[W]hat I want is the straws, flotsam, etc., names, dates, births and deaths, because that is all I can know… Rationalism is the last form of animism. Whereas the pure incoherence of times and men and places is at least amusing.S. Beckett, 15 January, 1937
There is a plaque a few steps from the door of the building where I am staying right now. I haven’t taken a picture of it. I have not even stop to see it. I know what it has (says): a name and a date. Perhaps even more, or something else.
For some time now, I have been worrying about ‘capturing’ the event, understanding—but this word ‘capturing’ entails no doubt: it is a matter of eating, imprisoning, domination, und so weiter.
Perhaps this is understandable in a situation where one is supposed to capture so many words, structures, and sounds. Perhaps this is just—now—necessary.
(Fun fact: yesterday at the Absinth Depot, a guy told me that, with my hat, my clothes, my drink and my pipe I looked like a perfect “colonial”… “colonial?” I asked. “Yes” he said. “Colonialist?” We all laughed…)
Now, as I come back and sit here in my room—and as I make a pause on the train, the platform, the street—I try to understand what is it, what is It that I try, that I’m supposed to try to capture—to say. What am I writing about. What. (As I try to explain what is it that I do, and why am I so enthralled about the new Jarmush film, about that book of Nietzsche, that one of Freud, or about the confusion of languages and green Fairy). Well, I am an academic. And yet no.
A friend asked me the other night: Do you have a problem with your motherlanguage? (perhaps he said mothertongue, I really don’t pay attention sometimes to over which tongue we speak) (Pause) Yes—I said. Why?
(And yet yesterday I enjoyed speaking Spanish with a friend from Sweden… ‘curva’, a turn, sounds the same in both languages—plusieurs detours ici—aber wir sind auf Deutsch zurückgekommen).
What is it, nothing more simple. One man lived, and at some point left a bunch of coins to an old woman. She was always praying for him, since he was always sad—at least he looked sad. And he joked with her about her beliefs—he didn’t believe… (The matter is the three points, the little silence, and why am I so interested on them, on it, why can I not stand silence, and why I search and research it--this is no Negative Theology).
But we’re interested in factums. Today the city was boiling. We ended up below a roof protecting ourselves from the rain while the fans from two soccer teams were drinking and shouting all over the streets—and below. I went into the U-Bahn and waited for the train that would take me home. I had to wait for four trains, since there was so many people that I couldn’t get in. Finally I did, and ended up next to the door being pushed by a group of soccer fans. When my station came (Deutsche Oper), I thought it would be easy to just open the door; the woman next to me asked me: gehen Sie aus?—Ja, I answered. Die andere Seite—she said. So I turned and saw the train full (while I had only a few seconds). Everybody looked at me, opened the way and started cheering… I could still hear them cheering as I walked finally free on the platform towards the Ausgang.
I’ve never been really interested on the thought of the normal. And yet, I have not worked on anything else—perhaps precisely because of the non-existence of the normal event. This time, I speak clearly—but not in my normal voice.
I’m creating elephants here. Or recreating them. What is it, what does exist, between the interstices of language, of sentences, of tongues, and the simple “What?”, (“noch einmal, bitte”) that appears as we walk on the mud? A little amazement, or a realization of the maze. Take the part of the Minotaur—or of the smith, of the blow, of what occurs between the hammer and the soon-to-be-sword. ("if you go down to the woods today... you better go in disguise...")
The need of a mark, of a tattoo, a memory—Erinnerungen—to assert that everything fades away. Of course this is my ego, as much as I try to get rid of it—or to silence (it) to hear (it) better.
Be in a museum—as you remember Odysseus and give a clin d’oeil to the sirens—ja, Krankenwagen erinnern mich an meine Stadt—Welche? Je sais pas, la mienne. (und deine Muttersprache?—Ich weiss nicht) “Ich nicht”.
Perhaps all of this is a helmet—or a box, my girl called my head a box, and I do have boxaches sometimes. Manchmal bin ich eine Kiste. Would I go to the battle? The pried of my father (and not only of him) seems to say ‘yes’, but my father always says ‘yes’, my father is a great ‘yes’. Yes, yes. (und so weiter).
(Yesterday somebody told me about a postcard with Irish writers… Beckett, Joyce, Wilde… “how much did you pay?” “1.35 Euro”. Das ist teuer.) Wie viel kostet das? und alles?
Alles klar.
-Pourquoi as tu étudié le francais?
-Mon père.
-und Deutsch?
-Mein Vater.
-and English?
-Destiny.
(no hay necesidad para el Español).
Are you afraid of colours?
Yes, I always draw(ed) in B&W, and then I realized I was a terrible painter (in comparison), so I studied Philosophy. But you all know that by now.
Are you afraid of Blue, Yellow and Red?
Just of Yellow.
I said we’ll meet in Berlin. And we did. And when I arrived here I sang and sang: Lou Reed’s Berlin, Philip Glass Streets of Berlin, and the soundtrack from Der Himmel über Berlin. So I’ll present on Meine lieblinge deutsche Dinge. Postdamer Platz.
As always, I get lost. But today I stopped for a second to see a façade of what Postdamer Platz used to be (I didn’t take a picture—the importance of not taking pictures, of leaving the absent remain absent, of making a point of what is important—if you have been reading what I have, you’ll understand this less).
Now I light my pipe.
So, what is it? It is not a pipe. Although it takes that shape right now. With the references, the iterability, wiederholen und so weiter. How to explain this event? La fascination de la fumée—des rues, de la nuit, d’une musique nouvelle, d’une rencontre à Berlin, d’une phrase de bonne voix—qu’est-ce que c’est? Une bonne voix, est-ce que ça peut rendre une bonne phrase? A good sentence? Arrêt.
-Can you say that in a more philosophical way? Your readers must understand.
-What if I don’t want to.
-You chose the wrong job then.
-My work is not a job, mein Werk ist keine Arbeit… but look, they’re cheering me now, still, because I crossed, because they let me cross the train, perpendicular to its direction.
Angels and elephants, all over the city. Believe me, I’m everything but a surrealist (the sirens now), I do believe, strongly, on reality, and on the real. Si quelque chose il y a (à dire): tout est trop réel. (My pipe turned off).
Rouge, Rot, Rojo, Red, Blue, Blau, Bleu, Azul, Amarillo, Yellow, Jaune, Gelb. We learn first the colours, the days of the week, the months, the numbers, my house, my name, my father my mother, my brother my son my daughter; let’s keep going to the nationalities: ich bin mexikanisch, ein Mexikaner—but I’m faraway from being lost.
I have smoke again. Smoke comes out, spreads, blurs everything. That is what I wanted to say. But this is no apology. I do need fire. Mein Feuerzeug ist blau, et la flamme est jaune.
(I was going to talk about the event between Literature and Philosophy, between certain Phenomenology, Structuralism, and certain prose, certain sentences. But I do think about my public, ever so private. Soy una persona íntima.)
Listening to Malajube—Trompe l’oeil
En camino.
