28.1.2009
Monday was 9, yesterday was 8. I’m up at 7 this morning. In the instant all I knew was I was now awake but had just been dreaming vividly, then I realized my need to micturate must have risen my awareness. Yeah then I began to remember what I was dreaming of, though it slips away so easily once you find yourself on the cusp of the day. Matthias is an early riser now so I found him with coffee and the amazing notion of reading to wake up! Reading always puts me to sleep at night and I can barely accomplish any, but I can see this works much better . If I go back to sleep I’ll surely just waste the hours, though I do need my rest. An early day will help my schedule of exercise in the morning, or it might be that I am already regulating myself to the day. That’s what I would prefer, to be in touch with the day as it rises and falls and to keep myself in check and stimulated. Speaking of that, the windows of the apartments facing my room from across the street are gratuitous squares into a person’s morning life. With the night yet but lifted these early risers who flip their lights make themselves vulnerable to their reflections, subtle forms behind transparency awash. There is something beautiful about humanity when you are not sure and all the same it does not matter because it is so blatant as to be naked. We want only our imagination but accept being faced with stark truth because it is so pure. To be filthy can be so pure if one purges oneself (or especially if another) of the layers of obscuring dredge.
In any case, vouyeurism is a keen mind and an eye of equality.
28 January 2009
27 January 2009
Potent
Today began what I hope is a routine to get me back into better physical health, which is always accompanied by better mental energies and I am excited for that. There is an amazing playground nearby my house which I jogged to this morning to use the exercise equipment. The U.S. doesn't have any public exercise machines because it's totally not safe and people are stupid, but I'm so glad I'm in Berlin. I have to photograph this playground though because I cannot do justice to it's awesomeness in description. I don't know the measurements but it consists of a giant net dome structure sealed all but for one section, so you can climb on top into a second chamber about 30 feet high, or play in the ground level area like you are in a big cage. I want to get a soccer ball for that! It overlooks a train platform I can use to get to the Lexia Studio after working out, though I'm not sure how I'll jog with all my stuff. I guess I'll have to adjust my routine, maybe not do it everyday, but either way I'll be improving my wellness. My writing has been inspiring me and I met my photography instructor yesterday. This guy Mark Simon seems pretty good to work with and he's teaching a few of the other returning students a master's level class which I might take if I can fit the hours. Last night I went to a jazz club called A Trane which has free entry mondays and late night jam sessions on Saturdays. There is so much music to be heard in this city. I'm really happy to have established so many good things so early on, as this is the last day of my first week. Exhilirating.
Find me on AIM and we can videochat when I'm online!
Find me on AIM and we can videochat when I'm online!
26 January 2009
Damn Pots
Okay so I must do some backlogging. It's hard to keep up with the internet when I have so much to do and so much on my mind. You'll notice the dates on which I post entries do not correspond with the dates I include at the top to indicate when I have written and when the details may be prevalent. I'm in the studio for class right now so this is a live update woouoouou.
Firstly some business. MY ADDRESS, here in Berlin:
Elijah Snyder-Vidmar
Bei Matthias Forster (my host)
17 Blumenthal Strasse
Berlin, Germany 10783
I won't post my cellphone number until I look into my plan. If perhaps I can receive international calls for free then I'll leave it up to y'all to call me. If you do, keep in mind I am in various classes at various times, out for expeditions, taking language class, dancing at crazy clubs, or trying to find some time for reading all the class material I have (which I haven't worked into my daily schedule yet).
I want to give a quick update on Sunday's trip to Potsdam with professor Helmut Franz again. Background on Helmut, he is the most amazing character, so full of knowledge and energy and life in his old age, he constantly impresses and amuses. He's lived in Berlin since 1967 but travels most of the year except to spend the Summer in Berlin, which he tells me is one of the loveliest places to be. The next scheduled trip with him is in April but I plan to meet with him more often on my own. In Potsdam we toured the old Dutch tenement district which was built by the Prussian king Friederich the Great and offered as an enticement for outsiders to contribute their resources to the town. The Prussians didn't have much to work with but the knowledge of what they needed and how they could get it. It's a charming town, but really astounding is the royal palace of Friederich II which is so prevalent in the town. A Huge complex of palaces and gardens, every tree placed specifically, amazing views from every walkway. I was impressed by the attention to aesthetic beauty in the culmination of nature and architecture, the sense of private life the palace instilled and how that compares to publicity. I'll definitely be going in the Spring to see all the trees and flowers in full bloom, the palace in all it's splendor, as many of the outdoor statues were boxed up to protect them from the weather.
