THEKAKOFONIE

001

LUKE SHEEHAN - An allegory of the birth of Europe

PATRICK O BEIRNE - Tage wie diese

KARL WHITNEY - The City, Perec and Play

CHRISTIAN WARD - Three Poems

CHARLIE STADTLANDER - Feuilleton credibility

john lalor - void wagner

ANDREA BEDORIN - Two Poems

and

images from SIMON STRANGER’S Mnem!

Contributors

Simon Strangeris a novelist from Norway. His books include Den veven av hendelser vi kaller verden and Mnem andtwo books for children, Krusedullen and Gjengangeren. On the front cover, and dotted throughout

the issue, are drawings bySusanne Krövel

an architect, of the fictional city Nem around which Stranger’s book Mnem centres. Please visitwww.visitnem.com

for more.

Andrea Bedorin(b.1982) lived in Padova till 2005,

participated in the "Società Dante Alighieri", promoting Italian culture in Italy and the world, from 2003 to2005; published his first collection of poems Un folle piacere della voce (An insane pleasure of the voice) inMay 2005; after a year in Dublin published with Luca Donà another collection of poems L'esile mito (The

Slender Myth)

Charlie Stadtlanderis a writer and puzzler who has lived and worked in Seattle and Dublin, and currently works in the outer

fringes of the New York City conurbation. His writing has appeared in Outside Magazine and Sixteen AfterTen, a collection of short fiction released in Dublin in 2008. He placed 344th in the 2006 American

Crossword Tournament.

Patrick O’Beirne born in 1972 to a German mother and an American father in Germany. Attended Bayerische

Theaterakademie in Munich to learn acting. Has worked as an actor, director, musical director and actingcoach in different places all over Germany. Lives in Berlin.His music can be heard on myspace.com/patricko39beirne

Karl Whitneyis a journalist, researcher and 3:AM editor based in Dublin, Ireland. He has written for the Guardian, the

Irish Times and the Belfast Telegraph.

John Lalorattended Limerick School of Art, Ireland. He has lived in France since 1988 and has exhibited widely in

both countries, most recently in Temple Bar Gallery Dublin; Groupe Laura in Tours; Glassbox, and CentreCulturel Irlandais, Paris, along with film-screenings at Centre d'art internationale Vassiviere; La Femiscinema with Pointligneplan, Paris and Temporarycontemporary, London. He was an active member and

director of Glassbox, a pioneering artists-run space, from 2004-07 in Paris, and co-produced issue no 5 ofthe independent fanzine 'Feint' edited by Vaari Claffey. Further links for John

Lalor:http://groupelaura.free.fr He is currently in pre-production for a new 30 minute short film (BNF/MK2un incident urbain) and also aiming to publish a book of his writings in English and French (Found in

translation). He will be showing in Bolzano in Italy with Yona Friedman and Rirkrit Tiravanija in a projectentitled (undefined 09 - new dimensions "add space to space") curated by Germana Jaulin.

Christian Wardis a 28 year old London based poet and translator. His work has appeared in Diagram and Elimae and is

forthcoming in Ezra, Welter and The Emerson Review.

Andrea DeAngelis’writing has recently appeared in Dogmatika, Terracotta Typewriter, Salome Magazine, Flutter Poetry

Journal, Mad Swirl and Gloom Cupboard. Andrea also sings and plays guitar in an indie rock band calledMAKAR (www.makarmusic.com). MAKAR is currently recording their second album, Funeral Genius.

Luke Sheehanwas born in Dublin in 1982. He studied Philosophy and Religion in TCD and UCD, and has worked as a

care-worker and editor. This is his first published story

Welkommen

This is all wrong. It’s allwrong. We don’t care aboutthe language. French,English, Czech, Swedish.We don’t translate here, wepublish. We listen to eachother in a kind of busy baron Friday night kind of way.We banter. In this firstissue you’ll find work inItalian, German, English.You’ll find work drawn,spoken visually. There’seven work in ellipsis, silent,pretending to be important.What can we not say?The Kakofonie is deditcatedto the experimental, thepolitical, the dedicated, thepotential. We’re not namedafter a Boulevard in Paris,we’re poor, but that’s okay;

we’re free and you have toprint it out yourself and stapleit and DO IT ALLYOURSELF, but that’s okay.We’re interested in abstractthings like a social democraticEurope, and that’s okay.

The Kakofonie is not of oneparticular country. Rather itbelongs to the cities we all livein: Paris, London, Dublin,Oslo, Berlin, Tallinn,Belgrade, Barcelona. Webelong after all to a Europe,shapeshifting, moving in andout of sight.

This revue is published underBroken Dimanche Press. InNovember we are publishingour flagship book You Are

Here, exploring the meaningof a Europe without theBerlin wall, a Europe full ofactivists, artists and thinkerswho are living in a Europewhere the Berlin wall is justa childhood memory,distant, historical.

In the meantime please doconsider sending us yourthoughts, and moreimportantly, YOURWORK. We need it. Andremember we want The

Kakofonie to be where YOUcan publish what won’t bepublished anywhere else, inwhatever language you workin, wherever you are.

editorkakofonie@gmail.com

The Kakofonie

Published by Broken Dimanche PressJuly 2009

www.brokendimanche.eu Design/layout: Bachalard/Holten

© Copyright remains with authors, artists andarchitects, 2009

Broken Dimanche Press danktdem EU-Programm Jugend in Aktion

Two Poems

Andrea Bedorin

Forse in un quadro blu di Picassodove il sogno si colora celesteacquamarina nei suoi occhi vivaci,sui lembi di tela verità intrise.

Forse nelle parole aspre di Rimbaudc’è ancora tempo per tornare infanti,dentro giardini in boccio, per coglierepetali, espressioni gentili per lei.

Forse nelle tue iridi oltremare, Cocò,si specchiano i silenzi tempestosi…i dubbi sfumano, ti guardo, so che è

il solo oceano dove lasciarmi affondare.

U-bahn

L’oggetto morto del mio desideriosei tu, lontana, non mia - l’amoreeffimera preghierala muta voce tramutanella notte sibilante.Fischi, facce stranierenegli occhi della notte,mi commuovo e viaggiosu questo metrò, quasi inesistentela notte comprende la solitudinee m’abbraccia come se fossi tu,buona notte è l’augurio,l’incubo, il desiderio.

U-bahn

The dead object of my desirethat’s you: far away, not mine –

love, theephemeral prayerturns the wordless voiceinto the hissing night.Whistles, strange facesin the eyes of the night,I move and I travelin this underground,the night almost non-existentcomprehends the lonelinessand embraces me as you would:a good night is the wish,a nightmare, the desire.

Luke SheehanChapel of Dry Grass

In 1621, the advocate and jurist Hugo

de Groot, known as Grotius, escaped

from the castle of Loevestein, near

Gorcum,�in the Netherlands. He was

hidden in a chest.

The fabrics on the bed in whichI’m dying are good quality, and werenot so expensive, although theycame from Venice. The woodenfloors of the room where I am goingto die are pleasant, also, and theopen window that shows the riverreminds me of the house I lived inwith my family, north of here, acrossthe country, near the border and along time ago. The girl who bringsmilk in the mornings puts it downto cool on the table, and then opensthe curtains and window. The milkacquires a skin on its surface in aflash.� The skin is pulled about bythe wind like a sheet.

Since falling in the street I feelcold, my skin is pale and I havecoughing fits which bring up bloodand phlegm together. They told methat the bile had blackened mypillows and the smell of my body sopoisoned the air in my room thatvisitors were given handkerchiefs tohold against their noses.� They hadall but measured my coffin, whenmy mind reassembled to receive thedoctor's prognosis in person.

The girl brings the milk on acircular tray with silver handles, withbread and sometimes flowers. Shehelps me get dressed and waits whileI eat, sometimes stitching orembroidering or sometimes simplysitting in a chir in the light from theother window, with her hands in

her lap. A week ago she asked me toread a letter.

The coughing rips my lungs.When the liquid is expelled it isreplaced by an agony that lasts forseveral minutes; I wheeze and I closemy eyes, and I can't respond whenthe girl asks if I'm alright.� She puts ahand on my back, and takes away thebloody and dampened sheets.

If I can I go downstairs, sit for anhour and meet with people.� Mynephew, looking for money, comesmost frequently. Now he knows I'mgoing to my last reward, he’s moredeferential.

