very foreign to me in every sense.  A serious terrorist threat?  Law enforcement overreach to deal with it?  Powerful, sensationalist right-wing media whipping up the panic?  Well, times have changed, and the resonances today are different for American readers.  I discovered as much earlier this year, when Penguin asked me to write an introduction for this new paperback edition.

- Kurt Andersen

Înainte de toate, vă invit, dacă nu-i cu supărare,  să citiţi cronica celui mai prost film pe care l-am văzut în viaţa mea. Cronica e scurtă – chinul e de durată. Nu vă doresc să treceţi prin aşa ceva, în fine, citiţi dumneavoastră acolo despre ce e vorba.

(dă clic ↑)

Marcat de experienţa cinematografică traumatizantă care mai că mi-a smuls lacrimi, vă invit să deşărtaţi sacul cu filme proaste. Ce film v-a chinuit cel mai tare? Aveţi asemenea amintiri? V-aţi dorit să se întâmple lucruri groaznice care să pună capăt suferinţei? Cartea pe care o ofer săptămâna aceasta e Fotografie de grup cu doamnă a lui Heinrich Boll (ediţia din ‘88, apărută la Editura Dacia, ca să n-avem discuţii). E un gest cu totul dezinteresat: el a primit deja Nobelul, înaintea de-a primi sprijinul meu. Dar vă promit că l-aş fi ajutat cu cea mai mare plăcere, aşa cum am făcut şi în alte cazuri, cu un oarecare succes aş spune . Chiar merită. Mare scriitor, dom’le, mare scriitor.

Aşadar, aştept răspunsurile vostre pe URL-ul cunoscut începând de ACUM şi până când terminăm.  Enjoy the talking!

- Ero stanco, volevo soltanto bere la mia birra, giocare per un momento a Mensch-ärgere-dich-nicht*, fare un bagno, leggere i giornali della sera e addormentarmi accanto a Maria, la mano destra sul suo seno e il viso così vicino alla sua testa da poter portare con me nel sonno il profumo dei suoi capelli. -

* E’ un gioco da tavolo tedesco di cui non ho assolutamente chiaro il funzionamento. Sicuramente è una roba di quelle che piacciono a me, perché il significato del nome è in sostanza “Non t’arrabbià”. Promette bene, no? Comunque è fatto così:

“Metodi decisamente troppo fiacchi, al giorno d’oggi” gridò; “troppo fiacchi.”

“Naturale” replicai  “ci vorrebbero più frustate nella scuola.”

“Vero?” gridò lui infiammandosi.

“Sicuro. Specialmente gli insegnanti dovrebbero prenderne un bel po’ di più.”

da “Opinioni di un clown”, Heinrich Böll

I’m feeling a little washed out at the moment; reading in a foreign language does that to you. Although my German is fairly good, reading German books in the original version is always a more difficult task than reading anything in English, so getting through this 374-page novel of wartime Cologne was a big task (and I’m very happy, and relieved, to have managed it in just under a week – although my continued absence from work may have had something to do with that…). I apologise, however, dear reader, if I have led you to believe that I didn’t enjoy the week; this book is definitely worth the time spent on it.

Just as with my previous Böll novel, ‘Die Verlorene Ehre der Katharina Blum’, ‘Gruppenbild mit Dame’ (translated, rather clumsily, as ‘Group Portrait with Lady’ – sometimes translation can be an inexact science) concentrates on a female central character, whose life is laid out for the reader through interviews and documents. However, the treatment of Leni Pfeiffer, the heroine of this novel, differs in several important ways from that of the charming (and deadly) Katharina B. Where the reason for the interest in Ms. Blum’s life is clear from the start, the reader is mainly left in the dark as to why Leni’s life is important enough to be reconstructed. In addition, while ‘Gruppenbild mit Dame’ is at least three times as long as ‘Die Verlorene Ehre…’, the enigmatic Leni is seldom to be seen or heard.

