In the park next to the lake there is a Shadow Cutter. When you face the artist in a 90-degree angle, he would cut out the shape of your profile on a piece of white paper. With one small pair of silver scissor the Shadow Cutter pokes a hole in the middle of the white sheet and from there, the magic reveals itself, your profile gradually appears along the sharpe edge of the scissor, and when is done, he throws away the center piece, for the real product is the contour of your profile, which he pastes on a piece of black paper. So there you have it: the contour of yourself with black background, this is your shadow.
In the first few weeks the Shadow Cutter's stand is constantly full. There are portrait painters next to him, who secretly envy his success: after all, he is new here, what makes him think that he could pull all their potential clients away. The portrait painters try to win back the clients by adding glitterings, more vivid colors, discounts, free coffee ... but nothing helps. The world of black and white seem to have become public's new favorite and the latest tourist attraction. Soon people have their shadows on the walls in their homes, framed and displayed on their nightstands, carefully stored in their wallets, or saved as the background picture on their iPhones. Shadows are everywhere, people are obsessed with them, maybe driven by the sensation of holding own their dark-side in hand:"Finally, I have it tangible and constated; trapped behind glass."
With the increasing shadow-demand, the hungry painters decide to ask politely the Shadow Cutter to teach them how to capture a profile with silver lining; which he gladly accepts -- there is no reason not to, this is great that more and more people, even the "colleges" start to like my art!
Few months later, once the painters manage to shape the contour, they put the Shadow Cutting in the foreground and whoever comes and buys a shadow, gets a small portrait as present. If you look closely, the subtle difference of the Master and the crush-course-students is to see, but who has to look so closely? It is a piece of white paper on the black background after all! More than gradually the original Shadow Cutter loses the public's attention, but he doesn't want to do anything else for the art of contouring a shadow is ferventness, every millimeter of the cut-out profile is love, he is too old to learn anything else he could devote his heart to, it doesn't make sense to him selling the things that he doesn't believe, he wants to scream, protest, but he is born mute! Holding the silver scissor between his ten bony fingers like a bleeding soul, he throws the scissor in the lake and disappears from the city.
No one has ever seen him since. If you look into the lake closely, you could see a shadow reflecting back at you.
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Saturday, June 11, 2011
High Note
high note
hight note is to let yourself go, good espresso and tabacco;
take my hand and clear your throat;
release the bunny and squeeze the doe;
turn off the light, pack up and go.
high note is the sketch on the wall,
bounce on the dance floor,
straw in a banana-boat
and the long thin line of smoke.
high note is to open a book,
when everyone else is sitting in front of a tube;
shoot the fool's errand drop for you can make the tune.
high note is love, yourself and you;
high note is you.
hight note is to let yourself go, good espresso and tabacco;
take my hand and clear your throat;
release the bunny and squeeze the doe;
turn off the light, pack up and go.
high note is the sketch on the wall,
bounce on the dance floor,
straw in a banana-boat
and the long thin line of smoke.
high note is to open a book,
when everyone else is sitting in front of a tube;
shoot the fool's errand drop for you can make the tune.
high note is love, yourself and you;
high note is you.
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Squeeze Squeeze
Monday. It is going to take me at least another week to get used to leaving the bed before noon.
My first lecture was about lies. Nope, I am not kidding. I am auditing a lecture on the morality and the concept of lies. The teacher told us that he was going to talk about the techniques of lying as well; you know, the quality of lies, how do they best function etc. "But my colleagues suggested me to leave out this part, so I suppose it's a good idea. Maybe we will talk about it just a little."
What do you mean that you weren't going to teach us how to lie properly? That would be the best part.
Since it was an open lecture, various genres of people squeezed in. An elderly man sitting next to me asked:"Are you Korean?"
"No..."
"Well, I ask because my daughter-in-law is Korean, but she and my son study together right now at Boston, you know Boston? They are in Harvard, majoring Biology."
"That is impressive."
"You know, about cells, stem cells and all that."
The lecture started well and since I was going to check out another course that might interest me, I had to leave slightly early; especially I was hungry. It was close to noon, getting a bite to eat at the Mensa means war; and I had only 8 minutes until the next class started. I cut out a big chunk of lasagna, elbowed through cash register and chowed like Garfield -- I think I will have to drop the second class; there is no way I will survive having 8 minutes lunch time.