De ene z'n dood is een ander z'n brood.

Death for one man means breadfor another.

I pretend to have another fit ofcoughing and the girl puts him outon the street.

I like her.

Yesterday, I looked at myreflection in the window and saw hersobbing into her sleeves.

I was wearing a black felt hat --strange, the hat, I had forgotten I waswearing it.

I asked her what was wrong.

A boy to whom her namehad been attached to for sometime, the one whose letter I hadread for her before, he hadinvited her to walk by the river,had gone away in the summerand come back in the autumn,had brought her to the riverand given her a bundle, a boxin the bundle, a ring in the

box, a pretty plain ring insidethat, and made a bed out of hicoat, and put it down on thegrass and turned her over on itand then told her to stop cryintold her that she was not ruineat all, that he loved her most oall, that they would marry in thwinter.

Predictably, then, he put onhis hat and boots and ran backto Amsterdam, to climb on aCompany ship and work aneastern route where he wouldplay the same cruel tricks orworse on mixed-race women orthe servants of Company men.

I foresaw him arriving insettlements where any sane oreligible girl only wanted to leavon a ship, where savage womenwere enslaved as whores andtheir children converted to theTrue Reformed Faith.

The girl was padding thewater off her cheeks. To distracher, I told her about Andreas.

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Strange to have been born, aI was, into a subject Kingdom,and die in a free Republic. Myfamily, and its estate inGroningen, had endured thewar with Spain, but I had beenraised through a temporarypeace. In 1617 the peace wasbeginning to break. The peace my body was suddenly broken well, like a bud splitting openfor a spring flower to flower.

That’s the way life is for menand women alike on God’searth.

We remained Lutheran, asthe rest of the country turnedto Calvin. After the fieldworkwas done some of the menwould stand around beside thedoor of my Grandfather's storeand listen to him teaching alittle about the word of God.Standing by the openstorehouse door with his armupraised, Grandfather wouldsay that his father had saidthat Luther had taught thatSaint Paul had preached thatJesus had said that God's lovewould keep and save thelowest man, if his faith in thatlove was sufficient. But if, forone instant, a man trustedothers or himself more thanGod, he would put himselfinto the deepest pit, and noprayer could save him. Becausegod was the truth and spokethe truth and revealed it to hisdisciples, and other men.

"Spoke shit," said Father, raisinghis beaker and pointing his pipe,"And the pope in Rome is a donkeythat speaks shit and writes shit andmakes others get down in it toworship, while wrapped�in silk andfed with the milk of reptiles."

While all of the talking was goingon, Father would sit,sceptical,�drinking, with his beakeron his bad leg. The bandages heboiled in horse-piss, I remember.

He wouldn't see a doctor: he hadlearned about that kind of thingwhen he fought against the Spanish.

As Grandfather was talking, hewould turn to me and slap one fistinto the other and say, “That is allthat the peasants can manage –beating, not killing. Peasants aren’tsoldiers.” Just like him to talk warwhile his father was repeating theold promise of God's love beside

him.

If poor father had lived longenough to hear about how it allended?

Here my milk- maid agreed that hewould have had�a lot more tocomplain about.

Father spoke a language I didn'tunderstand, although I know it now,it was the language of men who havebeen to war. I have always tried toforget it, and back then�I had it inmy head that not partaking in itmeant I was beloved of God. I wasable to forget it entirely when I metAndreas.

Who made me know friendship asa sickness of love.

This last recollection I did notshare with my milk-nurse-maid. Whostitched very beautifully in the light.

+++

There was a lustre added to myname because of successes in school.

I read the bible out loud, underthe arms of the windmill.

I would mend the estate. I wasparaded about.

I would, said Father, beBurgomaster, run the wholeprovince.

Grandfather said I would go toLeiden to study the word of God.

The Spanish, it was said, wouldinvade any day. The whole countrypanicked, remembering the crimes ofthe Duke of Parma.

Mother wanted me to marry.

+++

The girl I walked with for awhile was well selected for me my mother, she was my heightand her hair was white and herred lips I now know must haveturned the married men arounher to disgraceful thoughts. Wnever got married.

Her name was Baertje.

When we walked out first, itwas after service on a Sunday, asuddenly our families wereblended together. We all werecoming out of the town. In theshade beneath a tree there wasman working patterns of leavesinto the wooden back-board ofbed and singing out loud, hisknees all covered in golden woshavings and the shadows ofactual leaves overhead. The twous were left alone. Our familieseemed to want this to happenSo we enacted it, for them.

When I put my hand on herhand she took it away.

Later on while we sat beside hump in the bank of the riverwhere the roots of a willow werpeeled from the soil she grippemy hand in both of hers andbrought it to her lap.� Shereleased it then as time hadpassed and it was already late.

We both turned our heads tfollow a sound that wasapproaching us, a cart and astrange voice that repeated asingle word in a sighing call intime with the breathing of theanimal pulling the cart and thesound of the wheels. It was thebookseller.

We watched the shadowedshape of the man and the horsand cart until they were hiddenby trees.

The bookseller came fromsomewhere in Germany and hewore a heavy cloak, even in thehot weather. He had long hairthat was full of sweat, whichformed the hair into black andshining hoops that clung abouthis neck and ears and beard.

Over time the bookseller hadrealised that the peasants of ourvillage only cared about the storiesthat the books contained, and nottheir bindings, and he began to slicethe volumes into smaller sections,which he rebound and sold at aprofit.

Small New Testaments inGerman and in Dutch and Latin,and letters by Luther he also sold,and sometimes stranger, moreexpensive volumes of philosophy,which he kept inside a locked chestand would only show to learned orto landowning men.

The next day, in the evening,there was a wedding party. Thebookseller set up a stall beside themain enclosure and showed thepeasants and the people from thetown his new displays, allowingthem to look at the drawings inside.

"On Chinese paper!" he keptrepeating, rolling up his sleeves toturn the pages, bringing a lamp tohang above the crowd on his longstick, to enable them to see theprints and the paper they wereprinted on.

"Look at the paper!"

"Is it fine paper?"

"It's Chinese!"

"Chinese paper?"

"Chinese paper, I told you."

Others passing there would see thelight that hovered near the fascinatedfaces and be lured in towards thestall.� Suddenly, putting down thelamp and stick whenever theassembled peopled tried to read outloud, he would snap up the bookand put it behind him, bringing outanother and holding it above hishead to keep their attention.

I was standing with my family onone side and Baertje, with most ofher family, on the other, when hepulled out the big chest. It was heavyand he asked for help in bringing itbefore the stall.He quietenedeveryone then tapped on the box.The box opened. A small man with awhite face jumped up and steppedout before us, holding a book in theair.

“My newest Bible!” said theseller. The Bible was placed ona stand. Then the booksellerstood up on his table andbegan to�recite, like a preacher,the early stories of Genesis, andas he did so the helper ranabout, performing. He wore awide-brimmed hat that was tiedto his head. Collars and cuffs of

worn and broken lace hungdown and jangled as he movedabout. We watched him act ou

Abraham's wandering. Hagaand Ishmael. Jacob's purchase the birthright of Esau, the hairman, with a bowl of porridge.

Not long after that the wholcrowd returned to the�rooms ofthe brothers Beecx. Beer spillinfrom their faces, they keenedwith laughter like cockerelschucked alive and crowing intomorning bonfires. The seller'shelper was sitting on a bench.

"Where are you from?"

"Parchwitz, in Silesia. Theforest."

The seller's helper's name waAndreas and his father had beea minister and he had been weeducated and then orphaned.He had gone to Dresden andbeen standard bearer in an armdivision of Johan Georg ofSaxony, until he woke upscreaming with a soldier bitinghis fingers. He held up a hand

"He was trying to get my ringOr perhaps he was hungry."

He had travelled alonethrough the forest and across tEmpire, and had found thebookseller bookless and brokenin Aachen, in a rat-filled room

Sketches of Nem by Susanne Krövel courtesy of Simon Stranger and Gallery 46 (Sircletwo 46,Nem

+++

He had come so far across theGerman Empire, it made me afraid toask him any further questions, but Iremember feeling that his wholeperson emanated a deep differenceand difficulty, and suggested theeffects of harsh and wounding

experience on his soul and body.The bookseller, with his helper,moved on.