Friederich II was a strange character with some simple pleasures in life, evident in the way he planned out his royal grounds, the private buildings and palaces he had built, and how he chose to be buried next to his greyhounds not any of his family. He also only saw his wife once a year on special occasions, probably as a formality since it is thought he was gay. What a life. I can only imagine discrepancies between the power and responsibilities and freedoms that come with being a ruler and a man just the same. It makes me want to take greater control over my life, to seek what I want and live how I want and that's a very individual thing sometimes. I realize that I give certain courtesies to people without addressing how I truly feel. You really have to feel able to be honest in everything you do, balance the good and the bad, the nice and the not so nice, as long as you are true to yourself you can be a decent person no matter what.
-E
Firstly some business. MY ADDRESS, here in Berlin:
Elijah Snyder-Vidmar
Bei Matthias Forster (my host)
17 Blumenthal Strasse
Berlin, Germany 10783
I won't post my cellphone number until I look into my plan. If perhaps I can receive international calls for free then I'll leave it up to y'all to call me. If you do, keep in mind I am in various classes at various times, out for expeditions, taking language class, dancing at crazy clubs, or trying to find some time for reading all the class material I have (which I haven't worked into my daily schedule yet).
I want to give a quick update on Sunday's trip to Potsdam with professor Helmut Franz again. Background on Helmut, he is the most amazing character, so full of knowledge and energy and life in his old age, he constantly impresses and amuses. He's lived in Berlin since 1967 but travels most of the year except to spend the Summer in Berlin, which he tells me is one of the loveliest places to be. The next scheduled trip with him is in April but I plan to meet with him more often on my own. In Potsdam we toured the old Dutch tenement district which was built by the Prussian king Friederich the Great and offered as an enticement for outsiders to contribute their resources to the town. The Prussians didn't have much to work with but the knowledge of what they needed and how they could get it. It's a charming town, but really astounding is the royal palace of Friederich II which is so prevalent in the town. A Huge complex of palaces and gardens, every tree placed specifically, amazing views from every walkway. I was impressed by the attention to aesthetic beauty in the culmination of nature and architecture, the sense of private life the palace instilled and how that compares to publicity. I'll definitely be going in the Spring to see all the trees and flowers in full bloom, the palace in all it's splendor, as many of the outdoor statues were boxed up to protect them from the weather.
Friederich II was a strange character with some simple pleasures in life, evident in the way he planned out his royal grounds, the private buildings and palaces he had built, and how he chose to be buried next to his greyhounds not any of his family. He also only saw his wife once a year on special occasions, probably as a formality since it is thought he was gay. What a life. I can only imagine discrepancies between the power and responsibilities and freedoms that come with being a ruler and a man just the same. It makes me want to take greater control over my life, to seek what I want and live how I want and that's a very individual thing sometimes. I realize that I give certain courtesies to people without addressing how I truly feel. You really have to feel able to be honest in everything you do, balance the good and the bad, the nice and the not so nice, as long as you are true to yourself you can be a decent person no matter what.
-E
24.1.2009.