Of course, this is part of Böll’s plan (and a very good one it is too). Through interviews with a couple of dozen friends, colleagues and family members, not only Leni’s life is described; Böll also paints a picture of life in Cologne as lived by ordinary people before, during and shortly after World War II. The supposed objectivity, which gives the story a semi-historical feel, is enhanced by the use of an intermediary to gather the facts and conduct interviews. This man, known only as Der Verf. (the ‘Verf.’, presumably short for Verfasser, or editor) acts as a guide through the tangled web of relationships which need to be uncovered in order to find the truth about Leni’s life.

At first, the book appears to drag a little. The constant interviews, the lengthy monologues (some of which go on for dozens of pages with relatively few paragraph breaks), the constant referral to sources; for the reader who is looking for an answer as to why this research is being carried out, frustration slowly sets in. However, it soon becomes clear that this research is being done to tell us about everyone – not just Leni, but all the people in her life – and how they made it through this awful time in history (and what became of them afterwards).

The main thread of the book, Leni’s story, is a simple one, and we know most of it right from the start. A young German girl loses a lover at the start of the war, marries (and then loses) another soldier and then falls hopelessly in love with Boris, a Russian POW working with her in her wartime job making wreaths for funerals. It sound a little far-fetched, but Böll sets the situation up meticulously so that there is not the slightest bit of doubt as to the authenticity of the situation. Of course, this relationship would have cost both of them their lives if it had been discovered (especially with some Nazi co-workers on the lookout for any seditious activity), so it progresses slowly and in great secrecy until normal life starts to unravel in 1945.

The story makes it quite clear that the war was lost by 1945, and the fearsome air attack on Cologne on the 2nd of March (described near the end of the book in several accounts) was followed closely by the Americans’ entry into the city. However, the line between war and peace was not as defined as we may expect; there was a long period where defeat was certain, but there was no telling how long the war would drag on for, and this is perhaps the most fascinating part of the book. Each of the characters interviewed had to think about both how to get through their day alive and how they would avoid punishment once the Allies had taken over. For women and children, this wasn’t such a great concern, but anyone who had been heavily involved in the war effort had to make contingency plans and gather proof of their relative ‘cleanliness’ to use in peace time – all the while hiding this from the military who would have shot them for defeatism…

What happens after the war is even more interesting. Some of the characters come out of their ducking and diving smelling of roses while others, generally the quieter and more honest ones, struggle to make ends meet. Those who have profited from their war-time experiences stress, in their interviews with Verf., the efforts they took to help other people and the work they put in (and the risks they took) to build their fortunes. However, thanks to the multitude of sources available to the reader, we are able to hear the other side of the story, and the way the less fortunate describe events does not always tally with the description the winners give.

One of the central themes running through this book is the success of capitalism and survival of the fittest; by 1970, when Verf. is carrying out his research, the political pendulum seemed to be swinging back to the conservative side of the spectrum (if not quite to the Nazi side…). Two scenes towards the end of the novel illustrate this. In the first, two businessmen (who have known Leni since they were babies) explain why they are going to throw her out on the street, using debts she has run up as an excuse to cancel her lease (frozen at a price well below the market rate). In their eyes, Leni is failing the market system by refusing to work, even though she is only in her forties, and sub-letting rooms at the same price to foreign workers, thus perverting the market and ensuring that the workers send their money home rather than spending it in Germany!

The second involves a psychological report on Leni’s son, Lev, who is in prison for deliberate falsification of documents. The report, while generally positive and well meant, criticises Lev for what it describes as his ‘Leistungsverweigerung’ (a refusal to perform to his full potential). That may seem a little harsh, but you need the full background to understand how harsh. Lev has always done his job well, but in his refusal to make an effort at school and his disinclination to use his talents to the full at work and move up to a managerial position, he is deemed to be offending against his employers – and his society. Capitalism gone mad…

In all this madness, we, like the characters in the book, are forced to make decisions and take a stand. It is very clear where Böll’s sympathies lie, and this is shown in the way Verf.’s attitude changes as the novel nears its close, from a fully detached objective chronicler, to a more involved relater of tales until he finally (like the reader) becomes emotionally involved in the story, to the extent that he begins to be a part of the events he is supposed to be recording.