+++

Not long after I metAndreas I thought of himagain, on a trip, with myGrandfather, to the

Wartburg, in Thuringia. Iremember, as we left the sea andthe lowlands behind, I saw themountains beginning to form,and I knew I was in Germany.The language was a hot soupwhich they expelled from theirmouths before it could burnthem. It got deeper in the throatand quicker, all the time, like th

flow of the Rhine when wecrossed and re-crossed it. MyGrandfather taught me Greek inthe day, in the carriage, andLuther's bible, and I would hearthe words in the mouths ofpeasants and burghers andsoldiering knights that Lutherhad taken and put into themouths of the apostles. Andreaswas there in the figures outsideinns with wide hats and darkclothes, smoking pipes ordrinking in silence. One of thesefigures slowly lifted up a bible aswe passed him, we supposed itwas to greet us, but who knowswhat he meant by it.

The strangest of all was at night,upon the roads, the mountain roads,when I should have been asleep, thecarriage creaking up at an angle thatpunished the horses, the driverperhaps looking for somewhere tostop, and I was awake, in the lurchingcabin, under furs, hearing myGrandfather wheeze and the horseswhimper, hearing the rain begin, andvery quickly, once, a storm with it, apowerful storm, and I leaned out thewindow and looked down into theemptiness, an emptiness that wasnonetheless full of an obscuremovement, and I saw, from above, thelines of lightning jabbing down intothe chasm, and in the silent beatbefore the thunder, in the flash oflight that pulsed across the slopes,disclosing to me the details of eachtree down to the needles, beforeGrandfather woke and told me it wasGod that did that, I saw --

Here my stitching-milk-nurse-maidasked me to elaborate on myGrandfather's motives in bringing usso deeply into Germany.

It was to leave the estate in case theSpanish armies trampled through it,and to prepare me for studying inLeiden.�

+++

But I never went to Leiden.Without money to study, or anyguarantee of safety whether Istayed at home or travelled, itwas decided I should go toRotterdam and help a man withhis accounts, Johan van Asten enHildegaard.

In Rotterdam, which I reachedwith a lot of difficulty,�I met withthis man early in the morning athis home. He offered me a drinkwhich he said the Spanish hadbrought back from the Americas.Chocolate, it was called. It wassupposed to become as popularas Coffee, before long. The maidstirred it with a small whisk. Thecup was silver but the taste wasbitter and foul. I couldn’t drinkit. He spoke so much that it didnot matter. He had no work forme, but if I went to the VOC,the East India Company, andasked to see Hugo de Groot, Iwould be offered something.

Before meeting Hugo deGroot, I met with a friend of myfather’s, a metal trader calledPieter Geluk. Pieter Geluk said:"Johan van Asten is lying to you.He wants you at the VOC forreasons of his own." That turnedout to be accurate, and useful,also.

On the way to thechambers of the VOC tomake my introductions, Isaw a small figure underthe lintel of a butcher’s,being listened to by awoman whose hand heheld. The woman waslaughing and the figure,with hat removed, lookedsincerely and beseechinglyto meet her eyes. It wasAndreas, with a carefullyassembled but faintly

ridiculous set of clothes, like acountry soldier dressed up forchurch.

+++

Before all this, in 1618, inBohemia, in a diplomatic feudover succession to the throne, thCatholic King Ferdinand’scouncillors had been thrownfrom a window.� They survivedthe fall.� In the Catholic version,they were carried off by angels. Ithe protestant one, they landedon a pile of manure. Angels andshit: in the conjunction of thesetwo ideas, the history of Europewas condensed. Now the worldwould be torn apart, and the HoEmpire was the site of the tear.

+++

In Rotterdam, I saw Andreasagain on the street, and askedhim to come for a drink.

In the rotten-aired beercellarthe sailors rolled their tonguesand screamed. Every tool andspear carrying fool in Europe wagoing to be trapped by thebutchery to come, and they woube safer at sea.

Andreas had let the booksellemove back to Germany on hisown and had remained inRotterdam, worked for a printersaved his money, and hoped to bmarried to the woman I had seehim with. She was the daughter the head of the metalworker’sguild, whose father beat thebreastplates of the Stadtholder’sguards. I asked Andreas to helpme make accounts books for theVOC. He agreed. The sailors haripped up a tablecloth and wereplaying at soldiering.

The flag of the BavarianCatholics, the Virgin'stablecloth, was dragged in theshit.

And the flag of Bohemia was ablood-sticky fishwive's rag. Andthe flag of Johan Georg ofSaxony was horse piss and sheep-shit.

It was true: every kingdom inEurope would be ruined, would losemoney without any means to recoupit, except our own, entirely thanks tothe VOC. The Bezants,Ducats,�Louisdors, Guineas andEscudos and Doubloons, we weighedand counted them and convertedthem to Guilders.

+++

When I met with Hugo de Groot,not long after that, he was seated on alow saddled seat in a tight coat thatseemed to be sewn around his chest.He liked the sound of his own voice.He addressed me like an audience.� Ithought that this showed his integrity,that he was the same with everyone hemet. We drank French wine. Wespoke about the Company, and aboutSpain.

"Spain," he said after a sigh, "wantsto possess the whole world."

But the Spanish did not see that theweight of their own fleets would sinkthem. As we drank and spoke I couldimagine their ships, jostling andramming each other, pushed downtogether by weapons, treasures, slaves,priests… by decoration and display,like their cathedrals swarming withobscene cherubs, like their courtscrawling with� sycophants, like theircities alive with secrets and squalor.

We drank more wine.

The Spanish did not see that theirsystem was already making itself

obsolete. For eighty years theywasted their energies on theabsurd and failed adventure ofbending a Protestant people tothe same rule of subjection thatthey imposed on Americancannibals. That was the old way,taking the world into thecorpulent, decaying body ofSpain and the Roman Church,when all that was ever universalwas God's scripture, God's loveand God's law, God's law and itsinsufficient, indispensableapproximation in the form ofhuman justice.

I poured out more wine for usboth.

That the private interests ofmen were only waves on a sea ofprovidence which belonged toall: this was Hugo de Groot'smost penetrating insight. Hestood up and refilled our glasses,and spoke about the EmperorAugustus.

The Emperor Augustus, in hiswill, according to Tacitus, said:do not expand the Empire.Consolidate, reinvest. Mendyour armour, and your morals.But instead came Nero and hisgolden house built on the ashesof Rome. Likewise King Philip,enclosed in the Escurial, hismonastic palace and labyrinth ofstone, was impossibly far fromthe wars being fought by his ownarmies.

My nurse-maid friendraised her needle here andasked if I had really been afriend of Hugo de Groot.No, I spoke to him once,and never had the privilegeagain. Very soon after ourmeeting, Maurice ofNassau ordered the arrestand confinement of Hugoand the death of John of

Oldenbarneveldt, the founder othe Company.

+++

Andreas and I would talk inthe late evenings as well. Andreaalways mentioned theAnabaptists, who were chased ankilled by both sides.

“But the Anabaptists aremisguided,” I said. “The breakinof the Roman spell should notmean the rejection of the world.Not when there is more of it todiscover, since it is theentitlement of each man topartake in the providenceordained him by God. And todefend it by waging war.”

“That is exactly what aDutchman would say,” saidAndreas. His jaw, without anybeard or hair, looked bluish inthe candlelight, an arrogant smilon the thin lips.

I pressed the point.

“And the Catholic idols, coulwe not have taken the idols andsold them back, rather thanshatter them?”

“You are a properNetherlander.”

+++

My life now: the price ofcinnamon.

The sailors say you can smellit�from miles out at sea, growingin Ceylon, the way God intendefree and abundant.

When the cinnamon wasbrought back to Europe, when itwas ground to a powder andadded to chocolate, or used tomake spiced wine in�winter, was

any longer how God intended itto be?

Strange that we find cinnamon totaste good, that we like the feel of silk,that we make diamonds and gold andsilver more valuable than copper andlead.

That we loathe Armenians,Gomarists, Anabaptists, or Jews orMuslims�more or less than Catholics,from one moment to another, that wepay more for cloves or pepper than forcinnamon from one day to another.

+++

At this time the fields and thevalleys and the forests of Germanywere full of burning villages andbarren fields and ruined churches andthe walls of German towns werecapped with severed heads thatripened in the sun, the eyes and earsand mouths of the soldiers andpeasants pouring with maggots likebarley in the mills of Saxony andGroningen and Silesia and Thuringia,before the war.

