Poliglocia

Some years since I've become quite a halloweener. In fact I expect and celebrate Halloween quite a lot more than any other regular feasts of the year (for example my birthday). I sang halloween songs, cut out paper bats, carved a pumpkin, ate pumpkin soup two days before and the next day too, and went out to some remote place where I could find a more obscure kind of celebration, which would not be reduced to people dressing up like chicken and drinking all they can, which they do every friday anyways. In so much halloweening I forgot that I had also participated in a couple of halloween contests, writing a story about a revenant lover and a pumpkin. The tale of the revenant lover was surreal and monstrous. The other one, of course, was not - how could a story about a pumpkin possibly be creepy? Also, it forcefully had to include a pair of hontoni kawaii anime mascots, which wouldn't survive more than a minute in a true zombie holocaust. No, it's rather a cheerful somber ma...

I wrote a Poem about Jorge Luis Borges on German. And it's not even the cosmic, universal Borges of pantheistic mysticism that has become even a canonic part of German lectures. No. It's the most Argentinian Borges and his bunch in Buenos Aires. It just so happened one of my new Argentinian neighbours told me about the fact they almost threw down an old bar where Borges and his folks used to hang out. The owner of the bar had gone broke and they wanted to build a Nike shop instead. Finally somebody improvised a law to prevent the disaster. I've never been to Buenos Aires, but all places where our memories live end up changing, sooner or later. Writing about them is a desperate attempt to retain the past which matter cannot hold. Wir hatten uns so lange her hier getroffen. Damals war Borges noch nicht blind. Der junge Jorge Luis schaute uns in die Augen, und die Szene dieser alten Kneipe in Buenos Aires prägte sich in seine unsterbliche Seele. Jahre später schrieb e...

Proto Anime Cut is the first exhibition and the first publication outside Japan that presents these works as what they are: testimonies to a kind of individual and highl y inspirational artistic practice on the border of film, visual art and pop culture. In deed, it is a whole new sensation to have the sketches of Ghost in the Shell and Rebuild of Evangelion right there, in front of my nose. It gives me that profound, inside vision I've been craving for so long ago. It even gives me a bit of the sensation Walter Benjamin called aura, the mere mystification of metonymy. As for publications, I must point out that I am only the most humble and unnoticed of many western academics that have been writing seriously about the matters for a couple of years now (Vanina Papalini, Thomas Lamarre). As for exhibitions, it is also notorious how this brings anime once more closer to people who in other contexts would discard it as just weird cartoons. The group that went round with the guide was...

"Anoche fuimos a las ramadas con el Mouse, nos tomamos unos fatshop... con un apestoso pollo a las brasas, otra costumbre inmemorial de la época de los incas, que como ustedes saben, eran auténticos chilenos." Tomas Bradanovic ¿Qué hay más primigenio, más básico que poner un pollo en un palo y darle vueltas sobre el fuego? No cabe duda que fue una de las primeras comidas de la humanidad, de que nace de forma espontánea en todos lados, como la punta de flecha, el mito del eterno retorno y la xenofobia. Nobody would think of nationalizing roasted chicken. Not even Texan cowboys. Only Peruvians could think of such an idea. The day before yesterday was Roasted chicken day. So today I'm going to the Mr. Chicken around the corner here in Bochum to have some Brathänchen. Mr.Chicken, by the way, may only exist in Germany, but its owners and most of its workers are Turkish. All of Germany gets more Turkish every day, but I don't think there's much of a difference ...

As said, I've been taking a seminar on Evil this semester and, a few minutes ago, I've finished watching Kuroshitsuji (the first series, at least). In this anime the play on christian religious symbols as are angels and demons, and the attempt to use them in a creative way, non the less seems to fit into a tendency which is already very common these days. From Evangelion to the movie of Constatine, comics like Hellboy or falling down to trash-TV like Supernatural. These days it just seems cooler to be on the devil's side rather than trying to be an angel. But what does it mean to be on the devil's side, and what's cool about it? In many cases, it would seem to be a simple reversal. A reversal which in the cases of Evangelion and Constantine, however, does still follow most of the premises of the original christian discourse and only points out rather twisted conclusions of it. In the case of Kuroshitsuji, I'd say the reversal is not symmetric because the logic i...

I wrote an essay for class about The Killing Joke. To begin with the topic of the seminar, led by Professor Peter Brandes, was already unsual: Evil. I think few comics discuss evil in as much conceptual detail as this one. Alan Moore is just a genious of montage, every page, every turn of the page, every coupling of images just leaves me wowed. But here a seemingly more objective perspective, just one of the many attempts to describe this masterpiece: Diese Graphic Novel gilt als eine der berühmtesten Geschichten über Batman und beschäftigt sich detailliert mit der Frage vom Ursprung des Bösen und des Wahnsinns. In diesem Sinne ist die eigentliche Hauptfigur nicht Batman selbst sondern sein Gegenspieler, der psychopathische Joker. Die Erzählung schwingt zwischen zwei Zeiten. In der Gegenwart entführt der Joker Kommissar Gordon und versucht, ihn wahnsinnig zu machen indem er seine Tochter Barbara lähmt und ihm mehrmals die Bilder der Untat zeigt. Durch Analepsen wird zwischendurch e...

Wie kann ich überhaupt über einen Slam schreiben wo ich selber mitgemacht habe? Na ja, es war aber doch kein Slam, sondern ein Jam. Und wenn ich nicht drüber schreiben darf, wer sollte überhaupt entscheiden? On Monday I was back in Subrosa, by the docks, the small riverdocks of Dortmund. This time I finally understood the difference between a Poetry Slam and a Poetry Jam. Big difference. You see, last time I had participated it was just at the moment of the selection for the slam championship, so the competition was feroscious. The first time I didn't participate nor even completely understand what was going on, although there was Annika Blanke. Her poetry is the most gorgeous experience I've had with life readings. This time around, anyways, I wasn't half as late as I expected, and so I could sign up propperly and sit along with other newcommers and some more experienced poets and performers. "Hier ist es eigentlich kein Wetbewerb" said a guy fellow who had turne...

Ja, da war ich also, meine erste con im Ruhrgebiet. Auf dem Weg konnte ich natürlich nicht aufhören für mich zu summen: "¡La convención, la convención, la convención...!". Ich war eigentlich schon seit 7:30 wach, aber trotzdem kam ich mit dem Zug durcheinander und war so Viertel vor Elf erst auf Düsseldorf Hauptbahnhof. Well, the whole damn place was full of cosplayers! Next to me in the S-Bahn stood Goku and Videl, further over the werewolf Rip van Winkle and Lord Alucard, all scrambled in 5 square meters with a bike and a baby cart. Ja, alle zusammengequetscht im Vagon, und die meisten sicher wie ich schon ein Paar Kilometer lang in Cosplay gereist. Eine Con ist halt keine Con wenn man nicht dazu unterwegs ist. The line to buy tickets was long, but the line to pick up pre-baught tickets was even longer. Anyway, the line was also a great spot to get to meat people around me, which is exactly what I was up to, actually. Also, when tents start hovering over your head, there...