Platon wrote that a man and woman who really love each other are like two halfs of an apple, which were cut apart but only together form an ideal entirety again. What a nice, typical Platonian view of an ideal world, and clearly related to his obsession with ideal forms. At least in our knowledge about relationships we made some… (more…)
Leonard, our son, is in his full-blown puberty, and this last since about two years. Good if one knows right from the beginning that all his renitence, this hard-core opposition against everything what the parents do or say, is an essential part of forming his individual personality. Its also good to know that with other adults, friends of us, or… (more…)
Half a year ago I sold my old Toyota Corolla, which I drove for about 8 years, including long holiday trips to the Cote de Azur, Venize and the Dalmatian coast. But I also experienced a couple of accidents, one at night on the Autobahn when I fall asleep at 95 miles/hour and only woke up by the shouting of… (more…)
Read today the letters by Ernst Juenger, which he send home from the battles-fields of World War I. I can not describe the degree of my disgust, while reading all these pseudo-heroic and wanna-be cool descriptions from Juengers front-line years. It has little to do with a new evaluation of the history of the WW1, now 100 years after it… (more…)
Dear Michael, You probably remember that sour lemonade I tried in Munich, this “Bitter Lemon” we bought in the supermarket near the guesthouse. I always was wondering why they call it “Bitter”, for my taste it was rather “Sour”. Now I heard this exciting news from a group in Japan, who used citric acid treatment (i.e. the main aroma of… (more…)
Yesterday the great singer-songwriter Pete Seeger died. A month ago I still posted some thoughts on the occasion of his 94th birthday, when he appeared on stage at a small birthday party to sing “Turn, Turn, Turn” with his friends and the audience (which were more or less identical). Now Pete died, and leaves us not only with songs which… (more…)
At the Munich Lyrics Cabinet, the editors presented the collected poems of Thomas Brasch (born 1945 in London, died 2001 in Berlin). Brasch, who was fighting against the harsh literary censoreship in East-Germany until is emigration to the West, later was facing neglectance by audience after German reunification. Only now, more than 10 years after his death the literature critics… (more…)
hi ghazal, i recalled today you once told me about your parents divorce, and you call your father a traitor, since he started an affair with another woman already 4 years after he married your mom. your judgement was clear-cut, since your dads love-affair in your eyes was first of all a decision against his children. i still dont see… (more…)
Jimmy Page, a living legend of rock guitar style and founder of Led Zeppelin celebrates his 70th birthday today. Wondering how it all began, with a young, shy school boy in a south London suburb, and his dream to play skiffle against his mothers advice, and to start a career in biomedical research to help fighting cancer ? Well, below… (more…)
Good literature is not just about great ideas, good stories, dramatic situations interlaced with well developed thoughts and reflections. Literature is also about a writer-specific form, the specific style of how to say things. And this is what makes writers so unique and recognizable. You quickly can tell if a text which deals with a train ride through south-eastern Europe… (more…)