Each time Andreas would visit methere were new happenings to talkabout. He had written the metalworker’s daughter a letter, he hadspoken for hours with her, walkedwith her to the city limits, talking hertowards confronting her father again.Andreas was so happy that he changedcolour – his skin became pink and hisblack hair, filthy before like thebookseller’s, was now light-brown andgold in the light of day. He wore redsilk, a hat with a feather and a ribbonthat dangled down. Yet his healthrevealed anew, by an effect of contrast,the used and broken skin around hiseyes and the old trouble of his first lifein Germany.� I would ask himquestions about Germany but hewould not answer – he spoke of it onlywhen I mentioned my own trip there.

We were walking together,leading two horses, following acompany of armed guards fromthe VOC who accompanied acarriage full of books andequipment. It was a fine dryevening with no wind. We wereon the road to Utrecht. I toldhim about the dream I had had,in Germany, on the mountain,in the holy castle, in a room withwooden walls, the wooden cotwhere I dreamt of a man runningnaked from a hunt with dogs.

The running man was amonster: there were antlers onhis head. He ran through ferns,his ankles chopping the shallowwater of a stream. He ran upslopes and fell through bushes.He climbed from a ditch and ranacross fields, where he droppedto his knees under the harvestsun and the dogs came to rip athis hands and face.

“When I woke,’ I said toAndreas, "in the wooden cot, Iknew that the man with thehorns had been Christ.”

“Did he die?”

“He died. The dogs had eatenhis tongue. When I told thedream to the women at dinner Iwas sent from the table to myroom to pray to the spirit toprevent my mind ever grantinghabitation to such thoughtsagain. From the window of myroom I saw a party of huntersmake their descent into theforest, and I heard the horns.Although they grew more distantas the evening turned to night, Icould still hear them. I tried tosleep but I couldn't. I knew thatI'd have the dream again, andthat now it would be me that thedogs would destroy.”

Andreas told me that dreamslike mine were common before oafter a hunt, and were a sign ofdisaster for the house in whichthe dreamer lived.

He told me that, as he hadtravelled through the Empire,more and more people werehaving such dreams.

+++

In Rotterdam, in my rooms atthe Chambers of the Company,the visits from Andreas becameless frequent, and the new colouwent from his skin.

What had happened?

No answer. Andreas vanishedfrom his workshop.

But soon, according to PieterGeluk, the head metal-worker wputting out letters, and worse, thgirl’s brother was saying to hisfriends in private that Andreaswould be killed and cut intosections, fed to the dogs forunnamed offences done in privawith his sister in their Father’shouse.

Andreas visited me in the nighhe was panicked and shiveringand would not look up from thefloor. I wanted to send him awayto work in other chambers of thVOC: in Amsterdam, Delft,Enkhuizen, Middelburg orHoorn. Or to one of the foreignoutposts in the Indies: Batavia,Flores, Molukka, Hirado. We puplace-names into a box and pulleone out: Ceylon, where we foughwith Hindu kings and Portuguesfor control of the Cinnamon. Iwould put him on a ship, withsealed letters, in the morning.

But Andreas went bereft backinto Germany, swallowed by the

snaking train of some Protestantarmy. I myself was married andnever left Rotterdam.

+++

Love is as terrible as an army withbanners, says Solomon in his song, butSolomon, if he had come alive andseen the soldiers of Tilly andPappenheim enter Magdeburg, andthe protracted evils done to theinhabitants, the soldiers�charging,entering the city, raping andbutchering under the sign of theQueen of Heaven on their blue andwhite checked flag, he wouldn'tcompare the sight to anything.

+++

From the metal-worker’s daughter,years later, via someone else, came adark accusation: that Andreas was nota man, that he was a monster withcharacteristics of each sex combined.

+++

In Groningen, a Germanarmy recuperated on our estate.Armies at rest can be asdangerous as armies charging.Many girls were brought to thefields by force. Baertje was one.And my Father was foundwandering in the long eveningswith his sword drawn, lookingfor the Spanish, saying theSpanish had returned, sayingthat he had to expel them fromthe Provinces in the name ofChrist and William the Silent.But it must have been aProtestant soldier on top of alocal girl that he burst in upon,that chased him to the roadwith bare buttocks quaking andkilled him there with a daggerthat Father would have called acheese-knife.

Ten years later, inMunster, across the borderfrom Groningen, thegenerals and the Kingsbrought the whole thing to

a close with a feast and a firewordisplay. After thirty years ofslaughter, starvation, rape anddegradation of every kind, theytoasted a new world, and we inthe Netherlands, with ourfreedom, our church and ourCompany, knew that we wouldthrive in it.

I was laughing as I said this,then I was coughing again, twistforwards with my eyes bulging.The girl jumped up to the bedsidto stand there, until it subsided wheezing. I moved to a chair bythe window and watched thewater. I was thinking of my wifewho was dead, and my mother,dead also, and Andreas, whoseflesh was most likely dissolved anwhose skeleton was spread acrosmiles of earth and mixed with throots of the grass and the flowersomewhere in Germany.

The Musuem seen from the west by Susanne Krövel courtesy of Simon Stranger and Gallery 46 (Sircletwo 46,Nem)

Void

W a l k i n gthen, on your way back to work, you can't help but notice thesupermarkets vast fruit and vegetable stand. A right spread on to itself.And by no means a surprise. You would only have to look at the sector'sbalance sheet (on the up and up) these last twenty years, in order toweigh-up with a fine tooth comb this relatively recent ongoing monopolylike omnipresence. A genuine urban phenomena by all accounts,particularly noticeable within highly populated newly rejuvenated affluentinner-city zones.

This outcome alluding quite subtly to the influential sectors, secretlydesired Californian pipe-dreamlike (1) independence.

Fruit and Veg: Breaking away from the rest of the pack might be, here, adriving factor - a force certainly to be reckoned with if push came to shove.

Amid all this you couldn't help but notice the tomatoes.

Centre stage.

The by now Neo-Post Modern generically driven red tomato.

Day in day out. Paris, London, Berlin and further afield, Tokyo, Sydney,Algers, Los Angeles. Global. Appearing continuously, effortlessly even.Without surprise. Nature's four seasons (immortalized by Vivaldi) onceimmensely significant cultural speaking, would have been finally broughtto its knees. Yes the bigger they are then, the harder they fall.

Nature's seasons no longer causing the slightest of problems when it comes toconfronting : vast global distribution.

- The tomato up there, perched, redder than red.- Redder than ever before. All this having happened right under yournose.- Upwardly stacked. Impeccably arranged. One by one. The overtlycosmetic type of attention as if they were all heading out on the town.Dressed to the nines.

So then, snooker's eight red ball set-up springs to mind in heralding its infamous pyramidal form

and if not then :

A flatstackof redshirtsfolded in-extremis, outrageously on a seemingly smart (2) Benneton shelf.

At

this point in time and without wanting to lose the plot in any way, what if

one then started to think momentarily about (3) Robert Wagner?Robert Wagner.Might it be at all possible, that Robert Wagner could just enter into thepicture here.Robert Wagner along with his very own private artistical trajectorygerminating as a cinematographical actor around the early fifties.Wagner's immediate peers, (4) Brando and Dean, would have beenchampioned as artistic beacons.

Dreams to clutch on to deep in thenight.

However, in Wagner's case as time went on technically speaking, a sortof hyperbolical industrialisation regarding his professional career mighthave inevitably followed him down through the years. Gnawing away.Causing its own particular type of erosion. Eating away at him,constantly. This possible diagnosis combined with its almost tailoredneeds, life's very long and sometimes ravaging effects or just simply a chap'struly hard graft then, over in televisionland.(5) Evidently these factors could also be aligned with other differentpressures, professional or otherwise, cropping up continuously alongthe way. And finally but not least of all,

an individual's reaction to it all.

With this in mind, would Robert Wagner in his own right, have becomethen Void of his initial Cinematographial substance?His very own private (es)sence, in itself?Equal only in statue or in Neo-Post Modern Industrial terms (and usingJean Baudrillard's 'Le systeme des objets' as a means ofquantification/measurement in order to articulate the very limit to what anindividual could end up becoming) to one of television's industrially finesthours from the mid to late seventies: The loveboat.

Effectively at this point two simultaneous supposition's would seeminglymake their way to the surface, coming under the form of sub-headings.

