If you’re going to reanimate something it’s easier if a loved one does not fall in a parking garage and break multiple limbs and you have to take care of them but even if they do you can still reanimate something. If you’re going to reanimate something, in my case rye sourdough starter, you will need a little time, a few days worth, so it helps to be patient and it helps to come to the procedure with an experimental, scientific state of mind, “let’s see how this goes” rather than a capitalistic, managerial, “you must reanimate” state of mind. This is because reanimating sourdough starter is similar to *starting* sourdough starter, which you did with this particular sourdough starter back in the olden days of the Covid lockdown, that’s right during that renaissance of the human spirit when capitalistic pressures were briefly lifted and we were free to experiment with the science of being human rather than hold our noses to the grindstone like the rest of the time. And when starting starter you just add a little flour and a little water every day until it bubbles and you can’t rush it, you just wait for bacteria to drop out of the air and start to bubble and hope it is the right bacteria and not something weird from the cats or a little kid, say. It happens when it happens. Reanimation is similar, except the starter has proven it works, the bacteria are there somewhere, just in too weak a concentration, but you know if they are not all completely dead they will eventually show themselves again if you keep feeding them patiently. Anyway they eventually did, after a few days of feeding them equal amounts of flour and water, by weight. They are bubbly now and my wife got her casts off, which I might celebrate tomorrow by baking a loaf of bread or two.
Posted in Das Gehirn, Metamorphosism
Tags: baking, lockdown, reanimation, sourdough maintenance
What is my art
Cat with only slight halitosis
wakes you up in the middle of the night
licking your beard as you remember
how happy you were when she finally came home
one cold winter after being missing for weeks
and everyone else gave up but you didn’t
and one night she just scratched on the door
like before and you let her in
skinny and dirty and sick
with a variety of parasites
and she keeps licking your beard
with little grunting noises mixed in with the purring
you wonder which parasites they were
you think of all the sick mice she probably ate
on her heroic snowy winter trek home
and probably still eats and she licks and licks
licks and grunts and licks, pure love.
I had one of those dreams in my head when I woke up.
One of those *bam* dreams
that would change your life
if only you could recall one or two fuzzy things
I was talking to a baby that was also older than a baby
it looked like a drawing I made of Beta when she was a baby
so, basically a baby with curly fine light baby hair
but underneath that darker straighter older hair
and the baby said goo-goo ga-ga stuff for a while
but then it also said, and I quote,
“You have to decide what your art is.”
And art means art, but it also means (in German) “kind” or maybe “essence”.
I told people about the baby, in the dream
and they all said, no, the baby doesn’t say goo-goo ga-ga it talks
the baby can talk.
And I said, yeah, I know.
And I woke up feeling it all through my body
Posted in Das Gehirn, ferner liefen, Metamorphosism
All the best, people
to all the best people
hope something good happens today
hope this day is good to you
maybe something expected
like my kid and i gave each other climbing equipment
we had shopped for together
maybe something unexpected
like the doctor saying
“want me to remove that malignant
growth from your face right now?”
instead of waiting til the end of
january
which lowered everyone’s worry
levels for the holidays
all the best to you
the leftover roast beef is delicious
all the best to you
my daughter gave us all framed
copies of our weirdest chats
my other daughter gave us pillows
she had sewn from beautiful
fabric she brought home from africa
all the best to you
the cats don’t understand why they can’t
lick my face
all the best to you
pancake batter is mixed
and waiting for someone
to wake up
Electric Birdsland
Now that the universe has stopped expanding and begun collapsing concepts have been absorbing one another, mashing up, my brainworm today, besides a worrying series of intrusive thoughts is Tippi Hendrix, who was she Alfred Hitchcock’s muse and… groundbreaking guitarist famous for among many other hits “The Wind Cries Marnie.”
In other news I finally managed to go bouldering again after a too-long phase of inactivity and made it to the gym on Sunday so I’m rather sore less because I did so much, more because I had done so little for so long before that.