My day didn’t go exactly as planned. It’s five AM Sunday morning while I’m writing this and I have to be up at 9 to go to Potsdam for a long tour with professor Helmut Franz, with whom I went to Schloss Charlottenburg today. The palace belonged to Friederich the great and Friederich II and we talked about the change of leadership from one ruler to the next and about the architecture and the art within through time. Friederich II was very progressive in a sense in abolishing slavery and mandating institutions of schooling for the public. He saw himself as serving the state of Prussia and not as the ultimate figure. His father was regarded as highly as the sun; his waking each day was celebrated. Some decoration in the palace was highly worthwhile though the Baroque style of architecture seemed redundant and boring. After this I got pizza with Gilles, Ariella, Ian, Dani, and Ryan. Later this evening I went to Hamburger Bahnhof to see the Joseph Beuys exhibit, though the museum closed before I could cover half of the main exhibit and permanent collection. After this things started to go wrong. I had an awfully nerve-wracking experience with the (electronics department store) Saturn employ who accused me of stealing, and I had to remove all of my personal items on me, which number quite a few at any given time. Perhaps I looked suspicious when my lens cap fell from underneath my large coat, wearing leather gloves (which I bought at a flohmarkt [fleamarket]), black bandana, and numerous electronic appliances. In the end I had to buy an iPod charger they accused me of stealing though I needed one anyway. I’ll return it if I can to get my money back and get a cable from a friend if need be. Fucking ridiculousness. I got fries and drunk and made some crazy art for several hours just being silly and special like I am in order to ward off the bad vibrations. Speaking of bad vibrations I had only a waffle for breakfast and drank much coffee so I was shaking during the tour of the palace at Charlottenburg. There is a neat market nearby my apartment Wednesdays and Saturdays and right near that market is Baharat Falafel which I mentioned earlier. I was craving all day but everything everywhere is so good I can’t be resorting to staples already.
My foot just fell asleep while writing this and I have several assignments tomorrow.
My day didn’t go exactly as planned. It’s five AM Sunday morning while I’m writing this and I have to be up at 9 to go to Potsdam for a long tour with professor Helmut Franz, with whom I went to Schloss Charlottenburg today. The palace belonged to Friederich the great and Friederich II and we talked about the change of leadership from one ruler to the next and about the architecture and the art within through time. Friederich II was very progressive in a sense in abolishing slavery and mandating institutions of schooling for the public. He saw himself as serving the state of Prussia and not as the ultimate figure. His father was regarded as highly as the sun; his waking each day was celebrated. Some decoration in the palace was highly worthwhile though the Baroque style of architecture seemed redundant and boring. After this I got pizza with Gilles, Ariella, Ian, Dani, and Ryan. Later this evening I went to Hamburger Bahnhof to see the Joseph Beuys exhibit, though the museum closed before I could cover half of the main exhibit and permanent collection. After this things started to go wrong. I had an awfully nerve-wracking experience with the (electronics department store) Saturn employ who accused me of stealing, and I had to remove all of my personal items on me, which number quite a few at any given time. Perhaps I looked suspicious when my lens cap fell from underneath my large coat, wearing leather gloves (which I bought at a flohmarkt [fleamarket]), black bandana, and numerous electronic appliances. In the end I had to buy an iPod charger they accused me of stealing though I needed one anyway. I’ll return it if I can to get my money back and get a cable from a friend if need be. Fucking ridiculousness. I got fries and drunk and made some crazy art for several hours just being silly and special like I am in order to ward off the bad vibrations. Speaking of bad vibrations I had only a waffle for breakfast and drank much coffee so I was shaking during the tour of the palace at Charlottenburg. There is a neat market nearby my apartment Wednesdays and Saturdays and right near that market is Baharat Falafel which I mentioned earlier. I was craving all day but everything everywhere is so good I can’t be resorting to staples already.
My foot just fell asleep while writing this and I have several assignments tomorrow.
23 January 2009
Written 22.1.2009 Donnerstag
Today I met Jacquelyn, the creative writing teacher. Fuck, I can’t believe it’s my second day here and how good I am feeling. Jacquelyn has a nice apartment built by the jews in the 1800s, lived in by nazi wives after the war, college students more recently, and jacquelyn and her family for the past 20 (zweizig) years. We looked at the architecture and the deco and then she told us (the visual culture and German area studies students) what each room originally functioned as and we got a sense of how it had been appropriated by each character that inhabited the space. I am excited for the first two creative writing assignments which have us going to a flea market and a graveyard to write stories.