(a) The penultimate in a new genre - industrially hyper-bland.(b) Robert Wagner ending-up then artistically (6) - functional in status.

Conclusion.

Presently the generically driven Neo-Post Modern tomato (overtly red andby all accounts rounder and rounder), two essential points would seem tomake their presence felt:

(a) A constant almost niggling need to ameliorate its roundness/form.(b) (7) Under then such a regime of sorts, what is lying in store for thespecies?

Might these contributing factors when combined, have rendered thetomato equally Void of all its significance?

Time spent within heavy industry draining it of all it's very (es)sence?

Such would seemingly be your ordinary, on-going hazards, lingeringaround the ever needy demands, of a Neo Post Modern hyperbolical-industrialisation (a form of supply and demand increasingly on the up and up)and at this point, one might say ;

gone into extra time

Effectively a system pushed almost entirely to its (8) paroxysm...

Footnotes.

(1) Considering for a moment the rather overtly pragmatic idea implying that the North American State of California would becapable of striking out at any moment from the rest of its fellow American member states. Going it alone. This would have beenindeed considered or at least hinted at on several occasions. The idea would have been made public. It would have seeped out.Partly due to its quite visibly overwhelming however by now established long term wealth. Mentioning but a few examples ie. Newtechnology, Computer technology, New media, Tele-communications and more classical communications in its wider sense. Thiswould naturally enough include any recent developments within the computer industry throughout the last decade ie, games, a very

vast sector on to itself. Internet too with it's ever expanding spin-off's and its new marketing territories and strategies in constantevolution ie; advertising, events etc. Not forgetting classical industrial cinema. One might add that both industrial cinema as Jean-Luc Godard would say and independent cinema, both fields providing a very large margin economically speaking, by way of it'spotential counterparts or closest rivals within that specific sector. Finally added to this already relatively long inventory, one couldalso mention agriculture, which should not be undermined or in any way. This in itself metaphorically speaking; beginning from theground up, providing the basis or foundation for any kind of desired cultural independence, (as has been regularily the casethroughout history). California's very own envied soil then, providing food for the table. This form of production being the oldest formof capitalism or primary trade in the world. And right at the very centre of this given context California's ever developing wineindustry. Adopting with a very dashing similarity, methods or aggressive strategies to that of it's by now older brother theafforementioned film industry metaphorically speaking. This in no small way by pure coincidence, one only has to think of the filmdirector Francis Ford Coppola who has been developing on a very serious and ambitious level his own wine for the last thirty fiveyears. These elements then when re-assembled not withstanding in any way, the clear desire in relation to a very enviable form ofexpansionism.

(2) A Benneton shelf in appearance aptly chic. Aping naively and rather aimlessly beyond it's wildest dreams miimalism. Funnilyenough Benneton's rather strange idea of total order. This in its re-presentation, re-defined as it is within the rag-trade industry.Meaning to say : a rather confined if not artistically limited area within the retail sector. It is quite blatantly obvious on entering aBenneton boutique the rather odd way in which those heavily pressed cachmere type jumpers in appearance are always folded andstacked. Whereby one under normal circumstances, might stack ten jumpers on an ordinary shelf in any other boutique, Bennetonseem to have the knack, to be able to stack three times that amount. However opting for omission. Each time stacking the leastamount of jumpers, enhancing the idea; less is more. The shelves in themselves arranged in their verticality evoking tall columnsexagerating to the limit, the very geological idea of all things sedimentary in structure. However the latter would have takencenturies upon centuries to realise. Eventually finding its form. Manifestly it is almost as if the raw material used for these jumperswould have been in actual fact chosen beforehand because it can be folded so thinly and finely.The idea here that presentationitself, while quietly translating, (after years of trying), undertones of comunication, would then in reality ultimetly prime over form.The cachmere type jumpers in appearance must really be left for long periods of time under very large heavy weights in order toachieve the desired effect. Benneton the mark seem to be trying to say something here at this moment in time. They seem to betrying to make some sort of artistic statement. However not forgetting to mention at this prcise moment, fashion's extremely middleof the road tentative. Quite simply a very very late artistic petit-bourgeois, (and by sheer economics) type of endorsement withregards to an already existing 1930's revolutionary utopian architectural interior design aspect.

(3) In as much as whatever skills, one could possibly have had, or maybe even picked up along the way, within one's own past livedexperiences or childhood and no matter what the social context (one has simply to consider television's sheer presence from theearly black and white days and later on to colour, within nearly every household from the 60s onwards) and by whatever means ifnecessary, a distinct possibility might just spring to mind. In that each and every individual within their own right and once againparticular social group, might be potentially brought around to a similar conclusion, be that as it may, relevant to the final round-upor final inventory regarding Robert Wagner's not always glittering career. Furthermore the plus's and the minus's regarding,analysed if at all possible down to the last detail (implying eventually a charting-up with the inclusion most probably of diagrams),Robert Wagner's final artistic outcome.

(4) On closer inspection Wagner might be considered somewhere along the line, more comparable to the likes of Paul Newman.The two actor's would have started out at roughly the same age? Both appearing at a very particular moment in cinematographicalhistory. Mentioning momentarily just one, however important factor in order to underline the periods particularity. In as far back as1952 following on from colour and later technicolour, the very invention and eventual marketing of the highly excentuated widescreen termed then as vista-screen. This highlighting the specific periods very own declared ambitions, implicating what one couldterm as a Post War technical prowess. Both of these actors at the very centre of this Post War splendour but also its ever growing,what one might call; Post War expansion plans. Therefore within this very specific environment or maybe even industriallyorientated cultural structure, the two actors professionally speaking, fulfilling a necessary gap regarding the structures everincreasing and by all accounts similar needs. Consequently the pair might possibily have had somewhere along the line, similarartistic ambitions to say the least within that specific or previously mentioned, cultural structure. Or more to the point, they mightcertainly have been aware of each other's work professionally speaking and if not, then more than likely their paths may havecrossed again professionally speaking via the movement of the sectors highly organised circuits of the day ie; casting agencies,production houses, agents, etc. These being but a few of the vital elements, they would have themselves as actors or rising starsutilised).

(5) Consequently the very problems that might arise somehow from having begun very early on, as one might say, nourishing : athoroughly lavish Hollywood lifestyle along ones way. This initally wonderful yet in the long term hard reality, must surely come intothe picture at some point or another. Meaning to say, what were the effects exactly of all that money and finance generated throughRobert Wagner's early film-work. And at a certain point from there on in, alluding thus to the very special requirements needed inorder to support this particular lifestyle/desire. A rather clinching factor one might add, embedding itself where necessary right fromthe start. Establishing its roots with extreme care. Having well and truly incrusted itself into its subjects life. This would haveconsequently developped and in doing so, might very well have played a crucial role in actually defining or fashioning the actor'svery future person. Establishing then from very early on the very person he would somehow seem to become. But also thisembedded factor might help in defining more clearly the kind of physical or economic needs regarding Robert Wagner from thesixties onwards. In mentioning here but a few examples, houses, cars, more houses and more cars, designer clothes, expensiveRichard Burton like jewellery, tennis courts,heated swimming pools both indoor and outdoor, private planes, helicopters, etc. All