This is a very good book (as you would expect from a work which gave the Nobel Prize committee a final gentle nudge), but it’s also very different. It requires a lot of patience, a fair amount of interest in the history behind it and an ability to critically engage with the text. Coming from a country on the other side of the front line, I found many of the details in this book new and surprising. Obviously, I don’t know quite as much about the war as I’d thought… As the Second World War recedes into history, it’s important to look back, as Böll does, to ensure that the mistakes of the past are not repeated in the future.

Mittwoch | 14.10.2009 | 21:00 Uhr | Eintritt frei

klein stadt GROSS: Lesung und Vernissage

“Schampus gibt’s woanders!” lautet der markige Untertitel des Kompilationsmeisterwerkes klein stadt GROSS.
Seit dem 12. Oktober darf sich Greifswald auf einen Marathon der Veröffentlichungsfeierlichkeiten freuen, immerhin sind 18 hiesige Bands, Solokünstler und Musikprojekte auf dem Silberling vereint.
Was für Musiker zutrifft, gilt nicht weniger für die bildenden Künstler. Mit dem 28seitigen Booklet, an dem 9 Künstler mitgewirkt haben, und in katalogähnlicher Form ihre Werke präsentieren, ist “klein stadt GROSS – Schampus gibt’s woanders” nicht nur in musikalischer, sondern auch in bildend-künstlerischer Hinsicht die umfassende Werkschau einer Stadt.

Ein Teil der Record Release Feierlichkeiten wird natürlich auch im Café Koeppen realisiert. Dazu sind Sie heute Abend sehr herzlich eingeladen!
Die Fotografin Nanne Springer stellt ihre Arbeiten, die nach den Texten von Stephan Rehfeld entstanden sind, im Café aus. Stephan Rehfeld ist an diesem Abend ebenso im Café zu Gast und wird zur Eröffnung der Exposition aus seinen Texten lesen. Musikalisch umrahmt wird das Ganze von Lofi Deluxe. Ein gedanken- und gefühlstransformatorisches Experiment von Wort zu Bild, hin zu Musik und wieder zurück.

Der Eintritt ist frei.

Die CD kann man selbstverständlich im Café Koeppen erwerben.

Weitere Infos zum Projekt unter:
www.schampusgibtswoanders.de
www.myspace.com/kleinstadtgross

Die Fotos sind bis zum 15. November im Café Koeppen zu sehen.
—-
Freitag | 16.10.2009 | 20:00 Uhr | Lesung | Eintritt: 5,-/ 3,- Euro ermäßigt

“RestWärme” – Lyrik-Nacht

mit Andreas Altmann, Silke Peters, Jan Wagner und Judith Zander

Gemeinsam mit der Literaturzeitschrift „Wiecker Bote“ präsentiert das Literaturzentrum Vorpommern eine Lyrik-Nacht mit preisgekrönten Dichterinnen und Dichtern. Eine Auswahl ihrer schönsten Gedichte werden Judith Zander, Andreas Altmann, Silke Peters und Jan Wagner lesen.

Unter dem Titel „Restwärme“ erklingt zeitgenössische Lyrik in ihrer thematischen und stilistischen Vielgestalt.

Die jüngste Autorin des Abends ist die 1980 in Anklam geborene Dichterin Judith Zander. Nach ihrem Studium in Greifswald besuchte sie das Deutsche Literaturinstitut in Leipzig und gewann 2007 den renommierten open mike-Wettbewerb in Berlin.
Zur Zeit lebt Judith Zander als Stipendiatin im GEDOK Atelierhaus in Lübeck.

Der 1963 in Hainichen/Sachsen geborene Andreas Altmann unternimmt mit seinen Texten den „Versuch, durch die Verschmelzung von Sprache, Ich und Natur einen Ort zu erschaffen, an dem die Melancholie des Unverortetseins aufgehoben wird“ (NDR). Für sein unverwechselbares poetisches Werk ist ihm u. a. der Christine-Lavant-Lyrikpreis und der Erwin-Strittmatter-Preis zuerkannt worden.

