blog

So lazy…………..one week.

My birthday passed without realizing it, working all week-end after a meeting was rescheduled for Monday. Where’s the birthday party? Today I supposed to head off for San Francisco. Instead, I had to get the car, I tried to register, but he failed the smog test with all these minor issues which as I was told are minor (will see how minor they really are……). The mechanic I asked with the bmw a while a go took a look at it and thought it’s ok. Except these minor issues. I hope I’ll make it to San Francisco, tomorrow early morning before the commute traffic. Running around, get the car, insurance, this stupid smog test, dmv, shopping (I need a map, I don’t even know how to get there, except along the coast……well organized…..). So the day passed by, one of my ten vacation days. I am annoyed, all about this car. Maybe I was also driven by the idea to save the money for one motel night? I barely have any money anymore after all these expenses also with the apartment. I had to cancel a wedding of a friend of mine from school in Switzerland because flight ticket was too expensive. Anyway, yesterday I met with susan at the kate mantilini (morphosis’ 80-ies introducing piece), I thought I can pcik up the car before on the way there, I was too late, and finally finalized the arrangements late night around 11pm, I think I was drunk after all the wine, champagne and a campari soda. I don’t know what this guy thought who sold me the car. Anyway, I didn’t feel drive it home anymore and had to do it this morning. If these are the stories with cars……waste your time smarter.
OK. But the car is cool, a 1987 vw cabriolet, underrated classic. So I’ll see the next days how it does.

I can’t remember how it came I saw the first of all movies I saw of him, a while ago. You know the director but haven’t seen any of his work. I really don’t know what it was, just curiosity? In any case I had a dvd one day, I thought it was ‘winterlight’, no, it was these two women, sisters, traveling, one flirting with a man, the other one became sick. I can’t remember the title. But it was very impressive, the set-up, the story, the way of portraying the characters, the photography. Just two women, Bergman gives them two hours to develop there personality, relations, physics and mentality on the screen. I learned the film was one of a trilogy and quickly moved on to see the other two. All very intense in a way, 60-ies. It’s hard to make a comparison, I think I never saw something comparable, maybe Wong Kar Wai, but in a very different way. He also has a focus just on people, but far more emotional. So just recently I saw Saraband. Within the bonus feature was a portrait of Bergman directing. He is about 85 years old, and I was very interested in the aura he is able to create as a director and through his personality. He’s the center, everybody’s focus, just by his presence. Only by concentrating on his work he draws all attention on the film he envisions. I thought that’s the ideal environment of an architect: you are so dedicated to your visions, projects and goals, that you can keep the focus of so many people involved. Fascinating. The only difference to the film: the film is for an audience who can choose, the architect’s clients have no choice. But whatever the relation: the result is remarkable, in any way, if you like it or not. A great film, a great building.

„Ich habe an diesem, Ihrem Einkommenssteuerdienst, keinerlei Interesse. Bitte streichen Sie meinen Namen aus Ihrer Kundenliste, denn dieses System verwirrt mich und ich weiß nicht, wer Ihnen meinen Namen als Interessenten genannt hat.“

sitting here waiting for the printer to finish the job….takes forever.

The bicycle ride. Last Friday, midnight ride or something like that it’s called. My neighbor invited me, always wondering who’s bike that is locked at the fence. It was quiet fascinating, several thousand people, I lost track of the way, I just remember the end of it. It was moving on, for about two hours, from Los Feliz along the Los Angeles river, Glendale/Burbank direction, downtown LA, really downtown and back to Wilshire at the Gaylord, where it suddenly stopped at midnight…I was so surprised that I lost my friends…The thing I also remember: all the people at the street side with flat tires…I visited the LACMA, David Hockney, a selection of portraits throughout his live. Especially the ones from the 70-ies, late 60-ies are extremely good. They have a certain expression, very distinctive, not stylish but they reflect this time very precisely I found. Probably because they are also personal at the same time, abstract but also personal. The other thing I found remarkable was the process, how he developed through the time with his work, the personal relation to the people, mostly close friends, he portrayed. Inspiring.

And there was the movie: 13 Tzameti. I guy who found himself by accident being part of an outrages insane game: player form a circle, everyone with a gun, one bullet, pointing to the head of the person in one’s front. When the light goes on, shoot. Next round two bullets, then three. Of the last survivors two chosen by lot facing each other for the final duell. People are betting money, this the whole point. Shot in black and white, a sort of social drama psycho thriller. Very intense cinema experience.

Now I am just watching “Don’t come knocking” by Wim Wenders. For the third time.

bicycle ride
david hockney
13

Sonny Fortune/Rashied Ali @ the Jazz Bakery on Saturday; Beastie Boys @ Madison Square Garden on DVD (Awesome, I … shot that!). Sonny Fortune (Sax) and Rashied Ali (drums), a duo, started to play and didn’t stop for about one hour. Then, Sonny had to take a break. I never saw someone playing sax for one hour without interruption, and I probably will never see that again. It reminded me Elvin Jones/Cecil Taylor @ Blue Note New York a few years ago: they started to play and didn’t stop…until they had to because the second set to follow. Live experience you never forget. And no recording can capture it, there is too much emotion and physical dedication you can’t digitalize. Most recordings of live sets I know can’t compete, they are over revised, too much cleaning, editing. Jazz is too spontaneous for that, with all the failures and inconsistencies. The Beastie Boys on the other hand: only the way they created there DVD makes the difference. Some fifty people in the audience were stuffed with a camera to record the show, the material was used for a DVD. The music is electronic, digital and so very easy to compile with the footage of the camcorders. It’s another approach taking full advantage of digitalization. I was surprised by the wide facetted music: from combo band setting to DJ Rap. I thought it makes all the difference to the everyday chart pop-ups: the creativity and the sensibility for what you’re doing. Most bands are produced to what people want to hear (or better what producers think people want to hear). The beastie boys do whatever they want, like it or not.

All I thought about this: there is this creativity on both sides, and it should stay that way. As it doesn’t make sense to digitalize Sonny Fortune/Rashied Ali, it doesn’t make sense to unplug the music of the beastie boys.

This last writing was not on time because the server was down. I don’t like the day to come when all the information on this server will be lost. I am curious if it can resist there for the next 50 years…

Other than that I am still busy with the apartment. Generally I feel constantly under pressure because my visa is only valid for another 9 months, a very limited time. I think it’s crazy the effort I take. And I don’t think it’s productive when I always feel that way. It seems I have no sense for any plans. On the one hand, I don’t want to miss the experience: Los Angeles is a very different city from everything I experienced so far. It opens new ideas, thinking, approaching to different aspects of your life, job etc. That way, it’s very inspirational. On the other hand I don’t like the city as such, there are to many circumstances I can’t except, especially since you hear it from everybody all the time. Maybe it’s also the time limit that drives at least partly this feeling. I have not enough time to find myself in an acceptable situation, exploring and establishing enough to be able to say I have arrived, I am at home. I am just starting (it’s part of the unknown that it took more than a year…), and I have to leave everything behind. And start somewhere else again. It gives me a hard time, the idea of moving around, the constant effort needed to get used to a new environment. At least I know what it means. Part of the experience. And also more and more I have a sense what I want, who I am . Also part of the experience. With every approach to something new and unknown you learn about yourself.