these elements in fact part and parcel of the Modernist surburban dream factor marketed with tact around the world at that particulartime. All rather over the top in spite of themselves, in actual fact a bunch of luxurious mod cons stemming from the end of theSecond World War. Not forgetting either to omit, concerning the actor that is, any kind of dabbling or involvement with narcotics,which would have been possibly at the time par for the course. Whether hard or soft or maybe even alcohol which would seemalmost inevitable due to the circumstances. This in part due to once again the very strains and without exagerating in any wayalmost craving needs, of this particular way of living out ones existence or afforementioned lifestyle. But once again each of theseexamples, when brought under closer inspection, would also be among the elements vehicled and so belonging in a very preciseway or playing out their role, to the luxury easy listening classes or otherwise termed upper surburban middle class set of the day.Among these elements too by all accounts would have been, a very large drinks cabinet (and very probably containing some oldfavourites in mentioning here but a few, Martini's, Cinzano's, these in themselves being strange and also heavy on the sugarattempts at one might say, wine making of sorts and very very rampant at the time for those who certainly did'nt want to work toohard at their wine ) or private bar and thrown in for good measure, an ensuite pool room and last but not least the idea of electricwindows, effectively the list goes on etc etc. This all enhancing the very speed at which the afforementioned lifestyle wouldeventually evolve or navigate. These elements when combined with all sorts of different popularity polls, which would have by theway, themselves been by that time, clearly on the up and up and therefore vehicled via the different types of existing media whichwere available at the time. It would be without doubt then in hindsight quite clear that these elements when thrown together, wouldhave played a central role in possibly modifying in some sort of way the interior or artistically and quite possibly at that moment intime, could one go so far as to say, the economically driven personality or heart of Robert Wagner. Business as usual. Thesefactors when totted up would clearly have taken their pound of flesh or toll, along the way. Revealing ultimimately in spite of itselfthe very fragility of it all. Hence following suit the need for, one might say 'anti-depressers' which would have been by that particulartime clearly fullfillng their very own roll as a veritable side-effect of Modernism. Consequently in hindsight this particular pseudopara-medical sector would indeed develop in its own right, into a growing and ever expanding socio-economic market from thesixties onwards. Whereupon at that moment in time, all of these elements when finally thrown in together, as indeed they were,would eventually begin to manifest themselves, in force, as only they could and from there on in striving towards their desired globalsocio-economic effect. Each and every one of these elements accompanying along the way then Robert Wagner in some sort ofmanner and of course each and everyone nicely tucked up for their part comphortably, at the very core of the newly foundconsuming middleclasses or in otherwords the petit-bourgeois buying sector that was to follow.

(6) A hammer would in general be considered by all and sundry to be strictly a funtional object. In that, it has a particular role to playin its exact everyday existence. Its very own form evoking at all times this particularily well mapped-out utilitarian function. One canfind it always when one needs it. Hanging on the very wall where one left it or lying waiting in that very tool box equally where oneleft it. By this, it can really only play one role. The one that it has been well and truly designated to play out. Responding faithfully toheel its manafacturers very design, if not wishes. It can never then transcend this specific utilitarian role at any given time. Neithercan it ever in its wildest dreams surpass its user's or putting it another way proprietor's very own personal ambition. It serves then inthis light its employer, at the very mercy of its own restrictions or exacting limitations. Only to remind one at times of its users veryown capacity or maybe even incapacity, whether positive or negative. It might even be cnsidered, one of the utilitarian implementspar excellence of which it remains entirely prisonner. And in this it always at every moment enhances the idea of pure functionality.

(7) Canned tomatoes often known as tinned tomatoes, for example are sold everywhere in the world. They can in actual fact befound today in every type of retail outlet both big and small. The shop across the road, in the middle of nowhere, on the outskirts oftown etc etc. Everywhere. At every possible moment in time.Twenty fours hours a day. Ranging in prices, depending of course onits branding, (This in itself being yet another particular specificity within what one could rationally term developed capitalism). Thesesimple factors in themselves however when totted up, must have somewhere along the line a very straining effect or indeed somesort of major long term impact at some point on the original species or furthermore on future of it's very origins somehow.

(8) (Photosynthesis : a process by which energy obtained from direct sunlight on green plants can create complex substances.(Pocket Oxford). The lack of direct sunlight including the effects it creates (incidently becoming more and more of a pre-occupyingfactor or anxiety driven problematic for the 21st century within Western Capitalism) on the tomato species after a given moment,generation after generation, might have possibly produced at a certain point, the beginning of what one could only name, a longterm or on-going emptiness. Metaphorically speaking, if one was to look at the idea of cinema and its stars. Cinema's very idea ofstars on the big screen originally. This very very enigmatic idea of stars would have been considered and so engendered by thepaying public. The players as once said theatrically speaking, would have been transformed in some way chemically or by way ofphysics even (through the medium's very properties) along the way into transcended beings like astral stars. Night after nightchemically transmitted. This particular factor occuring then prior to the invention of television. They would have been perceived tohave been like extremely bright moving lights. Beacons lighting up like veritable astral stars in the sky. Jean-Luc Godard said whilespeaking about the idea of television: one has only to look down at the tiny screen there next to you in the room with no effort at allto see it, but cinema according to him, one is very much obliged to make the effort to look up at a giant screen in order to see/graspit. Would television effectively through it's very very vast economically driven industrial emphasis, quite simply lack this necessaryartistic type of photosynthesis/direct light? Due to its very nature television being : a zone of heavy industrially orientated production.As Godard says once again : a place that just never stops. Then by all accounts would it be comparable to the glass coveredgreenhouse and its afforementioned long term effect. In itself the glasshouse being an extremely vast zone of vast industriallyorientated production. A place which produces without inspiration. There is effectively no direct sunlight. Production there continuesat an ever increasing rate without stopping. Producing goods lacking in direct light and so lacking in essence. The seasons havelittle or no impact on what happens within the glasshouse. It is a place of contiual massive production. Acres upon acres.Prairiesupon prairies. Producing with the passing of time what it eventually produces : a very beginning of an ongoing emptiness.

John Lalor 08

Mussolini’s Mind

Andrea DeAngelis

Mussolini’s minds

In Mussolini’s minds, the trains all run on timeIn Mussolini’s minds, the clocks all shudderto their next minute stop,letting out long breaths of an emptying momentIn Mussolini’s minds, the replacement peopledo not wear clock faces but digital,In Mussolini’s minds, people jerk nervously abouttheir hands and eyes always shout command-wise—

what timewhat timeexcuse me, what timeexcuse me, do you havewhat timeexcuse me, do youhold the time?

In Mussolini’s minds, the trains all run on timebecause they have no choice not to.

Patrick O’Beirne

Tage wie diese

Rabe

Als Georg am Morgen des 27. März in sein Badezimmer trat, sah er im Spiegel auf seiner linkenSchulter einen Raben sitzen. Sonnenlicht drang durch die Milchglasscheiben. Federn, Augen undSchnabel des Vogels waren von dem matt schimmernden Schwarz eines Briketts. Auf der Schulterselbst fühlte Georg kein Gewicht, sein Schulterzucken erwiderte der Vogel mit der fließendenEleganz eines Raubtiers: eine sachte Welle ging durch das Gefieder, weiter nichts. Georg machteeinen vorsichtigen Schritt zurück, wobei seine Augen auf denen des Raben im Spiegel gerichtetblieben. Nun streckte sich der Rabe, hob mit unhörbarem Flügelschlag von der Schulter ab undtauchte im Spiegel ab wie ein Kieselstein im Teich.Georg maß dem Vorfall nicht zu viel Bedeutung bei, tat ihn als Tagtraum ab und hatte ihnerfolgreich verdrängt, bis er am Abend wieder in seiner Wohnung stand und nach der Kälte derBadezimmerklinke griff. Die Hand stockte kurz, dann trat er mit energischem Schritt durch die TüWährend er noch nach dem Lichtschalter tastete, suchten seine Augen schon im dunklen Spiegelnach dem Raben. Zweimal flackerte die Neonlampe über dem Toilettenspiegel, dann beleuchtete sdas Bad, und im Blinzeln, mit denen sich die Augen an die Helligkeit gewöhnten, erkannte Georg,dass er alleine war.Kein Rabe.Nur Stille und ein erwachsener Mann, der sich dabei ertappte, in Schrecksekunden an Gespensterzu glauben.

Im Weiteren ging Georgs Leben wie gehabt seinen Gang.

Stolz

Im Goldrahmen der im Quadrat vierzigZentimeter maß, befand sich eine Zeichnungaus dem Jahre 1954. Eine Tuschzeichnung,die einen Stier im Sprung zeigte und vonPicasso am 24. Juni unterschrieben wordenwar. Leonhard Reichelt, ein Antiquar undKunsthändler in der Universitätsstadt G,hatte, als er ihr das erste Mal ansichtig wurde,gelächelt und war innerlich vor Stolz geplatzt.Die Zeichnung war ihm in einem Nachlassuntergekommen und er hatte es nichtgeschafft an sich zu halten, als die Erben derProfessorenwitwe B. ihn durch das Hausführten und er im Augenwinkel die Zeichnungan der Wand entdeckte. Er sah sichgezwungen, für einen Moment den Raum zuverlassen um auf der Toilette zur Ruhe zukommen. Den Rest des Nachmittages behielter pochenden Herzens eine angestrengte Kühlein seinem Gesichtsausdruck und erklärte denErben der Witwe B., die schon auf den erstenBlick als schlichte Gemüter auszumachenwaren, seine Bereitschaft, den künstlerischenNachlass, gesondert zur Bibliothek, fürTausend Euro zu übernehmen. Auf derRückfahrt spielte er mit dem Gedanken dieZeichnung unverkäuflich in seinemKellerantiquariat aufzuhängen, dann abererschien ihm der Vorgang, einen Picasso zuhandeln, als ein kunsthändlerischer Aufstiegund er verkaufte die Trouvaille noch in derfolgenden Woche für viertausend Euro,ebenfalls an einen Professorenhaushalt.Picassos Stier sprang von der Kunstgeschichtezur Molekularbiologie.Nun also sah er den Goldrahmen, der zueinem Werk der Moderne nicht passen wolltewieder, allerdings im Büro der Kriminalpolizei,wo der gefälschte Picasso, achtlos abgelegtzwischen Schreibtischutensilien, zum zweitenMal auf ihn wartete.