/I was just tapping on the floor and realized I’m in an apartment building. They can probably hear what I’m doing, because I could hear saxophone downstairs yesterday. I just got back from Joseph Roth with Matthias, his friend Tobias, and the flatmate/fellow student Ryan who are all here tonight; Tobias as a guest for the night, and Ryan until May. Matthias has been in this apartment for three, maybe four years, seven in Berlin total, and I don’t know where home is for him. He is my kind host, if you didn’t get that. He cooked risotto for dinner with his friend Tobias and myself while I was exploring the first German supermarket squandering over broccolis and spinach. I’ll cook some other day, and I bought porto wien and some spice strangely familiar as it comes to be (mugwort? Wtf). J.R was a charming bar down potsdamer strasse commemorating the famous author, where ransom quotes adorned the walls and sweet jazz adorned the airspace. I’m glad we went there tonight instead of the tranny bar around the corner. Some other night, okay?
I didn’t carry my camera with me today, instead lugging my computer for the free internet at the studio space. God forbid when I want to put this on the web tomorrow I will take both with me and be forever burdened by my strained shoulder. I must fix my posture and strengthen myself so I can carry my god damned electronics with me, since I can’t rely on my own processing. Barely. Hardly. I’m not as drunk as last night, I couldn’t even write, but still feeling goody goody because I’m loving this place and just so excited to be learning and developing and building. Much of the other students are in the architecture program so they are really building, but I am learning Visual Culture. Why is culture important? Why is art important? Why is art visual? When culture is visual it gives you something to look at as evidence of, in support of that culture. Germany strongly promotes its culture and therefore its art, spreading it around the world, and within the system providing funds for artists to create, to do what they do and do it well with resources they might not have on their own. But to have an idea, a vision, to make it visible for others is sought as important in this world. This country at least. My idea of the world at least. My idea of this country at least. Maybe I like this country, this city, because people share that idea that art is important, and maybe I just didn’t realize it back home, at Rutgers when I was so distracted by everything that fell into place, everything that I put into place and didn’t realize I was doing, everyone who saw a part of me and I let wonder who this boy is and could never tell. I could never tell. Myself, or anyone else. I never had the words, just thoughts and wonders. Great wonders of the world if only I could bring them into existence before forgetting them. Forgetting then forgiving myself because I am so brilliant, but so ignorant, no, stupid, that I could let go such great things as love and lust and beautiful women with so much care for the world and for me that I could just leave them for this. But I know they will do well for themselves and learn by my not being there, as I am learning myself to be without them is to see something in them I never saw because I was always so close, always touching its cheek, whichever one, and never asking for love and maybe never accepting it. I was open to love and lust and freedom and I was so confused and so disparate and with nothing to hold onto even though my hands were constantly grasping, for a fine buttocks or breast, a hand to hold, a mouth to kiss, and my eyes were intense, sometimes fleeting and closing because of some place as far from the digits, closer to the mouth, but still with regard to relations of space.
Who will understand this? But I’m glad I’m writing.
I love those who will understand this, but I won’t want to talk about it. This is just coming out of me like a fountain of blood from my fingers, cracked bones from my body which cause me to wither and shake and worry and destroy. Fierceness building in a weakened shell fighting itself from both sides with no middleground to coast on, like running from waves on the coastline. You want the water to take you over so you keep from the waves, not caring that the sand is yet wet, it is not water so you allow this game of chase, of temptress to the waves who want your eager feet but you don’t realize that. You only think about coldness, and it comes from within you.
Beauty and greatness come from within me and I am shy of it. No one can be amazed all the time. So I cannot amaze. I cannot inspire always and so often I am empty. All or nothing. Good or bad. Fuck or hope to someday find someone as beautiful and loving and amazing, and even then you still missed it. Anyone is capable of loving you so much as long as you are honest with them, so just be. JUST BE. Fuck. Just.. fuck. Just FUCKING BE.
Today I met Jacquelyn, the creative writing teacher. Fuck, I can’t believe it’s my second day here and how good I am feeling. Jacquelyn has a nice apartment built by the jews in the 1800s, lived in by nazi wives after the war, college students more recently, and jacquelyn and her family for the past 20 (zweizig) years. We looked at the architecture and the deco and then she told us (the visual culture and German area studies students) what each room originally functioned as and we got a sense of how it had been appropriated by each character that inhabited the space. I am excited for the first two creative writing assignments which have us going to a flea market and a graveyard to write stories.
