Das Ergebnis meiner Aufforderung zum Geistestanz, der Minima Moralia-Lesezirkel, nimmt so langsam Formen an. Wir werden am Montag, dem 28.4. mit dem ersten Aphorismus der Reflexionen aus dem beschädigten Leben wie die Minima Moralia untertitelt sind, beginnen. Wer Lust hat mitzumachen, melde sich bitte hier bzw. bei Peter. Wir machen ihn/sie dann zum Kontributoren. Es sind bereits über 50 Leute angemeldet, so dass ich davon ausgehe, dass wir interessante Diskussionen haben werden. Die geschlossene Lesegesellschaft ist für die Teilnehmer unter empire.antville.org erreichbar.

Some ideas and thoughts which crossed my mind this morning on my jogging tour:

Last night I dreamt I had a mistress who gave me a map as a farewell present. Her place was on the map but not mine. I usually went to see her by bicycle (Morpheus knows why) and left the bicycle in the staircase when I stayed at her place.

France is not good for me. I eat and drink too much here.

What I really hate about drinking is that it makes me predictable. Last night after our bicycle trip to Argelès I drank the first two glasses of Rosé pretty fast. Catherine told me immediately that I will soon want to smoke a cigarette if I continue like that. Of course at around ten o’clock we bought a packet of Lucky Strikes for five fucking euros and I smoked four cigarettes.

Jogging every morning which I have done here every day except yesterday is also predictable. But it is a good predictability as it needs an activation energy; it is not automatic. It is a human effort and not a mechanical reaction.

There is a hill on my jogging circuit which is steepest at the top. When I start approaching that hill I unconsciously slow down at first time in order to delay the strenuous rise. Of course this is rather short-sighted and does not really help but it is stronger than me. When running up that hill I slacken the reins even more as I approach the top for physical reasons. Just before reaching the top I seem to stand still. I run on the spot. But somehow there is suddenly a force pushing me up so that I arrive at the top.

I’m a looser, why don’t you kill me, babe Mit der neuen Rechtschreibung ist Legasthenie salonfähig geworden. Irgendwie ist das symptomatisch. Die einzige Reform, die in Deutschland möglich ist, ist eine Reform, die sich selber abschafft. Statt von neuer Rechtschreibung sollte man eigentlich nur noch von den neuen Schreibweisen sprechen. Es ist allerdings ein Irrtum, anzunehmen, dass die Rechtschreibung in anderen Sprachen auch willkürlich ist. Wer jemanden als Loslasser bezeichnet, jedoch Verlierer meint, ist selber einer.

"They lie about marijuana. Tell you pot-smoking makes you unmotivated. Lie! When you're high, you can do everything you normally do, just as well. You just realize that it's not worth the fucking effort. There is a difference."

• Bill Hicks

The Dream Before (for Walter Benjamin)

Hänsel and Gretel are alive and well And they're living in Berlin She is a cocktail waitress He had a part in a Fassbinder film And they sit around at night now Drinking schnapps and gin And she says: Hänsel, you're really bringing me down And he says: Gretel, you can really be a bitch He says: I've wasted my life on our stupid legend When my one and only love Was the wicked witch

She said: What is history? And he said: History is an angel Being blown backwards into the future He said: History is a pile of debris And the angel wants to go back and fix things To repair the things which have been broken But there is a storm blowing from paradise And the storm keeps blowing the angel Backwards into the future. And this storm, this storm Is called Progress

Laurie Anderson on Strange Angels, 1989. The second part is basically Benjamin's philosophy of history in a nutshell.

Catherine and me are going on holiday to Perpignan tomorrow. I selected twenty albums (my cd wallet holds 24 but I'll take some lyric sheets) to listen to, ten new ones and ten older ones. The list:

• Cat Power - You Are Free
• Howe Gelb - The Listener
• Go-Betweens - Bright Yellow, Bright Orange
• Keith Jarrett - Always Let Me Go
• Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks - Pig Lib
• Massive Attack - 100th Window
• Mountain Goats - Tallahassee
• Radiohead - Hail to the Thief (p2p mix)
• Suicide - American Supreme
• Yo La Tengo - Summer Sun
• Laurie Anderson - Strange Angels
• Peter Gabriel - Passion
• Negresses Vertes - Mlah
• Lou Reed - New York
• Velvet Underground - Loaded
• Neil Young - After the Goldrush
• Mark Eitzel - West
• Belle and Sebastian - If You Are Feeling Sinister
• Joy Division - Les Bains Douches
• Tom Liwa - Stäfa/CH

I am a little fed up with myself that I continue posting stuff about politics and especially the war and the alienation between the US and some European countries. This is very important and moves me more than most music nowadays but I feel I should stop here for two reasons.

Firstly I wanted this to be a blog mainly about music and culture. I know that my political attitude is quite irrelevant especially in the view that I am not a very political person. I mean in the sense of politically active etc. By the way I am not a very religious person neither.

Secondly I think it is about time to accept the facts and to stop lamenting. What has happened has happened and nobody is going to reverse history. Therefore let's just hope that the world has become a better place after the invasion in Iraq and let's face the future and not the past now. It is always easier to criticise than to do things and get criticised by others then. I still think that the Iraq attack was not ok but that is really totally irrelevant now. End of politics mode.

P.S. There are probably several reasons for this change of mind. A kind of fatalism has settled in. Not the depressive and passive fatalism but more the kind of amor fati (love of the destiny) as described by Nietzsche. It is also my pragmatic side which seems to become more dominant. Maybe there is a relation to the fact that today is my fifth day of fasting. I only drink water, tea, filtered juices and clear soups plus occasionally a mix of coke and lemonade as a highlight and want to continue until Friday. After my 275 watt ergometer ride this morning I have lost 4.6 kilos from last Saturday morning. 94.9 kilos, I couldn't believe my eyes. I feel light and outside it is dry and sunny. Everything is gonna be fine. Even the Minima Moralia reading group seems ready to take off soon with the help of Mr Praschl and I am relaxing. Time to do some work outside.

The soundtrack to my current mood is Yo La Tengo's new warm and lovely album Summer Sun. Tracks 4 and 5 are what I'd call a perfect couple. No 5 is called Today Is the Day (download link) and I won't contradict Georgia there.