Schmutz

Ecken und Kanten sind besonders anfällig. Ichliege auf den Knien und putze mein Badezimmer.Mit Kraft scheuere ich Schmutz und Schmoddervon den Kacheln hinter der Waschmaschine undbereue. Bereue derart lange nicht geputzt zuhaben, dass mir nun pelzige Staubkolonienentgegen sehen. Im Augenwinkel scheint es, alswürden sie sich selbstständig bewegen und davonkrabbeln. Die Wolle geht noch aber dasFestgebackene und Klebrige raubt mir den letztenNerv. Weil es immer noch ein kleines bisschenlänger dauert, als man dachte und dann nocheins. Zum Schluss bin ich dann wieder stolz.Wenn alles fertig und sauber ist. Aber da sehenoch etwas, das ich übersehen hatte. An der Seiteder Badewanne residiert ein Grauschleier mitCharakter, der sich von keinem Mittelchenbeeindrucken lässt, welches die chemischeIndustrie für ihn bereitstellt.Grauschleier ist ein Arschloch.

Elfmeter

Der Mittelstürmer Balfour M., ein Hüneghanaischer Herkunft, versemmelte einenElfmeter wenige Minuten, nachdem er sich beieinem von vornherein aussichtslosen, mithin alsoüberflüssigen, Kopfballduell auf die Zungegebissen hatte. Der Schmerz brannte derartsäuisch, dass ihm beim Abschuss des Elfers derFuß schlackerte. Als er die Gelassenheit sah, mitwelcher der gegnerische Keeper den Ball vor derBrust annahm, dotzen ließ und in die Tiefe desRaumes zurückschlenzte, fühlte sich Balfour wieder letzte Depp.Der Schmerz war verflogen.

Sketches of houses by Susanne Krövel

Loch

Ein faustgroßes Loch im Blechzaun kurz überdem Boden gab den Blick auf die donnerndeStadtautobahn frei und beantwortete die Frage,was mit dem Hamster Gustav passiert seinkönnte. Martin biss sich auf die Unterlippe, alsdie Zwillinge an seine Seite traten.- Hast du ihn Papa?- Nein. Hier ist ein Loch im Zaun.Mareike, die schnellere von den Zweien, kniete,ohne Rücksicht auf ihr Kleid zu nehmen, insnasse Grass und sah durch das Loch. Mitfragendem Gesichtsausdruck erhob sie sichwieder, als erwarte sie von Martin einen Hinweisbei einer Schnitzeljagd. Martin wich dem Blickaus. Lisa krauchte nun ebenfalls in den nassenRasen und steckte ihre Hand durch das Loch.Martin wollte sie davon abhalten, da die scharfenBlechkanten Befürchtungen weckten, doch dazog sie schon den zitternden Gustav durch dasLoch herüber.Noch Jahre später war sich Martin sicher, inGustavs Gesicht, das langsamer mampfte alsüblich, etwas Ähnliches wie Dank gelesen zuhaben.

Christian Ward

Three Poems

Pereiras Dam, Portugal 2005

Drought has turned it into a bedof hooves. Clouds have not runlike horses in months. Birdspick at the gaps, miners digging

for seams of undiscovered metals.Farms turn to waste; animalsstart to resemble their stuffedcounterparts. The farmers' wives

drop plumb-lines into the emptywells of their lives. Buckets clangwith the sound of lost hope,each note clambering up the sides

like animals desperate to tasteair thick with dissatisfaction.

Flood

The solitary vehicletrickles down the roadlike the first wordfrom a flood of languageI am expecting when my sonstarts to speak. I lookforward to feeling the weightof every dada and mama,each vowel and syllableheavy like iron; holding himto the earth. When these wordsdry up, he will slowly startto lift himself out of my arms,

out of my life. I clench him tightly

each night anxiously, eager

to avoid that day.

Astronaut

The astronaut you marriedlooks nothing like the photo.His head, for instance,is elongated like a horse's.Perhaps it's the wayhe toyed with the Earth'sgravitational field duringspacewalks that stretchedthe bone like silly putty,desperate to be draggeddown so he could circleyour body once moreand rediscover its topography

Charlie StadtlanderCrucial Verbiage

ACROSS

1. Alternative energy choice6. Ebeneezer’s exclamation9. Home to Tom and Catherine-Zeta Jones14. Wipe clean15. It can be white16. Drives a getaway car17. Happen again18. Forgetful ones20. Fresh fruits for filling pies22. Ambient musicmaker Brian23. Turn red24. Apogee27. Let borrow30. Chant at a peace rally, perhaps32. Alternative folkie DiFranco33. Bolt of inspiration37. _______ worse than death (2 words)38. OCD, depression, and agoraphobia42. Ending after C- or Eth-43. Without this, game hunting could be difficult44. Uno più due45. “It’s true!”46. Laid ______ (2 words)49. When repeated, a deadly African fly50. Auto’s statistic in the UK or the USA53. Chilled precipitation, for short54. Volcanic spouts61. Scavenger of cloth

63. Comparatively sick64. Move slowly across65. Put away66. Monarch’s duration67. Politician’s support staff68. Railroad stop (abbr.)69. Greek muse of love poetry

DOWN

1. Certain Balkan resident2. Famed cookie sandwich3. Decorated with frills4. Example of function, in a phrase5. Let out again, as property6. Talk at great length7. Set sights on8. One of a line of English kings9. What _____ saying? (2 words)10. Famed Vietnam War protestorHoffman11. Smallest amount of refuse12. And so on…13. Sound emanating from a coiled snake19. Prior to21. Without fat, as in a salad dressing25. Old cowboy films26. Like some stations on a car radio27. Rue or regret28. Months in Madrid29. Like a spider using a cane, so tospeak30. Scottish denial31. Plural of a location preposition34. 24 horas35. Victim of a devastating Dutch disease36. Donation to the poor39. ___-Chi40. Pub pint41. “It isn’t true!”47. Needing to be extinguished48. Alternative to a brush, inhousepainting50. Catchall category, cut short51. Members of a Chinese breed,colloquially52. Better than not bad55. Fencing blade56. Sounds from 51 downs57. Young lady from Toledo (abbr.)58. Word after inter59. Cucumber or broccoli (abbr.)60. Tuscan river61. Maker of TVs and Radios62. Name that is Hebrew for “Lion”

Sketches of houses by Susanne Krövel courtesy of Simon Stranger and Gallery 46 (Sircletwo 46,Nem)

Karl WhitneyWalking Rue Vilin

I walked up the hill to Rue Vilin twice – onceon my own, and the other time, quite recently,with my girlfriend. Although I’ve only walkedthe Rue Vilin twice, I’ve thought about thatstreet a lot over the past few years.

Rue Vilin, in the Belleville area of Paris, is onlyhalf the street it used to be – something that’sobvious if one searches for it on a map. On thePlan de Paris, Rue Vilin appears as a stubbyoffcut: an abbreviated laneway, almost as wideas it is long.

Rue Vilin used to run from its junction on theRue des Couronnes all the way up to a dead-endat a steep cliff-face, against which a staircase ledvertiginously up to the Rue Piat and the Rue duTransvaal, both balanced precariously on the

crest of the hill. Now, however, my mapshowed that Parc Belleville had replaced thetop half of the street.

But to actually get there – to walk the streetand see that none of its buildings had beenbuilt before the late 1960s – was to realise thatRue Vilin, and the area immediatelysurrounding it, had undergone an apparentlycatastrophic process of urban renewalsometime in the not-so-distant past. Urbanrenewal was a phrase that, to me,automatically suggested urban destruction: aprocess by which the past is wiped clean, and avision of the future is imposed in its place.Rue Vilin: not half the street it used to be; infact, not the street it used to be at all.