Monday. It’s Monday. What other mashups will the week bring?
What else will the angels and devils on my shoulders suggest?
Posted in Das Gehirn, Metamorphosism
Tags: collapsing universe, intrusive thoughts, tippi hendrix
Ford Tourneo Courier Ecoboost 1.0 Part III
The screen has gone black / failed to come on upon starting, twice. Turning the car off and back on “fixed” it both times.
Now that weather is growing colder, the buttwarming front seats, and the heated steering wheel are nice, as is the heated windshield (at least until a piece of gravel hits it and I have to have it replaced) (nice because one does not have to scrape ice in the morning it just melts right off).
What an embarrassing time to be an old white man.
I have been a bit depressed and a bit grieving since the election and really have to summon extra self-control from somewhere to keep from ranting. But so far so good.
Alpha and I had goose with friends on Wednesday. That is, we went to the best restaurant in the next town with friends of ours, and ate roast goose, 2 kinds of dumplings, and red cabbage. I don’t know if the goose also had friends, possibly. The wine was good, and we also had some schnapps. They all sympathized with me.
The world, or the part I am familiar with, a part of the world that previously had some amount of respect (or even affection) for the United States (they were so happy for us when Obama was elected), is shocked that a legitimate clown and convicted felon made it this far.
Part of me is, too. But part of me knows Americans have always been like this.
Every Republican president during my lifetime was elected by the same people for the same reason – domestic war on the poor, on minorities, on women, on the left. That’s what Nixon’s War on Drugs was all about. The current gang is just a little more openly fascist.
I have some questions: Trump is old, ill and senile. He will die soon. How allegiant is his cult to him personally, and how much to those propping him up? What will a President Vance be like? What happens if Trump dies or is incapacitated before being sworn in? What happens if he is caught traitoring? What happens when those around him start fighting amongst themselves. What happens when those behind him start fighting (billionaires vs Russia vs Saudi Arabia vs China vs whatever)?
Here in Austria, the far-right party won the most votes in the recent election, but currently it looks like the other parties will refuse to form a coalition with them, which means they might not be in the government. Or, the conservative party might just be pretending, and could eventually say “whelp coalition talks failed so we are forced to coalesce with the rightists in the interest of stability in these unstable times.”
Anyway, as the party with the most votes, the president of parliament (Rosenkranz) is from the far-right party, which makes many people unhappy. Today he attempted to lay down a wreath at a memorial for pogrom victims in Vienna but was blocked by a Jewish students group who oppose him etc. He asked the police to move them so he could access the memorial (but they did not). Austria’s (at the moment) best newspaper, “Die Tagespresse” (a satirical newspaper similar to The Onion) then reported, “In memory of the November pogroms, Rosenkranz orders police to move Jews out of the way”.
There is a saying in German, “Die Lage ist hoffnungslos, aber nicht ernst.” (The situation is hopeless, but not serious.) I think, since fascists depend on fear, it is important to maintain a sense of humor and creativity and never stop pointing out what clowns they are.
When possible and you are not going to be murdered for it etc.
Anyway. Did I say the goose was good? It is easy to make goose tough and stringy and dry, but this was perfect.
Posted in Das Gehirn, ferner liefen, Metamorphosism
Tags: depression, fascism, ford tourneo courier, grief, humor, roast goose
Bella Ciao
God: Where are we now?
Noah: Erm, eleven. 9:11.
God: Ok.
God: So anyway, Yes, I am confirming my covenant with you. Never again will floodwaters kill all living creatures; never again will a flood destroy the earth.
Noah (writing): Ok, yep, good, got it. No More Floods.
God: Weeeelll not exackly.
Noah: You said, and I quote, “never again will floodwaters etc etc.”
God: Yes however.
Noah: Kill all living creatures.
God: Yes ok not all of them.
Noah (loses cuniform stylus in mud): Dang. Look, I’ll just put “no more floods” for now and add the details later.
God: You’re gonna forget.
Noah: I won’t forget! Man!
God: Yeah ok whatever.
