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To her I was talking.

Some discussion. She told me about people you are most of all concerned about there own position and don’t have a problem to discredit others in order to support it. I don’t know her personal story, but as far as I know her I think she is right if she points out different mentalities: the way people define themselves. Some do the work, some others talk about it. I think it’s the part of a ambitious place, and I was wondering where I am and what I am doing. Again. Maybe that is the problem? Although I don’t really believe since I usually don’t interfere with others. Leave everybody live in peace. But I understand: If you keep silence, it could create a draw back one day – without you being aware of it. I like her. She tells you what she thinks, she has a very strong mind, she has character, she keeps her opinion, she has one and let people know about it. All these things I miss so much with all these artificial people here, people telling you something thinking of the opposite. And you have to figure out what they really mean.

I remember best the colors in ‘east of havana’. Exceptional strong, vibrant, intense, crisp. I don’t think it’s just the cinematography. Light is different, depending on where you are.

4 july – this year a tuesday, a long week-end with monday off. Tired. I spent almost all this wee-end with moving. I thought it will be easy, since I have no furniture to move and otherwise a very over seeable household. And then box after box, more and more, everything carried in a van. Now I am writing from 1516 n. Hobart Blvd, Apt 303. I miss Regent street, I didn’t like to leave – it’s so quiet and generous in a way. Here is Hollywood, next door neighbor looking to your kitchen, although I have view on the 3^rd floor. It’s more dense, noisier, more weird people on the streets, and more of the sort who think it’s fancy to live in Hollywood. I only do it for the job – no commute anymore. Other than that…maybe it’s because I have nothing, I lived in a furnished Apt. so far. Now, there is a bed, I am quiet happy about, some kitchen stuff, so I don’t get hungry, and the electronics – notebook to write this, stereo, tv (was a very good game today, Germany-Italy!). I was surprised the DWP managed to turn on electricity yesterday Monday on time as scheduled…So now that I realized I have nothing, I need to furnish, just bought a refrigerator today. On Regent St I had a huge one (average size for people here) which was almost empty all the time. I thought I don’t need such a big one, a smaller one will do it. And the small one I have now is too small, so I went out to find what I need. And I am constantly thinking how to organize. I found a very nice table, reasonable price, but it doesn’t quiet fit in the kitchen. Should I buy it anyway and reorganize? No table in the kitchen but something else? I am trying, I need to do something for comfortable living, I learned from Regent St, and New York where an apartment is everything but comfortable living. But I am starting from scratch, which is expensive…And all this for just 10 months, but that’s another story.

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Cinematographer Style

A documentary, 110 cinematographers (the filmmaker one of them) talking about their profession. For some reasons I was expecting something else, more an exploration on the technical side. Instead, it was really only these people talking. They love what they are doing, they are passionate, although with different backgrounds. Beside, I learned about light, light creating images, light is everything. One of them said the shadow is more important than the light, you’re creating the image with shadows. And another remarkable statement was that human culture always had to produce images, and they always will have to produce images. Sometimes I wish architects would create more space with light (Siza), there is so too much about the surface, the finish (terrible word) and the appearance on an image (here we go). Very limited and irrelevant or insignificant after a certain time. I was interested in these cinematographers talking passionately about their job. It’s something I could imagine to do beside architecture.

The Islander

New England, Maine – Story about a Fisherman who spent a few years in prison after an incident related to the fishing, and his struggle to find his path back into society. I thought the film was maybe too stylish, although very straight and honest. It’s and Island, everybody knows everybody and besides the fishing, there is no business. A you are trapped situation. And the people defend their property, which are assigned fishing ground, sometimes stressing the limits what caused the incident. Simple people moving within their very tight boundaries. It expresses a kind of environment which was very much reflected by the location – the sea, the windy changing weather, the small village, nature, also the isolation of the island. And that was the stylish part. It was like advertisement for Maine in the sense of intended exposed characteristics. I wish this would have been more natural, as the people and their lives.