I was 4 minutes late for the second class, which was about film scripts. There were twice as many students showed up as the teacher planned. There weren't enough chairs, or furnace place. Some of us stood at the door, sat on the window sill, sat on the floor, even on another's laps. "We will start then" the teacher announced, "don't worry about the tiny place we've got. As the semester goes on, half of you will probably drop this class anyway. First of all, there is definitely lots of money in film scripts, in Germany it costs about 40,000 euros for an average script, and something like Perfume, which is worth 1 million euros..." Oh yeah, and you wonder why I am here?
"But." he continued, "this class is not about how to write film scripts; there are people who spend 4 years at the film school just doing that..." Oh never mind, I am dropping this class.
Tuesday. I am looking forward to the next school break already.
Narratology. Oh the joy of reading theories. I am auditing this class too because of my upcoming thesis. As the bus stopped at the uni. at 9:50 sharp, I decided that I still had time for another cup of coffee. Arriving at the classroom at 10:02, and it was the most crowded class I have ever attended. Officially there were only 40 students allowed, and yet, at least 70 of us showed up. Again, "stealing" chairs from the classroom next door, sitting on the floor, at the window sill, on the furnace and standing at the door. (Too bad that no one dared to sit on the laps of the other, we could have saved room and get more comfort) It was a bachelor's course, and the students were happy, frivolous and un-jaded. Our instructor and his assistant went through the syllabus and asked if anyone could read the text in French, because there are mistakes in the translation. A lot of them laughed -- what? Reading in another language? Pfffff what?
"And for the term paper, please don't forget to talk to me about your thesis first, so that afterwards you wouldn't be crying about a failing grade. The paper is due before the end of the semester..." One of the student raised her hand.
"Yes?"
"My concern is something else... hmm.... is there anyone we could write a complain to, about how small this room is and there are too many of us? Anywhere we could sign a petition? You know last semester, we had the exactly the same situation, and we couldn't really concentrate if half of us don't have a chair to sit on."
The teacher sighed, "I will look into it, anyone has questions about the term paper?"
awww.... the smell of teen spirit. At least I don't feel like falling behind in this class; just imagine, 2 years from now, when one of them decides to write their thesis on something that they did not quiet learn in their Bachelor's courses, she or he would be sitting where I was and grinned silently -- there is stuff you were bound to learn, sooner or later. But I don't think I will ever want to teach.
Is it just me or this librarian really hates her job. I waited 10 minutes for a locker, because coats, bags, and not-transparent bottles are not allowed. I left everything in the locker besides my water, which was in a light brown transparent root-beer bottle.
"Excuse me," I asked, "I would like to know if I could check out this book." (Since I am not familiar with different kind of stickers on the book covers)
"No." The librarian moved her eye balls from computer screen to my book, then moved them right back to the screen.
As I turned around, she suddenly said:"Oh yeah, you can't take that bottle with you."
"Why?"
"Because only transparent bottles are allowed."
"But this one is transparent."
"You can't take it in." she said, hardly moving her lips, eyes on the transparent bottle.
I wanted to tell her that she should really look up in the dictionary what transparent means, maybe she should visit the library from time to time, maybe even pick up a book and read. Adjectives, have you ever heard about them? My bottle is transparent, it is slightly tainted but it is not Vodka, it was water in it. Oh right, how do you prevent people from taking Vodka into the library if they really wish to? People who can't read or write properly should not work in libraries.
Nah... I am in a good mood today, I will let it go.
My first lecture was about lies. Nope, I am not kidding. I am auditing a lecture on the morality and the concept of lies. The teacher told us that he was going to talk about the techniques of lying as well; you know, the quality of lies, how do they best function etc. "But my colleagues suggested me to leave out this part, so I suppose it's a good idea. Maybe we will talk about it just a little."
What do you mean that you weren't going to teach us how to lie properly? That would be the best part.
Since it was an open lecture, various genres of people squeezed in. An elderly man sitting next to me asked:"Are you Korean?"
"No..."
"Well, I ask because my daughter-in-law is Korean, but she and my son study together right now at Boston, you know Boston? They are in Harvard, majoring Biology."
"That is impressive."
"You know, about cells, stem cells and all that."
The lecture started well and since I was going to check out another course that might interest me, I had to leave slightly early; especially I was hungry. It was close to noon, getting a bite to eat at the Mensa means war; and I had only 8 minutes until the next class started. I cut out a big chunk of lasagna, elbowed through cash register and chowed like Garfield -- I think I will have to drop the second class; there is no way I will survive having 8 minutes lunch time.
