PHANTABULISTIC, a word I thought I invented yesterday to describe the second song on Radiohead's new album (Shit. I wasn't the first one to use it). It was at I Love Music after I had posted eight threads on eight songs of the new album. How did this word originate in my mind? Maybe PHANTAstic (!) plus faBULous plus realISTIC?

Jorge Luis Borges in seinen Harvard Vorlesungen von 1967/68, die jetzt unter dem Titel Das Handwerk des Dichters (Original: This Craft of Verse) auf deutsch erschienen sind:

My terrible retranslation:

I guess it is time to pack it in then. As I am not even able to translate a German translation of a very simple text back into the original as I would like to...

P.S. Does any of my readers have the original English quote by Borges? I'd be glad if he/she posted it in the comments just to see how Borges' English was.

I prefer people saying some intelligent things about smoking (and giving up smoking) with a cigarette in their mouth than to people not smoking and only uttering bullshit on smoking like that it is really unhealthy and that it stinks. I prefer irony to consequence.

Though I like when people tell me that I have a good taste in music I also feel ashamed. I much prefer when people tell me that my taste is wide and that I like loads of very different heterogenic stuff. That I have a broad perspective. Because I know that I haven't. There is too much music out there I hate with every fibre of my body.

I am number one for the Google query velvet undergroun. Weird. I did not misspell the name of one of my favourite bands once in that review.

Promise to myself. The next time I see a shooting star I will have a wish. This must be one of the most difficult things in life. Half a second to think of a wish. A response time which seems too short for me.

Tim from Traveler's Diagram has deleted me from his weblog link list. Somehow these little allusions that what I am doing here is not worth it are painful. Especially in the view that Traveler's Diagram is one of my favourite weblogs. The author has a very solid music taste with a strong predilection for Americana and is able to put that into words and he links to interesting sites and articles about culture and arts.

P.S. Apologies for this pathetic self-centered post. I have to admit that I try to condense the number of sites I link to as well. Whenever I delete a link there are two possible reasons. Either freshblogs does not have correct information on the page freshness or the site does not interest me anymore. Often blog authors which who post too much for me to digest are taken off the watchlist.

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.

"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

Ist jemand daran interessiert, die Minima Moralia gemeinsam zu lesen und in einem Blog zu diskutieren? Dazu geht es eventuell hier weiter.