The aura

A film from Argentina, this time not focused so heavily on social economical problems. More a black comedy. An epileptic with a photo memory who creates his fantasies about robberies. Suddenly he’s facing an opportunity when his memory let him down and things get out of control. A surprising story, almost entirely shot in a forest with a very distinct color – grey-green-bluish. Like a story written for the main character who gave a good performance. One of these indie-movies which might make…

East of Havana

Documentary about hip-hop culture in Cuba. I was intrigued by the discrepancy between the political, social impact of hip hop and the situation in Cuba, where all this energy gets lost in the system. It seems so hopeless on the one hand – everything is more sentimental, a struggle between the obvious success of the revolution decades ago and the disastrous still stand now. People are waiting, they know they can’t do much more beside constantly trying to be self motivated and self organized. Like these musicians, you just feel like all their energy dissolves. I was wondering why the art in general, painting, sculptures etc. were able to find publicity despite the sometimes very critical standpoint towards the regime. And these musicians are acting underground without any chance of being heard it seems.

Our daily bread

A documentary, or better an essay about our daily food, before we eat it. Sometimes (or better most of the part) very disturbing. On the one hand it is amazing how we were able to maximize productivity through industrialization, and how this concept was extended through pretty much everything related to our live, even food. It is like ‘How to feed 1 Mrd. People’. On the other hand this high degree of abstraction colliding with the creation of nature is producing absurdly disturbing situations. Loosing your mind. A butcher chopping of the feet of slaughtered pigs (he’s doing nothing else…). A chicken farm, 15’000 sqft. space, maybe bigger, a chicken carpet, they stand all tight to each other, and someone walking through them. They give way so a free circle surrounds him – except a dead or almost dead chicken doesn’t move anymore and stays lying on the ground, like a dirty spot, and he picks it up and probably throws it in the dumpster. A glass house, some vegetable grow, I think peppers or something, two guys with masks and full body protection suit spray some pesticide or other chemicals, highly intoxicating obviously. A field of sunflowers, a airplane is flying over, spraying, in the next sequence all sunflowers are totally withered to enable easy harvest. We don’t talk about the cow, pig or chicken slaughter assembly line…And all the people doing these jobs, you see them in some sequences eating their lunch sandwich…I was wondering if they lost any sentimental feelings about these things. Normally in movies in the end credits it says something like ‘no animal was harmed in making this movie’. You can’t say that here. And I know why I am buying organic whenever possible.

In between days

A Teenage Girl of Korean Immigrants in Toronto, father left, she’s living alone with her mother. She tries a relationship with her best friend until he left her for another girl. A struggle between adaptation and isolation, relationship and loneliness. Obviously a sort of autobiography of the director, who came with her parents to the US when she was 12 years old I think. Shot with a lot of close-up (her face) and in public spaces (where the production had access with very low almost no money budget). A very simple, but enormously sensitive film.

A documentary about a priest in California who was known as a pedophile. But all the Catholic Church did was dislocating him to another city when the situation developed critical. The fact that he repeatedly molested children was never acknowledged, not even discussed.

The devastating effect on the victims is one side: Their families almost falling apart, the problem to speak about the situation and the consequences that most of it stays unspoken, the painful path and endless legal fight against the Catholic Church and the clerics hold responsible. The Catholic Church is doing everything to play down the situation, hide facts and even prevents their own people from talking about it. Again: the situation of victims and their feelings with the Catholic Church moves to a point of extreme anger, frustration and desperation.

Unfortunately not the first film I saw about this subject. About two years ago their were two movies taken place in Catholic Schools in Ireland, one for boys, the other one of girls, with the subject of situations where these students were consequently abused for decades. And maybe just a year ago another documentary of a man who moved with his family and realized that a priest who abused him when he was a young boy lived next door in his new neighborhood. More unfortunate you get used to this dark side of the church, the documentary this evening was nothing really new or surprising.

