January 14th/15th, 2010

As you may, Thursdays and Fridays are my weekend, and naturally these are the days I sleep in late getting back all that rest I miss out out on my working days, when I usually don't sleep more than 4-5 hours per night.

I finally managed to listen to some more of Ulli's cds. I found Phil Shoenfelt and Southern Cross very good. Phil sounds a lot like Nick Cave, but he's been around a bit longer than Nick, I remember hearing about his punk band Khmer Rouge, but never did buy an album. I'll need to check them out, though.



Lay Low is a more country-oriented band with a good songs and a great female singer, but not too spectacular.

As usual on my weekends I did our weekly shopping, and since Ursula is quite ill with a cold, I did some errands for her as well. During these duties I had 2 blasts from the past. At one shopping store I bumped into a heavy-set middle-aged guy, who greeted me from afar. I recognized his face, but couldn't quite recollect who he was, there was just an instinctive feeling that I wanted to avoid talking to him, which I did manage to do. Then he came to me: he's a manic collector of cinema collectibles who every so often visited my cinema, wanted to see all our movie posters and photos (thousands of them!) and then wanted the rarest stuff for a ridiculous price. I can't remember his name, but he was one who took up a lot of your time.

On another errand in the evening, when it was already dark I passed by a pub. Although its windows were of colored translucent glass I was able to see into their guests rooms and noticed one big table with 8-10 people seated which looked very much like a meeting. Instantly I was reminded of the meetings my old film club used to have every month, and while thinking this I noticed a familiar face. It actually was a meeting of my film club! For more than 10 years the club had been the center of my life, and I have many recollections of the ups and downs of that time which I was so much part of. I gradually departed from it, when I founded my own private cinema. Nevertheless it was a strange feeling to see that meeting as if the times had never really changed. To be honest I fear the club itself hasn't changed all that much and hasn't really adjusted to modern times. But that has always been the problem with the club, or more more precise: with most of its members.

January 13th, 2009

It must be a sign that your leading a monotonous life, when your days repeat themselves even with the same coincidental circumstances. This day it was, as the day before: overslept, left for work without any breakfast/coffee, and a workday where the overhours were mercifully called off again. I'm not complaining, though, I just find it amazing. After all, Wednesday is my last day of work before my weekends, so it's accompanied with a feeling of relief.

And every Wednesday night I meet my pal Gerhard at the pub, a tradition that's almost 20 years old by now, so it's a grand way to end a working week. This time our friend Ralf joined us, and we had several hours talking about cinema and music.

The topics this time were John Coltrane and Ornette Coleman, Merzbow's early works, a new Pere Ubu album, which is a live album of old concerts, but in a rarely documented lime-up, and the death of Rowland S. Howard, best known as the guitarist of Nick Cave's Bad Seeds.

We also talked about Inglourious Basterds, made our jokes about the new Joseph Vilsmaier's new movie Nanga Parbat and the death of Eric Rohmer. All in all a great evening as usual.

Mannequins

Regensburg, September 2009

Window faces

September 2009

January 12th, 2010

Of course I overslept the morning after my round table and had to rush off to work without having had any coffee, well it was a sip of cold old coffee, but wasn't worth the try...

The overhours, however, were canceled for this day, so I got home early and had a good rest. The DVD Antichrist arrived, and I was eager to watch it right away, but alas, I was too tired.

January 11th, 2010

Lydia Davis' novel is written in a style reminiscent to that of Marguerite Duras': simple, hypnotic, mesmerizing. I'm enjoying the read very much.

After another long day at work I went to my round table at the pub as I do every Monday. This evening it was just Sabine and me, but the 2 of us had a good chat and quite a few rounds of beer and schnaps.

January 10th, 2010

This was another long day at work, as it was Sunday naturally more quiet than on ther days, but that makes it seem so much longer. The blizzard stayed away from our area again, so now it's all over.

I finally started reading Lydia Davis' The End of the Story. So far I've been very fascinated by her short stories, which very often are simple miniatures, and I'm curious how she deals with a longer piece of prose. I usually do most of my reading on the bus on my way to and then back home from work. It's only about 30 minutes a day, but over time I do manage a lot. At home I read other books, when time allows.



I also managed to listen into one of Ulli's cds, Fever Ray, dark and melodic electonica with a touch of African feeling to it, not bad.

January 9th, 2010

Saturday is always my back-to-work day, since I have my weekends on Thursday and Friday. Currently we've been ordered to do over-hours, so it's 10-hour work days all through January. My problem with over-hours is not just the extra time at work. The whole arrangement affects my free time as well, since I arrive home tired and fall asleep much earlier than I usually would do.

This was also the day that the blizzard was predicted, but it never arrived here in Regensburg. There was hardly any wind (like the day before), and there was some snow in the evening, but nothing spectacular. As so often we have different weather than the rest of the country...

I finally got my DVD copy of Inglourious Basterds and watched it in the evening, I'll report on that on my other blog. However, it was nice to see that Tarantino built in a homage to cinema owners and projectionists and even took time to demonstrate some of the work that is done in the projection room. It gave me a sense of nostalgia watching this and remembering my times doing the exact same things as in this movie.

January 8th, 2010

(Horst Janssen: Klee und Ensor um einen Bückling streitend)

Woke up this morning thinking about former friends who I have lost over time. By the time you reach my age there are a lot of bygones, often our ways just separated and over time you lose contact. But sometimes there were deliberate good-byes.

Coincidentally, I got a message from a MySpace who I hadn't heard from in a while, and he told me that he was 'weeving out people' in his life who have been causing him trouble. I've done so myself over the years, but I feel like I've reached a stage in life that I have a wonderful group of honest and loyal friends.

This afternoon we got a visit from our MySpace friend Ulli. She lives in Nuremberg with her husband and dropped by for a few hours to meet us and see the exbitions of Horst Janssen's art and Andreas Feininger's New York photography. Ursula and I had already seen them both, but gladly joined for a second look.

Horst Janssen is an important German artist, mainly of drawings and art prints. I rarely took notice of his work, since he was something of a mainstream great, you constantly heard about him. I remember the story that he was famous for signing most of his prints, so the non-signed works have become more valuable than those with signatures...

The Regensburg exhibition is great overview over his complete oeuvre and good proof of his virtuosity as a drawer with a broad spectrum of topics.

The Andreas Feininger exhibition is, of course, just my thing: New York! Most of the exhibits were from the 1940s, so this added a sense of nostalghia to the usual sensation you get of seeing the skylines and the everday street scenes. I also bought the catalogue which is a fine addition to our library.



Since Ulli had only short time before the next train we spent an hour at the musuem's restaurant. She copied a lot of music for me, mostly bands and artists new to me, I'll need to take time to listen to them all.

Today was almost unbearably freezing cold due to a sharp wind, obviously the preluide to the predicted blizzard which is expected to come over Germany this weekend, a rare thing in this country. Good to have a warm home with 2 cuddling cats:-)