16th to 22nd of January

This week has been normal in the best way possible. When life feels normal that might not necessarily sound like a good thing, but that is like with children. Just gliding and enjoying the little things is something I can’t fault people for.

16th of January: “Write about the offing”

I didn’t even know what the offing was when I first read that and my mind went to killing something or someone, but apparently, it is the most distant extent of the sea that can be seen from the shore. Now I am smarter. Now I am a flat earther. What can this offing be then? Obviously, the point ‘they’ don’t want us to see. It’s the point on the horizon that tries to trick us into thinking this planet we are on is round. You round-ass-shills. It’s the point where the secret services of this flat earth know more about than they let on. Possible Chemtrail production facilities right below the waterfalls that fall from our god-given disc. The offing is more than every single person can see and holds all the secrets to us humans and reptilians. Not gonna talk about the elephants that hold our disc and the giant turtle they stand on and glide through the universe. We are special. We are better than you. We love simple explanations. There is yours!

17th of January: “The diorama of my interior world”

If you would step inside my head. My interior. Me being John Malkovich. You will find a tapestry of computer games. All the heroes I ever played, everyone I saved the world with and for and my circle of friends, and my family have a place in one of those endless scrollable websites. There are funny scenes throughout, everything is brightly coloured and in the style of the Final Fantasy 7 Remake. There is music coming from places that just fit. No one wonders there why their life has a soundtrack. It gives normal people a headache. A bit like Charlie Sheen’s tiger blood - only for some and minus the HIV.

18th of January: “Stendhal Syndrome in Paris”

Again something I haven’t heard about. I know of the depression that mainly Chinese tourists fall into once they realise that Paris is not as romantic as they made in in their heads. Stendhal Syndrome kind of is the opposite. One gets overwhelmed by art and beauty especially in the context of a surrounding language that one doesn’t speak or understand. This must feel like visiting a beautiful alien planet. When you ask yourself which one of these colorful plants and fruits you would be able to eat. I would certainly ask myself how things taste and hope to catch a glimpse of the indigenous people chowing down on something that I wonder about. It’s rare for me to be completely overwhelmed by art, if by art you think pictures. Films, movies, series, music can make me feel all sorts of things but I am sure a picture never did that for me. It has to be imposing, brutal, grand and a bit odd to make me feel. I like brutalism architecture but I am sure I am not going to find much of that in Paris. I guess I am more Chinese than the Stendhal-Syndrome-havers and would be disappointed with the art I see. I think I’d rather make beer walk through Paris and listen to fitting music. I am sure this makes 99% of the places in the world better.

19th of January: “Think of a scenario that you find uncomfortable and write it as someone else”

There it is. The conveyor belt shifts another 1.5 meters and Marc, Judith, Steve and Will do their job. They polish, screw, measure and turn. I just wait until it is my turn to check the car door for impurities with this massive lense. We are timed. There are 36 doors until lunch. Lunch is 3 doors. The afternoon is 38 doors sometimes 42 if the food is more protein based. We can take breaks inbetween but all breaks combined can’t be longer than 1 door. Sometimes I break my weekends up into door lengths. I find it exciting when minutia change in our rythm. A new coating is presented to us by the polier and we learn where we have to pay attention now. I love that I don’t have to think much. I just do my job. Once I leave the big grey hall, then that is it. Work is over and life begins. Sometimes things carry over like measuring in doors.

20th of January: “Pick a place and describe the first snowfall of the year there”

I had a few beers to many. Lighting a cigarrete coming out of the bar and having a quick glanse at my phone. 00:34 meaning 34 minutes after Björn o’clock. There is a light drizzle hitting my phone screen. I look down the road. Lining the road are skscrapers that have interesting patterns of lit to unlit windows. My headphones go into my ears. Time for Burial. The Untrue album is my soundtrack to Shanghai on a rainy day. This time something is different. Halfway through the album the city is more silent than usual. Snow hits the warm the streets. It melts in seconds. It’s the first ime ever that it snows here. While I am here. While I walk home at night. And nothing fits better than In McDonalds that suddenly elevates the atmosphere and makes that snowfall more memorable. This is my Stendhal Syndrome.

21st of January: “The opening lines of my time-travel-film”

“What color is Michael Jackson?”, has already been done. So it has to be different

“How was living with Kinski?”, I asked Werner. He lit a cigarette, looked up, then at me and blew the smoke onto the table. I could almost hear the gears grinding in his head. It took him no time to find an elaborate answer, so I knew he was just finding the right, no, the perfect words to open his monolgue with.

A few years later, same place but centuries before. “How was it living with Werner?”, I asked Klaus. His cigarette was already lit. Like an agitated child he rocked back and forth on the chair. He hit the table with both hands and just asked why I, such a moron, would ask such a question.

22nd of January: “A visceral reaction to blood or sickness”

I don’t remember the year. In my teens and early twenties I had problems with ingrown toenails. This however should not stop me from attending Music Festivals. I was studying. Chinese and economics. In the afternoons I was lcuky enough to have the university gym right in front of my door. I trained Aikido. Throw people, being thrown, all no big deal and all fun and games, but when someone, even tiny girls stepped on my big toe it was agony. I went to a doctor. A butcher really. He cut some flesh away and pressed a yarn under my toenail to elevate it and have it grow over the flesh and not into it. He left me with saying “Now that you saw how that it is done, I turst you to change the yarn and keep at it for the next month.”. Fuck no. I wen’t to the festival. Knowing that I should operate myself and change the bandages on one of the three days being there. That didn’t happen. Jumping onto my feet happened. A lot. My bandages turned brown from the dust of the field, and the front of the bandages where my toes are turned dark brown. Not good. I hobble and show it to my friends. They, like me, on a diet of just steak and beer for a weekend bring me to the festival hospital. The young team of doctors smiles at me. I am amused. My friends feel a bit sick and they ask me if they can film myself getting rid of my big toenail. Sure I said, smiling, eagerly waiting for my next beer and one of my friends looks paler than usual. The toenail grew back, even when multiple times they told me it wouldn’t. It’s my tiny Wolverine-Nail and it doesn’t hurt anymore. Now it’s a part of a story. No one puked, but maybe you would.