Die Arbeiten der Stralsunder Lyrikerin Silke Peters zeichnen sich durch eine sehr dichte Sprache aus. Ihre poetischen Landschaften sind genauestens erkundet. Gleich einer Gesteinsforscherin legt Silke Peters, die 1967 in Rostock geboren wurde und in Greifswald studierte, mit ihrer Sprache die Schichten eines Ortes, einer Region und einer Landschaft frei.

Für seine präzise Sprache, seine stimmigen Bilder und sein müheloses Spiel mit den Formen wird Jan Wagner, der 1971 in Hamburg geboren wurde, von der deutschen Literaturkritik gefeiert. Als Übersetzer englischsprachiger Lyrik und Herausgeber der internationalen Lyrikanthologie „Die Außenseite des Elements“ lebt der studierte Anglist in Berlin.

Mit freundlicher Unterstützung der Universitäts- und Hansestadt Greifswald und des Landes Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.

Der Eintritt beträgt 5,- und 3,- Euro ermäßigt.
Karten gibt es im Vorverkauf im Café Koeppen, im Antiquariat & Buchhandlung Dr. Ulrich Rose und in der Greifswald Information

—-

AUSSTELLUNG

bis 7. November 2009

„Ich natürlich, oder?!“, soll im Jahre 1981 Gabriel Garcia Márquez einem Journalisten am Tag der Verleihung des Nobelpreises für Literatur auf die Frage geantwortet haben, ob er wisse, wer der diesjährige Preisträger sei. Doch Márquez’ Freude war verfrüht. Nicht er wurde gewählt, sondern Elias Canetti, einer der zwölf deutschsprachigen Autorinnen und Autoren, denen die Stockholmer Nobel-Stiftung diese hohe Auszeichnung von 1901 bis heute zuerkannt hat. Márquez hatte jedoch nicht lange Grund, enttäuscht zu sein. Denn als erster Kolumbianer erhielt er bereits 1982, ein Jahr nach Canetti, den Literaturnobelpreis.

Ein Dutzend deutschsprachiger Nobelpreisträger für Literatur – wer waren die eigentlich? Die jüngeren dürften noch allgemein in Erinnerung sein: Elfriede Jelinek im Jahre 2004 und Günter Grass 1999. Heinrich Böll (1972) und Hermann Hesse (1946) werden vielen ebenfalls noch spontan einfallen; vielleicht auch Gerhart Hauptmann (1912). Aber die komplette Liste bekommen nur wenige zusammen. Ein Grund mehr also, die Wanderausstellung der Arbeitsgemeinschaft Literarischer Gesellschaften und Gedenkstätten in Greifswald zu präsentieren. Ergänzend zu den ausgezeichneten Autoren sind gleichermaßen einige besondere frühe Ausgaben ihrer Werke, die die Universitätsbibliothek Greifswald freundlicherweise zur Verfügung gestellt hat, in der Ausstellung zu sehen.

ÖFFNUNGSZEITEN:

Dienstag bis Samstag, 14.00 Uhr bis 18.00 Uhr
Der Eintritt ist frei.

CAFÉ KOEPPEN
Italienische und Wiener Kaffeespezialitäten, Zeitschriften, Bücher,
Brettspiele
Öffnungszeiten: Montag – Freitag ab 12.00 Uhr

Cand sunteti pe punctul sa vi se cimenteze in minte stereotipul ca nemtii sunt reci, exacti si lipsiti de sentimente, sa vedeti Goodbye, Lenin! sau The Lives of Others. Veti constata cu uimire ca sunt niste oameni cu umor, care stiu sa faca haz de necaz, sa isi perceapa realist defectele si sa se abata de la reguli.

Opiniile unui clovn de Heinrich Boll se alatura acestei pledoarii. Daca va apucati s-o cititi, pregatiti-va sa va asumati rolul de psihoterapeut, instalati-va confortabil intr-un fotoliu capitonat, in timp ce, pe canapea, vocea romanului isi va depana trista poveste. Pacientul vostru e un clovn dezamagit de viata, pe care l-a parasit iubita si cu umarul si genunchiul paradite dupa un accident. Omul are probleme cu parintii, pe care nu se sfieste sa ii acuze de ipocrizie si de vina de a o fi impins pe sora sa la moarte in timpul celui de-al Doilea Razboi Mondial, are probleme cu toti cei care, sub masca religiozitatii, ascund ipocrizie, are probleme cu ipocrizia in general. Sufera amarnic dupa iubita lui, cu care a avut o relatie copilaroasa si inocenta, care insa l-a lasat pentru un catolic scortos, respectabil si plat.

