Today would have been my paternal grandmother’s 100th birthday. She was one of the sweetest people I’ve ever known, although she sadly slipped into dementia in her last years, the cracks in her sweetness showing the disappointments and bitterness she’d suppressed all her life. But for me, the memories of earlier on, when she was living in her small terrace house with the roses out front (with my distant grandfather until his strokes) in a retirement village in Germany, are much more vivid. Which is how it should be.
Thank you, Omi, for the smiles, the stories, the awesome tent beds in the attic, and the special treats in your fridge. But most of all for your love, which shines clearly in my mind, more than a decade later.
The outpour of support of the internet community has pretty much blown me away. I’ve donated to the Swiss Red Cross and Glückskette, but it doesn’t seem enough in the face of all that suffering.
And then there was the lovely Kelly Diels, who writes an excellent blog on Cleavage:
Like you, I’m all torn up about Haiti.
But I haven’t said a word about it. To anyone.
There’s a reason why.
Talking Gets In The Way of Action
I think complaining and venting can be enervating. You’ve got this uncomfortably hot issue simmering and boiling and producing steam…and then you vent. All that energy dissipates into the atmosphere. You’re comfortable again. And so you carry on.
And nothing changes.
So these are my offers:
1. Hosting on one of my domains in exchange for your donation of at least $5. Fannish and personal sites welcome. I’ll be glad to help set you up in any way I can. (Obviously no illegal content.)
2. Snail mail from Switzerland. Depending on the size of your donation it’ll be a postcard or a care package.
3. English – German / German – English translation of any text, 2 hours work for every $10 donation. I’m a native German speaker with a German literature minor at university – not a professional translator, but I did get full marks in two different English exams and have been writing in English, both privately and at university (including my MA thesis in Switzerland and a graduate diploma in New Zealand) for years.
Donations should go to a reputable charity like the Red Cross or Doctors Without Borders.
1. Scribbled secret notebooks, and wild typewritten pages, for yr own joy
2. Submissive to everything, open, listening
3. Try never get drunk outside yr own house
4. Be in love with yr life
5. Something that you feel will find its own form
6. Be crazy dumbsaint of the mind
7. Blow as deep as you want to blow
8. Write what you want bottomless from bottom of the mind
9. The unspeakable visions of the individual
10. No time for poetry but exactly what is
11. Visionary tics shivering in the chest
12. In tranced fixation dreaming upon object before you
13. Remove literary, grammatical and syntactical inhibition
14. Like Proust be an old teahead of time
15. Telling the true story of the world in interior monolog
16. The jewel center of interest is the eye within the eye
17. Write in recollection and amazement for yourself
18. Work from pithy middle eye out, swimming in language sea
19. Accept loss forever
20. Believe in the holy contour of life
21. Struggle to sketch the flow that already exists intact in mind
22. Don’t think of words when you stop but to see picture better
23. Keep track of every day the date emblazoned in yr morning
24. No fear or shame in the dignity of yr experience, language & knowledge
25. Write for the world to read and see yr exact pictures of it
26. Bookmovie is the movie in words, the visual American form
27. In praise of Character in the Bleak inhuman Loneliness
28. Composing wild, undisciplined, pure, coming in from under, crazier the better
29. You’re a Genius all the time
30. Writer-Director of Earthly movies Sponsored & Angeled in Heaven
I’ve never actually read Kerouac, but this makes me want to.
Have been on a bit of a Jon Stewart kick the past few days. I’ve gotten into the habit of listening to audiobooks on my way to and from work, as I can’t read on the bus into town – and one of the books was America (The Book): A Citizen’s Guide to Democracy Inaction by said Jon Stewart, which totally reminded me why I love that guy and his brain. (I get ‘brain crushes’ sometimes, on seriously smart and funny people like Stephen Fry or Neil Gaiman.)
So I decided to see if I couldn’t find a place to watch The Daily Show, which I’d caught in New Zealand a few times (it aired on the music channel C4 there, on the same day as the US, thanks to the international date line) – and ‘lo and behold, you can actually watch the episodes on the show’s official website, no matter where you live! See, that’s why I love the internets… 🙂
And following Jon Stewart of course also means following Obama – I actually remember hearing about Obama’s speech on race on The Daily Show in March:
And, because it’s less than one week until the elections are finally here, let me be the last person on this planet to post the “Yes We Can” video, because it’s a lot of fun to play “name the celeb” (and because it is a seriously awesome speech, too):
Okay, enough politics for this blog, I promise! (Actually, in the past – during the 2004 elections, as a matter of fact – I caught serious flak from an “online friend” because I dared to have an opinon about American politics – but, although I’m not American and don’t live in the US, I think it’s safe to say that American politics affect the whole world. Sometimes with… rather tragic consequences.) Umm yes. This was supposed to be a simple squee post about Jon Stewart, but there you go. *g*
The idea to get a tattoo (my second one) commemorating my family and our lives together, came to me suddenly, and was realized (with Sibylle’s help) quite quickly. Today I went to Basel Tattoo & Body Art Studio and had it done by Karyna, who did a great job. At times quite painful (depending on the location it went from mild burn to cringeworthy/eye-watering), but luckily it was done fairly quickly, so the pain didn’t get too bad.
. .
The circle with four ‘stones’ represents the four of us holding hands. It just seemed appropriate to get this now, because once I leave for New Zealand, our lives as a family probably never be the same…
First I learn that my thesis was accepted, so I’m definitely going to the exams – and then the doorbell rings and I get flowers, totally out of the blue from Sibylle. Just. Big smile time and lots of love for my best friend.
A recent visit to Starbucks reminded me how much I love muffins and what a pity it is that you can’t really get them anywhere (except for Starbucks, where they’re really expensive, like everything there). So I went ahead (the way I do when I get an idea into my head) and bought two of those fancy silicone muffin forms. Which is why the flat is smelling all yummy right now, a perfect contrast to the nasty weather outside – whether my chocolate chip and raspberry muffins (the latter improvised following this blueberry recipe, actually) will actually taste good has yet to be determined… 🙂