I was 4 minutes late for the second class, which was about film scripts. There were twice as many students showed up as the teacher planned. There weren't enough chairs, or furnace place. Some of us stood at the door, sat on the window sill, sat on the floor, even on another's laps. "We will start then" the teacher announced, "don't worry about the tiny place we've got. As the semester goes on, half of you will probably drop this class anyway. First of all, there is definitely lots of money in film scripts, in Germany it costs about 40,000 euros for an average script, and something like Perfume, which is worth 1 million euros..." Oh yeah, and you wonder why I am here?
"But." he continued, "this class is not about how to write film scripts; there are people who spend 4 years at the film school just doing that..." Oh never mind, I am dropping this class.
Tuesday. I am looking forward to the next school break already.
Narratology. Oh the joy of reading theories. I am auditing this class too because of my upcoming thesis. As the bus stopped at the uni. at 9:50 sharp, I decided that I still had time for another cup of coffee. Arriving at the classroom at 10:02, and it was the most crowded class I have ever attended. Officially there were only 40 students allowed, and yet, at least 70 of us showed up. Again, "stealing" chairs from the classroom next door, sitting on the floor, at the window sill, on the furnace and standing at the door. (Too bad that no one dared to sit on the laps of the other, we could have saved room and get more comfort) It was a bachelor's course, and the students were happy, frivolous and un-jaded. Our instructor and his assistant went through the syllabus and asked if anyone could read the text in French, because there are mistakes in the translation. A lot of them laughed -- what? Reading in another language? Pfffff what?
"And for the term paper, please don't forget to talk to me about your thesis first, so that afterwards you wouldn't be crying about a failing grade. The paper is due before the end of the semester..." One of the student raised her hand.
"Yes?"
"My concern is something else... hmm.... is there anyone we could write a complain to, about how small this room is and there are too many of us? Anywhere we could sign a petition? You know last semester, we had the exactly the same situation, and we couldn't really concentrate if half of us don't have a chair to sit on."
The teacher sighed, "I will look into it, anyone has questions about the term paper?"
awww.... the smell of teen spirit. At least I don't feel like falling behind in this class; just imagine, 2 years from now, when one of them decides to write their thesis on something that they did not quiet learn in their Bachelor's courses, she or he would be sitting where I was and grinned silently -- there is stuff you were bound to learn, sooner or later. But I don't think I will ever want to teach.
Is it just me or this librarian really hates her job. I waited 10 minutes for a locker, because coats, bags, and not-transparent bottles are not allowed. I left everything in the locker besides my water, which was in a light brown transparent root-beer bottle.
"Excuse me," I asked, "I would like to know if I could check out this book." (Since I am not familiar with different kind of stickers on the book covers)
"No." The librarian moved her eye balls from computer screen to my book, then moved them right back to the screen.
As I turned around, she suddenly said:"Oh yeah, you can't take that bottle with you."
"Why?"
"Because only transparent bottles are allowed."
"But this one is transparent."
"You can't take it in." she said, hardly moving her lips, eyes on the transparent bottle.
I wanted to tell her that she should really look up in the dictionary what transparent means, maybe she should visit the library from time to time, maybe even pick up a book and read. Adjectives, have you ever heard about them? My bottle is transparent, it is slightly tainted but it is not Vodka, it was water in it. Oh right, how do you prevent people from taking Vodka into the library if they really wish to? People who can't read or write properly should not work in libraries.
Nah... I am in a good mood today, I will let it go.
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Unfinished Product
Woke up late, but that is nothing unusual. I mechanically brushed my teeth and put the espresso machine on the stove. I can’t image how I used to get up at 5am, 6 days a week in order to get to school at 6:30 AM. (That was the rule; anyone who arrived late would have to stay after school for detention time. The detention was not long though, because the night class and study groups started at 7pm. A regular kid at our school spent most of his days at his desk. Imagine the three sessions of the day go like: 6:30am to 12:00 pm; 2pm to 6pm, then 7pm to 10pm. But that was long time ago.) The bus came late too, but I somehow ended up arriving at my class on time. Maybe I should get up late on a regular bases (taking the weekly statistics into serious consideration -- today was the only day I made it to school this week). More than 100 minutes of bus ride led me to a 90-minute class. I did not realize it was my last class for the semester, until our teacher thanked us at the end of the seminar. Wow, I have slept through so many of them since last October. I have become amazingly lazy since high school time; and yet, I am not unhappy having left the extremely strict school behind.