Dintre afectiunile pacientului, cea care starneste cel mai pregnant interes este cea referitoare la relatiile cu parintii. Nu are furia spumeganda a lui Jeroen Browers in Rosu Ucigas, dar este la fel de neiertatoare. Scena intalnirii dintre fiul ratacitor si risipitor si tatal, figura publica instarita si de succes, este naucitoare. Are umor, deci ar trebui sa rad; are o fina observatie psihologica, deci ar trebui sa ma puna pe ganduri; ce a facut insa a fost sa ma inunde cu un fel de tristete asemanatoare cu gripa – am simtit-o in tot corpul, dar n-am putut-o localiza concret.

De cand mi-am arogat dreptul de a diseca si psihanaliza carti, nu m-am confruntat cu un final mai dificil. Eticheta de fericit fuge ca o soparla pe care incerci sa o prinzi de coada, dar nici cea de trist nu se lasa lipita.

Pentru toate bataile astea de cap, deloc dureroase, dar profunde, dau urmatorul diagnostic:

Un Nobel dat pe bune.

“Schweigen ist ein Argument, das kaum zu widerlegen ist.”

Heinrich Böll, dt. Schrifteller (1917 – 1985)

As pessoas acostumam-se ao vocabulário do prostíbulo. Certa vez encontrei Sommerwild depois de um debate tipo “A arte moderna pode ser religiosa?”, e ele me perguntou:

- Fui bem? Você gostou?

São perguntas que as putas fazem a seus clientes quando estão de saída. Só faltava ele ter dito: “Me recomenda para seus amigos, tá?”

Leo é bem alto, loiro, os óculos sem aro dão-lhe a aparência de um superintendente ou um jesuíta sueco. Os vincos marcados de sua calça escura fizeram desaparecer os últimos vestígios da aura de Chopin, o pulôver branco sobre a calça bem vincada a ferro ficava péssimo, assim como a gola da camisa vermelha, que se via saindo pelo pulôver. Uma visão como essa – de alguém que tenta sem sucesso parecer descontraído – me põe melancólico, assim como nomes presunçosos, Epaminondas, Gertrudes.

Em 1943,um avião da Luftwaffe nazista cai em um deserto de rochas da Criméia com o então jovem telegrafista das forças armadas da Alemanha: Joseph Beuys . Fato ou não, a partir dali um artista criou uma mitologia em que a criatividade transforma os sentidos de alguns materiais e esse novo uso dos significados há de curar o mundo. O dever do artista passa a ser compartilhar relações criativas com as coisas.

Em 1972, Joseph Beuys já é o artista mais conhecido da Europa. Desenhista e escultor virtuose, tornou-se famoso pelo modo de agrupar os seus materiais artísticos e pelo sentido que dava a arte, vista mais como uma ação sobre o mundo comum que uma criação de alguma imagem em separado do mundo. Por isso, ele se recusava chamar as suas performances com esse nome. Para ele, tratavam-se de ações, ações efetivas de transformação do mundo.  Sua obra de arte já é uma maneira de militância. Ele atua em tudo que toca, como se sensibilizasse os objetos.

Suas aulas também pretendem ter o mesmo efeito. As aulas foram como quase todas as suas apresentações: uma forma de criar. Diante de uma sala super-lotada, por onde já haviam passado nomes da cultura alemã como o pintor Anselm Kiefer e Conrad Schnitzler do Kluster, por exemplo, ele criava um evento, uma forma de friccionar a criação com o mundo, como ele fazia com seus materiais.