The Damage Commission was at our house this morning.
They looked around.
My wife, who has been cleaning for over a week (with help from friends and relatives including me) apologized for the mess. Who apologizes for the mess after a flood has flooded your house?
Oh, we’ve seen worse, say the Damage Commission.
The Damage Commission decides how much damage money we get or something, at least is responsible for the first stage of the process, before it vanishes into bureaucracy. I wanted to wait on the cleaning until after their visit so the cellar would look worse but Alpha said they would know, don’t worry, which was correct.
They needed our children to sign a form so I hunted them down on the way to work. There has been much hunting down of people to sign forms lately.
I hunted Gamma down at the hospital where she is doing an internship, something to do with psychology and psychotherapy blah blah blah and out she walks to meet me, wearing a white lab coat and carrying a clip board and a book.
Oh, you have a pen to sign with, I said.
I have two, she said, flaunting the second pen.
That’s how together she is nowadays.
Then I drove to the other train station, my regular train station still being under water, and failed to find a legal parking spot because everyone who normally uses my regular train station is now also using the other train station so I went home and had Alpha drive me to the other train station. When I got to town I went to the ministry to meet Beta.
I hesitate to say which ministry because with Beta you never fucking know how secret something is. Anyway she came out and we went to Starbucks – I think I am allowed to divulge that – where I had a pumpkin spice latte and she had another beverage, I will not say which one. I also had a ham and cheese croissant. She signed the document and now I’m carrying it around until I go home at night. I walked her back to the ministry and she walked me back to the UBahn. I’ll go in here, she said, it’s a secret entrance; you may enter the UBahn station over there.
See you in November when I get back from [REDACTED], she said.
Then I took a couple subways and a bus to the office. On one subway a fellow got on, he was wearing an accordion securely strapped to his body. He said something and began to play. He played short versions of a couple songs I recognized but could not name. Others seemed to be ignoring him. When my stop came I gave him two 2-Euro coins and exited (he, ever the professional had been blocking the exit with his body so one was forced to interact with him one way or the other).
He thanked me and broke into a nice rendition of “Bella Ciao”, my favorite involuntary subway accordion song.
Standing on the platform watching the train leave, I had the same feeling as I had as a boy after loading a jukebox with a bunch of coins and punching in the numbers for many terrible songs before leaving a place.
Enjoy, suckers, I did not say as I watched the tunnel suck up the train. I caught a glimpse of a woman on the train giving the accordionist more coins, and felt good.
Posted in Das Gehirn, Familie, Metamorphosism
Tags: accordion music, cellar, commuting, damage commission, fatherhood, flooding, genesis 9:11, god, memory, noah, religion
Marked safe
Woman: Was that a joke.
Man: Yes.
Woman: Try harder.
(We all react to catastrophes in our own way.)
So we’ve had a bit of flooding.
Short version: a Flood of the Century that was, where we live, considerably worse than the previous Flood of the Century 22 years ago.
Man (trying harder): We had everything packed and ready to go: documents, spare underwear, cats. My climbing gear bag. A siren went off and your mother said it was time to go so we did. Shortly before the official evacuation notice.
Woman: Ok.
Man: I suppose you could call it premature evacuation.
Woman: That was another joke right.
The cats are extremely well-behaved here at Beta’s place.
So are we.
When we woke up this morning the sky was blue (still is) but it’s still too early to go back to the house and check on damage and clean up and discard etc.
Some villages in the area are still in the process of being evacuated.
The cats are sleeping.
My wife is checking the news on her phone.
My daughter is working.
Now I will stand up from the comfortable chair to put my breakfast bowl into the dishwasher, and my wife will steal it.
Later we will get dressed and go for a walk.
There is a climbing gym in the neighborhood but I don’t know if i am up to it.
I woke up at 2 and thought about all those who have to flee on short notice, all around the world.
I hope they are doing ok.
But not all of them are.
I fed the cats at 4:30.
I woke up at 6:30 so I did fall asleep at some point.