We learnt to point fingers at other nations besides our own, all the way through high school. In contrary in my current school, the seminars feel like a bunch of “finger pointing” too, but at ourselves. If the 90-minute lamentation directing at the “complete failure” of capitalism, or eating meat is mass-murder or the “melting-pot-society” is the highest achievement of human cultural form, I frequently remind myself that, at least there are disputes; imagine a class in which you have to write down everything the teacher says, the book says, and any disagreement could have you kissed good-bye to a higher education, or your parents “dropping by” teacher’s home after dinner with a red envelope containing a stack of cash.
Sometimes I am confused about how I feel about all of these: the goodness of self-critic vs. the “euphorication” of certain continent; the elitism reproaches to the society forgetting the majority of the population does not have graduate-school education; and how many hard-core vegans would pierce through own flesh so that a piece of metal can be hanged on the wound, or mark their own skin with needles and ink in some language that they don’t even speak. (Yes, I have known them in person.) What does refusing meat mean to you? What does your own body mean to you?
I owned a telescope. I saw the creators on the Moon and almost burnt my eyes blind when I forgot to add the filter. (As I bent over to adjust the angle, the Sun light burnt a small hole on my coat, and I was about to my eyes directly behind it. Lucky me.) In a starry night, I would spend hours on the house roof and aim for the silver tiny lights: the world around me felt weightless: does it matter to the universe that we are facing final exams in a few weeks? Does it matter that we eat meat or not? Does it matter how the nationals’ borders are defined? Does it matter if we stuck in the airport as the volcanoes erupt? Or the buses come late? Or the new policies take place? Or some avant garde fashion companies discontinue employing size-zero models?
Someone told me that humans were just nature’s experiment. If so, we are unfinished products.
We learnt to point fingers at other nations besides our own, all the way through high school. In contrary in my current school, the seminars feel like a bunch of “finger pointing” too, but at ourselves. If the 90-minute lamentation directing at the “complete failure” of capitalism, or eating meat is mass-murder or the “melting-pot-society” is the highest achievement of human cultural form, I frequently remind myself that, at least there are disputes; imagine a class in which you have to write down everything the teacher says, the book says, and any disagreement could have you kissed good-bye to a higher education, or your parents “dropping by” teacher’s home after dinner with a red envelope containing a stack of cash.
Sometimes I am confused about how I feel about all of these: the goodness of self-critic vs. the “euphorication” of certain continent; the elitism reproaches to the society forgetting the majority of the population does not have graduate-school education; and how many hard-core vegans would pierce through own flesh so that a piece of metal can be hanged on the wound, or mark their own skin with needles and ink in some language that they don’t even speak. (Yes, I have known them in person.) What does refusing meat mean to you? What does your own body mean to you?
I owned a telescope. I saw the creators on the Moon and almost burnt my eyes blind when I forgot to add the filter. (As I bent over to adjust the angle, the Sun light burnt a small hole on my coat, and I was about to my eyes directly behind it. Lucky me.) In a starry night, I would spend hours on the house roof and aim for the silver tiny lights: the world around me felt weightless: does it matter to the universe that we are facing final exams in a few weeks? Does it matter that we eat meat or not? Does it matter how the nationals’ borders are defined? Does it matter if we stuck in the airport as the volcanoes erupt? Or the buses come late? Or the new policies take place? Or some avant garde fashion companies discontinue employing size-zero models?
Someone told me that humans were just nature’s experiment. If so, we are unfinished products.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Midterm crisis?
Midterm crisis?
Episode 1:
On the phone with Mom, our communication was more diplomatic than profound. She went through the usual questions about my meals and weight, about weather and clothes: my only vocabulary left, well practiced and repetitive like some verses from an absolute beginner. Then, she said:" There was a good TV program last night. A young literary critic wrote something and became national wide famous."
"What did he write?"
"Books. Something new."
"O...K..."
"He reminds me of you. Young and studies literature."
"Yes..." I felt that maybe I should give some positive feedback, but I did not know what to say.
"Anyway, he was on a talk show and it was very educative."
"What did you learn?"
"There are young people who do new researches in books and all."
"It is seldom to find educative programs on TV..." -- give me credit for trying.
I suddenly thought of food.
* Pizza Spinoza ( à la hollandaise? with spinach on the side.)
* Foucault focaccia (The truth about erotic sandwiches?)
* Leibniz Cookies (two sides of the story: chocolate and vanilla. If a proposition is true, then its negation is false and vice versa?)
* Kant in cans (What is Enlightenment? The magic of storing food for ages and ages and ages in a tin.)
* Hegel Bagels (It is human nature to keep bagels in mind?)
* Etc.
I thought about telling her my thoughts but we ended up talking about how much snow we got this year.