Por isso, em 1974, ele abre a Universidade Livre Internacional, junto com o escritor Heinrich Böll, despreocupado com o estatuto das coisas e mesmo com a possibilidade de se fazer arte. Aliás, isso sempre me fez duvidar, mesmo sem saber nada de alemão, (aliás, talvez por isso) da interpretação da frase: “Jeder Mensch ein Künstler” como “Todo mundo é um artista”

O artista abriu um dos seus cursos com a frase, o que me parece, se traduzido desta forma, paradoxal.  Se Beuys buscava uma ideia ampliada da arte em que ela, no limite, deixaria de existir, para que deixar que seus alunos carregarem uma honraria tão putrefata?

Parece mais apropriada a tradução que vi no texto de Adolfo Vásquez Rocca, a tradução literal : “Cada homem, um artista”. Que se parece com: “Cada cabeça, uma sentença”. Mas embora afetasse dar tão pouca bola para a arte, em um artigo belíssimo, o crítico inglês David Sylvester revela o quanto disso era balela e quão grande era a cultura artística do alemão.

Em 2009, eu tento toda a sexta postar uma música neste blog. Sempre varia. Como a vida anda dura, na última sexta não deu, me atrasei e postei hoje. Acho que nunca postei algo tão heterodoxo com0 o que insiro hoje.  Às vezes sou motivado por razões afetivas, razões militantes ou pela vontade de mostrar algo que todos deveriam ver.

O motivo para este vídeo combina todas as razões apresentadas antes e mais algumas. Como não sei postar as músicas, sempre posto vídeos do youtube. Hoje, mais do que nunca, a imagem se faz necessária.Pois ela acontecerá em absoluto silêncio diante de um rosto. É quase uma experiência cageana. Diante de um silêncio tão dramático, a experiência se mostra arrebatadora, como diante do Laocoonte. Embora se pareça com os filmes de Andy Warhol, o filme apela aos sentimentos, diante de uma expressão fria. Ele nos encara, como se esperasse alguma reação. Ficamos diante do silêncio, e do aprisionamento do personagem Beuys em um espaço tão diminuto, a perceber tudo.

Beuys vem da experiência da Alemanha nazista. Que abalou a confiança alemã no progresso, na afirmação da ação e na racionalidade técnica como caminho para libertação das amarras primitivas. O que havia de mais sofisticado no saber técnico acabara de ser usado no extermínio e tornava-se uma intolerante forma de obscurantismo.

Portanto sua ação vai com bastante vagar, não descaracteriza os elementos orgânicos que usa. Ao colocá-los lado a lado, eles surgem, mais pacientes. Nota-se que com o tempo as imposições de suas atribuições funcionais vão sendo esquecidas. As partes passam a se energizar mutuamente, retirando os elementos de sua opacidade cinzenta e nos fazendo perceber nossa indiferença, que mediava nossa sensibilidade como escama.

Nessa busca de uma verdade das coisas, o artista procura estender as capacidades sensitivas do homem. Tal procedimento se estende para as “ações” do artista. É conhecido o episódio de sua conferência, onde ele convidou a audiência a aspirar o ar com ele, sentindo o que poderia existir de singular e intenso lá. É desse desejo de reconciliar o homem com seu mundo, em uma troca energética permanente, onde um revitaliza o outro, que parece se alimentar a obra de Beuys.

A redenção do homem com as coisas parece o fim que o artista queria nessa troca de forças. De fato ela não ocorreu. Mas a força de Beuys não se dá no campo das intenções. Provavelmente, nossa relação com o mundo hoje é mais predatória. Mas a obra de Beuys nos abriu a possibilidade de a arte se reconciliar com o mundo, tornando-se capaz de mostrá-lo reavivado a nós e vice-versa. Seus objetos, quando reunidos criam uma espécie de fricção, emque nada mais se apresenta como antes.

Hoje, o artista está em baixa na interpretação. Cansei de escutar aqui e acolá argumento sobre a fragilidade de seus argumentos e de suas profecias. Ele falava coisas que pareciam sem nexo, mostrava objeos que hoje parecem inocentes, mas de forma geral, foi um esforço de mudar o modo do homem lidar com os objetos com apenas um parâmetro no século XX: Picasso (o maior artista daquele século).