But what I did realize for the first time was how powerful the Catholic Church as an organization is. It is probably one of the most powerful in the world. It’s a corporation. You think of religion, god, believe, faith, gospels, community maybe and other spiritual, ethical, social values related to Church. Rather you might think of a big corporation, like Microsoft, Nike, McDonalds…One of the most striking things the documentary relieved was how the Catholic Church is trying to protect their power and their interests – without respect for the members of the chuch. The power they keep is more important than the problem of child molestation by some of the priests. That’s the way this is approached. Moments in this documentary when two Cardinal of the Diocese Los Angeles, the former and the present, testified in the case they couldn’t recall anything related that would make them knowledgeable and liable. Nobody knows. I thought of the new Cathedral downtown Los Angeles: I was always wondering how much influence, recourses, connections and funds the Catholic Church must have to realize a monument like that. For this documentary, the Catholic Church refused any interview.

I also thought regarding the problems in the Middle East and the annoying war in terror: we easily point the finger on the bad side of Islam, its tremendous influence on the population and how this is used to extend and protect influence. I thought: look at your own back door, welcome to the world of the Catholic Church. It’s basically the same thing, just in a different cultural environment and with different means. But basically the same. What’s worse: A suicide bomber or a child molester?

I always think I should go back in my writings and pick up to further develop some continuity, but maybe that is not the idea. Sometimes I just feel I am loosing discipline to write – and there’s nothing and I am disappointed. Or feel just too tired to write. The last days I got up early in the morning to see the first game of the day, Italy – Czech Republic today. I left after beginning of the second half, the Czech didn’t really belief in their chance anymore, bad basis for a good game. So I am coming to the office one game old, sometimes lunch break I pick up, although it’s hard to find a TV. For Argentina – Netherlands yesterday I had to stay at the post office…I think that was the first time when I really enjoyed standing in line and waiting forever. Anyway, in these moments I miss some other culture, imagine Europe: TV on every corner. So now I am trying to figure out how to get around with the next round. I would need to go to Silverlake very early in the morning, see the game at 8am, go to work after, second game at lunch…where does it come from, this passion for soccer everywhere outside the US? Here, the nba and nhl playoff finals just took place, that’s where people are (and the money is…). I have no relation to it. In New York they play basketball on every corner, you get used to it. But watching a game? It’s 60min, the first 58min are passing smoothly with a rather random score as it seems, something like 76:72, and then it takes them another 30min with all the tactical time-outs for the last 2min of the game, to end up with 84:81. Whatever, who cares. Basketball freaks probably think the same of soccer. So it’s World Cup. I had an Ice Cream today on my way home, THE ice cream place of LA, really delicious homemade ice cream. The café has an Italian name of course, al gelato, on Robertson. I have a hard time passing without stopping by. This is something completely different, but it just came to my mind. I like this place, somehow.

by Michael Moore
The most absurd film I’ve ever seen (tonight on dvd). The city needs to build a new prison because the old one has no space left. They invite people to spend a night there for $100…enjoy state of the art prison before it starts its business, with the real prisoners. What happened to a town when it comes to this point??? Michael Moore’s claim that GM (and chairman Roger Smith) took a major responsibility when they closed factories and laid of thousands of people (all in Flint as it seems are working for GM). The way corporation, capitalism, social welfare, public life and opinion, law, economics and politics collide, speak and act against each other…it is absurd. How furious has a situation developed when you create such a portrait of your hometown? It’s painful to watch, unbelievable…Not the fact alone that GM is mainly concerned about own interests but more everything else around taking place, developing, characterized, exposed…and reflecting this system and environment…where do we live?!

I am really bad lately, keeping track with writing…working this week-end, no time. I was asked to finish a job, a project I don’t know. Unfortunately I was not asked if I have time over the week-end. Deadline is Monday, last week I was working hard on a deadline of my project. It looks like it is expected that you’re available, around the clock at all times. Maybe it’s only the stressful schedule these days, who knows. I just noticed that some people, it seems, have no private live, they are always in the office and probably feel bad if they are not working on week-ends. Hopefully they don’t expect that from everybody. Repeatedly I thought I won’t kill myself, there are limits.