/I was just tapping on the floor and realized I’m in an apartment building. They can probably hear what I’m doing, because I could hear saxophone downstairs yesterday. I just got back from Joseph Roth with Matthias, his friend Tobias, and the flatmate/fellow student Ryan who are all here tonight; Tobias as a guest for the night, and Ryan until May. Matthias has been in this apartment for three, maybe four years, seven in Berlin total, and I don’t know where home is for him. He is my kind host, if you didn’t get that. He cooked risotto for dinner with his friend Tobias and myself while I was exploring the first German supermarket squandering over broccolis and spinach. I’ll cook some other day, and I bought porto wien and some spice strangely familiar as it comes to be (mugwort? Wtf). J.R was a charming bar down potsdamer strasse commemorating the famous author, where ransom quotes adorned the walls and sweet jazz adorned the airspace. I’m glad we went there tonight instead of the tranny bar around the corner. Some other night, okay?
I didn’t carry my camera with me today, instead lugging my computer for the free internet at the studio space. God forbid when I want to put this on the web tomorrow I will take both with me and be forever burdened by my strained shoulder. I must fix my posture and strengthen myself so I can carry my god damned electronics with me, since I can’t rely on my own processing. Barely. Hardly. I’m not as drunk as last night, I couldn’t even write, but still feeling goody goody because I’m loving this place and just so excited to be learning and developing and building. Much of the other students are in the architecture program so they are really building, but I am learning Visual Culture. Why is culture important? Why is art important? Why is art visual? When culture is visual it gives you something to look at as evidence of, in support of that culture. Germany strongly promotes its culture and therefore its art, spreading it around the world, and within the system providing funds for artists to create, to do what they do and do it well with resources they might not have on their own. But to have an idea, a vision, to make it visible for others is sought as important in this world. This country at least. My idea of the world at least. My idea of this country at least. Maybe I like this country, this city, because people share that idea that art is important, and maybe I just didn’t realize it back home, at Rutgers when I was so distracted by everything that fell into place, everything that I put into place and didn’t realize I was doing, everyone who saw a part of me and I let wonder who this boy is and could never tell. I could never tell. Myself, or anyone else. I never had the words, just thoughts and wonders. Great wonders of the world if only I could bring them into existence before forgetting them. Forgetting then forgiving myself because I am so brilliant, but so ignorant, no, stupid, that I could let go such great things as love and lust and beautiful women with so much care for the world and for me that I could just leave them for this. But I know they will do well for themselves and learn by my not being there, as I am learning myself to be without them is to see something in them I never saw because I was always so close, always touching its cheek, whichever one, and never asking for love and maybe never accepting it. I was open to love and lust and freedom and I was so confused and so disparate and with nothing to hold onto even though my hands were constantly grasping, for a fine buttocks or breast, a hand to hold, a mouth to kiss, and my eyes were intense, sometimes fleeting and closing because of some place as far from the digits, closer to the mouth, but still with regard to relations of space.
Who will understand this? But I’m glad I’m writing.
I love those who will understand this, but I won’t want to talk about it. This is just coming out of me like a fountain of blood from my fingers, cracked bones from my body which cause me to wither and shake and worry and destroy. Fierceness building in a weakened shell fighting itself from both sides with no middleground to coast on, like running from waves on the coastline. You want the water to take you over so you keep from the waves, not caring that the sand is yet wet, it is not water so you allow this game of chase, of temptress to the waves who want your eager feet but you don’t realize that. You only think about coldness, and it comes from within you.
Beauty and greatness come from within me and I am shy of it. No one can be amazed all the time. So I cannot amaze. I cannot inspire always and so often I am empty. All or nothing. Good or bad. Fuck or hope to someday find someone as beautiful and loving and amazing, and even then you still missed it. Anyone is capable of loving you so much as long as you are honest with them, so just be. JUST BE. Fuck. Just.. fuck. Just FUCKING BE.
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