Mas duas coisas me parecem importantes:

1) Ele joga um balde de água fria naqueles que vêm a arte como um espaço de prestígio. Para ele a arte é uma coisa qualquer, que pode mudar a vida das pessoas, mas menos do que a atividade social e espiritual

2) Beuys é um artista virtuose, faz objetos preciosos. Quando discursa atua mais como profeta do que como artista, com todos os recursos cênicos e retóricos do profeta. Assim, como diria o Paulo Emílio sobre o Glauber Rocha, o profeta não está aí para acertar, mas para profetizar.

Este foarte enervant să citeşti un roman cu proza monotonă, aşa cum e „Onoarea pierdută a Katharinei Blum”, scris de Heinrich Boll. Sincer să fiu, în faţa ochilor mei numele proprii s-au amestecat haotic. Foarte greu am înţeles că acţiunea e retroactivă… şi să nu-mi ziceţi că mă înşel, că eu nu recitesc nimic! Şi când te gândeşti cu câtă obedienţă am început eu cartea asta… am văzut-o aşa, mică, ieftină, de editură bună… Mă rog, subiectul nu e rău, dar scriitura, Doamne, scriitura e ca o clismă de alambicată. Am scris clismă? Pardon, vroiam să zic cizmă! Tabloid, tabloid fraţilor, Nobel Nobel, dar să ne placă şi nouă! 

A question, dear reader: what do you think it would take for you to blow someone away?

This book only goes for around 130 pages, yet the author is able, in such a short space of time, to outline a web of connections and misunderstandings surrounding what is effectively an open-and-shut case. Katharina is revealed as incredibly hard-working, overly shy and prudish, unwilling to open herself up, extremely sensitive and, at times, pedantic; however, Die ZEITUNG manages to twist the facts to fit the circumstances which they believe best suit their readers opinions, making the poor woman out to be a sex-crazed terrorist helping enemies of the state to escape justice. The style of writing Böll chose for this work lends itself to making the reader understand the frustration Katharina (and her friends) feels as the report style gives a certain detachment which allows us to view events more objectively than if they had been seen through the eyes of one of the main characters.

The setting is also vital for understanding the atmosphere of tension and the ferocity of the press at the time. The action takes place over the week of Karneval, which, in the Rheinland, is celebrated just as wildly as Mardi-Gras is enjoyed in Rio. For those who have never lived in Germany, this may be a little difficult to reconcile with the stereotypical image of Germans as practical and sensible, but during Karneval, anything goes. There is a strong feeling of freedom from everyday constraints, and the chance of sexual encounters, like Katharina’s uncharacteristic liaison, is greatly increased. In fact, I’ve even heard opinions saying that infidelities during Karneval don’t count as no-one is in their right mind…

Even more important is the fact that the action is set in 1974, in the middle of the Cold War and the era of terrorist attacks by the Rote Armee Fraktion and the Baader-Meinhof group. In a time of great uncertainty (as seen, unfortunately, throughout the world over the past ten years), we are always ready to jump at ghosts and pounce on the smallest sign of (imagined) betrayal. When even Katharina’s friends are being excoriated in the media for their imagined communist past, it is no wonder that the papers, and the reading public, are so keen to believe her a foreign spy, or, at the very least, a fifth columnist.

So, I ask you once again: if a newspaper reporter accused you of treason, hounded your mother to death and blamed you for it, dug up dirt on all your friends, rang you up and harrassed you sexually; in short, did everything posible to deprive you of the one thing you held dear in life, your honour, before turning up to an interview and suggesting that you might as well screw him… would you, if in possession of a gun, be able to resist the temptation of shooting him down?

Well, would you?

“Se diventassimo consapevoli dell’eredità che giace in ogni parola, studieremmo i nostri dizionari, catalogo della nostra ricchezza e scopriremmo che dietro ogni parola vi è un mondo. Chi usa le parole mette in moto dei mondi, degli esseri divisi: quello che può consolare l’uno, può ferire a morte un altro.”

Heinrich Boll, La lingua come luogo di libertà, discorso del 1959 reperibile qui .

I don’t care if she’s a full-fledged Communist – she knows how to make coffee.

- Heinrich Boll, Women in a River Landscape (p. 10)