Episode 2
Raumkonzept Seminar
Everyone sat in the classroom with think bubbles in a form of a fast-going clock. We had another hour left.
The teacher checked her cellphone and said: "I have been thinking about Wellbery's Sense of Room and Room of Sense this weekend. And I believe that we don't have to understand the text as two different ideas but it would also be OK to think of it as relapses ... the idea to be applied ... well, then, I think, can be, through New York or through a text..." -- she was talking as slowly as she could. The times goes faster this way.
I wondered if she listened to herself when she spoke.
Then someone said that in his course of philosophy studies, there had been incidents where the discussions were so escalated until someone called the police.
"What was it about?" we asked.
"We were talking about Foucault. Then someone felt insulted so the police came. For a periode of time we had guarded classes. Some students were thrown out of the room." -- This is what our teacher dreamt of, maybe, some action is better than half of students on Facebook and the other half picking on their cuticles.
It is hard to imagine calling the police on a Foucault related discussion though. How did you tell the policeman? What would be the first thing to write down on their notes? Foucault is spelled with silent "-lt"?
Then the class continued.
"conceptual definition of a room... emotional coloring of a text ... witness of simulator ... "
We nodded periodically. Felling bad for all the silence in the room, but besides smiling and nodding there was nothing we could do.
Maybe the philosophical food joke would come in handy in this situation. But I did not want her to know that I understand "emotional coloring of a text" as literally taking a highlighter and mark the paper.
"OK." she checked her cellphone again. "This is our mid-term discussion. I hope that it has been helpful to you all."
We nodded.
"And next time, we will REALLY put something VERY concrete on the table."
I haven't heard this sentence since the second session of the semester.
Episode 1:
On the phone with Mom, our communication was more diplomatic than profound. She went through the usual questions about my meals and weight, about weather and clothes: my only vocabulary left, well practiced and repetitive like some verses from an absolute beginner. Then, she said:" There was a good TV program last night. A young literary critic wrote something and became national wide famous."
"What did he write?"
"Books. Something new."
"O...K..."
"He reminds me of you. Young and studies literature."
"Yes..." I felt that maybe I should give some positive feedback, but I did not know what to say.
"Anyway, he was on a talk show and it was very educative."
"What did you learn?"
"There are young people who do new researches in books and all."
"It is seldom to find educative programs on TV..." -- give me credit for trying.
I suddenly thought of food.
* Pizza Spinoza ( à la hollandaise? with spinach on the side.)
* Foucault focaccia (The truth about erotic sandwiches?)
* Leibniz Cookies (two sides of the story: chocolate and vanilla. If a proposition is true, then its negation is false and vice versa?)
* Kant in cans (What is Enlightenment? The magic of storing food for ages and ages and ages in a tin.)
* Hegel Bagels (It is human nature to keep bagels in mind?)
* Etc.
I thought about telling her my thoughts but we ended up talking about how much snow we got this year.
Episode 2
Raumkonzept Seminar
Everyone sat in the classroom with think bubbles in a form of a fast-going clock. We had another hour left.
The teacher checked her cellphone and said: "I have been thinking about Wellbery's Sense of Room and Room of Sense this weekend. And I believe that we don't have to understand the text as two different ideas but it would also be OK to think of it as relapses ... the idea to be applied ... well, then, I think, can be, through New York or through a text..." -- she was talking as slowly as she could. The times goes faster this way.
I wondered if she listened to herself when she spoke.
Then someone said that in his course of philosophy studies, there had been incidents where the discussions were so escalated until someone called the police.
"What was it about?" we asked.
"We were talking about Foucault. Then someone felt insulted so the police came. For a periode of time we had guarded classes. Some students were thrown out of the room." -- This is what our teacher dreamt of, maybe, some action is better than half of students on Facebook and the other half picking on their cuticles.
It is hard to imagine calling the police on a Foucault related discussion though. How did you tell the policeman? What would be the first thing to write down on their notes? Foucault is spelled with silent "-lt"?
Then the class continued.
"conceptual definition of a room... emotional coloring of a text ... witness of simulator ... "
We nodded periodically. Felling bad for all the silence in the room, but besides smiling and nodding there was nothing we could do.
Maybe the philosophical food joke would come in handy in this situation. But I did not want her to know that I understand "emotional coloring of a text" as literally taking a highlighter and mark the paper.
"OK." she checked her cellphone again. "This is our mid-term discussion. I hope that it has been helpful to you all."
We nodded.
"And next time, we will REALLY put something VERY concrete on the table."
I haven't heard this sentence since the second session of the semester.
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