Rue Vilin was physically undamaged as a resultof the war, but the heart had been ripped out ofit. It had been part of a Jewish quarter of thecity, housing recently-arrived immigrants fromEastern Europe. One resident was the motherof writer Georges Perec, who lived and workedthere, running a hairdressing business. In 1943,she was arrested by Parisian police and deportedtowards Auschwitz; she never returned. She hadalready sent her son away to safety in the southof France. Perec, whose father had died fightingfor the French army in 1940, and who was anonly child, was an orphan before his seventhbirthday. The young Georges was formallyadopted by his aunt and uncle, and lived withthem in western Paris. But he later returned toRue Vilin and walked the street for the firsttime in nearly thirty years.

Georges Perec was the reason I was first climbedthis hill in north-eastern Paris, tracing the lineof the old street, looking for a Rue Vilin that nolonger existed.

The area around the street had long beenmarked for destruction declared an îlot insalubre,or unhealthy block, as far back as the early1900s. However, little was done until the late1960s, when a process of demolition andrebuilding reached Belleville.

Perec heard news of the impending demolitionfrom his friend Pierre Getzler. On a walk withGetzler around Paris, when Perec mentionedthat he hadn’t returned to the Rue Vilin sincehe was a child – how he wasn’t even sure whereit was located – his friend informed him thestreet was mere metres away from where theywere standing.

In 1969, following the traumatic break-up of arelationship, Perec threw himself into anambitious project which, he planned, would lastfor twelve years: the ongoing description oftwelve places in Paris which were important tohim. He utilised a 12 x 12 mathematical grid tostructure the order in which he would visit eachplace. Every month, he would go to one of thetwelve locations and note down what he sawthere, and in addition, at a different location

would write a memory of another place. RueVilin was one of these places, and wasarguably the most personal of them.

Perec wrote that the description was ‘meant tobe as neutral as possible […] walking in thestreet, notebook and pen in hand, I do mybest to describe the houses, the shops and thepeople that I come across, the posters, and ina general way, all the details that attract myeye.’

Georges Perec while writing the description of thestreet (early 1970s)

The cold precision with which the street wasdescribed was the product of a severelyconstrained observational discipline, whichhad developed as a result of Perec’smembership of novelist Raymond Queneau’sOulipo group – an organisation whichinvestigated the creative possibilities of literaryconstraint, drawing techniques largely fromscience and mathematics.

On the afternoon of 27 February 1969, Perecfound himself, clutching a notebook, standingat the foot of Rue Vilin, at the point where itbranches off from the larger Rue des

Couronnes. Across the street new councilblocks had recently been erected (they had‘something old about them already’, Perecwrote).

As he walked up the street, against the slope ofthe hill, Perec recorded in his notebook thefunction of each building: several empty shops,a paint shop, a dry cleaner’s, a shop sellingbuttonholes, a restaurant, a laundry, a tailorspecialising in trousers, a residential hotel.

The upper half of the street was pockmarked bygaps, indicating where houses had beendemolished. Concrete fences masked derelictsites from view. Of personal significance toPerec were no. 1, the building where hismother’s parents lived; and no. 24, the housewhere he lived as a child, and where hismother’s business was located – where the now-faded phrase ‘Ladies’ hairdresser’ was still visibleon the wall.

On his first visit, he climbed the steps at the endof the street; at the summit of the hill he notedthat ‘there’s quite an extensive panorama to beseen: churches, tall modern blocks, thePanthéon.’

View of Paris from Parc Belleville, photo Karl Whitney

It was this I wanted to see when I first got toRue Vilin: if I couldn’t see the street as it waswhen Perec walked it, I at least wanted to findout if this view across the city persisted.

Having made it through the dense undergrowthof the Parc Belleville, a vista identical to Perec’sgreeted me.

I sat down, and looked at the city unfoldingbelow me – the Eiffel Tower and thePanthéon the most visible, but by no meansthe only, landmarks. I thought about theparadoxical destruction that had beenwrought to turn what had been streets andhouses into green space; to reclaim nature atthe expense of the bustling, complex andcontradictory life of the city. This processmade nature seem most unnatural. Iconsidered the generations of families whohad lived on the street now covered by thepark. Most of all, I thought of how part ofPerec’s own history had, somehow, beenerased with the destruction of the street.

By the time Parc Belleville was inaugurated in1988, Perec was dead. He passed away, on 3March 1982, just days before his 46th birthday.At the time of his death, Rue Vilin, as he hadonce known it, was completely gone. His lastdescription, written in 1975, recorded that anentire side of street was lined with concretefences, the buildings destroyed.

The transience of urban space, how the city’sonly constant seems to be irreversible andtragic change, has long been a preoccupationof poets and thinkers, from Baudelaire, whodeclared that ‘the form of a city changes, alas!,more quickly than does the human heart’, toMarshall Berman, who adapted Marx’s phrase‘all that is solid melts into air’ to describe thedestruction wrought on the urban fabric, andon human experience, by the processes ofmodernity.

As I sat, for the first time, in Parc Belleville,these arguments weren’t far from my mind:the destruction of the street, the clearing ofhouses, the departure of the population – allthese lamentable effects of 20th century urbanplanning seemed to extend before me. I left,making my way back down the hill, distinctlymelancholy. It had been a solitary, moving,experience.

I returned there quite recently, almost exactlythree years after my last visit. My girlfriend

and I made our way towards Rue Vilin. At thefoot of the street, I turned to look across at thecouncil blocks that Perec thought old beforetheir time – they stood: bright, undimmed. Thestreet itself is now truncated and pedestrianised,leading past five- and six-storey residentialbuildings, curving up to the gate of ParcBelleville.

The park itself is lush, tree-lined, and well-usedby people from the surrounding area: its open-air table-tennis tables, its tunnels of ivy archingover rows of steps, and, near the summit of thehill, its peculiar museum, the Maison de l’air,make it both pleasant and unusual. On thenight we visited, the park was just closing up,and people who had come to eat bread anddrink wine while the sun set pleasantly on thehorizon gathered their things to leave.

And at that point, part of me admitted that thepark, installed at the expense of the old street,was in many ways a good thing, and by nomeans a manifestation of problematicfunctionalist urbanism – something I hadconvinced myself of on my previous visit. Thecity, rather, is created through everyday use, andkilled through its over-visualisation; thevisualisation of a certain type of urban planning,certainly, but also in the kind of gaze thatwallows in a nostalgic rejection of thecontemporary.

For one thing, the new apartment buildings,derided by Perec, still formed part of a denseurban fabric, in which the street and the localshop had roles to play. Conversely, functionalisturbanism wished to completely remove theapartment block from the street, and place it ina blank and geometrically-arranged open space.This was something that had been achievedelsewhere, in the cité suburbs of Paris, withlargely lamentable results.

I could see now that, although the area had longbeen earmarked for reconstruction, ParcBelleville was more the product of anotherprocess, originating in the 1960s, of Frenchplanners learning from the mistakes of post-warconstruction: the large, isolated residential

buildings, the lack of services, the vast anddispiriting open spaces. Green space didn’thave to be like that: in the 1970s smallneighbourhood parks began to spring up allover Paris, largely as a result of debates aboutwhat kind of city Parisians actually wanted.

Although the destruction of Rue Vilin struckPerec as, literally, a noteworthy event –something intimately tied up with his ownmemory, or lack of memory – I don’t think henecessarily saw it as a tragedy. His pragmaticview of human history made him scepticaltowards any nostalgic notions of lostcommunity. To live in a city meant oneconstantly undergoing changes large andsmall. To record this was to know the city,one’s own surroundings, and oneself, better.

Stairway at top of Rue Vilin, Michel Sfez ,1984

In the city, the past is always present in somesmall way, whether in the physical layout of astreet, the slope of a hill, or written in thepages of a notebook. The form of a cityconstantly changes, but past impressions stillremain. This is true of most cities; this is trueof Paris.

But, it seemed to me, the possibility ofreimagining the city, or of recording it foroneself and others, or of delving into its pastas a way of explaining the present, cannot bestopped either. These were the thoughtsrunning through my mind as we descendedfrom the hill, turned down the Rue Piat, andreluctantly made our way back towards theheart of the city.