Berlin art notes

Berlin copybook

"There is a terrible emptiness in me, an indifference that hurts..." a


a. Jacques / I tried to find out for myself, from that start, when I was a child, what was right and what was wrong --- because no one around me could tell me. And now that everything is leaving me I realize I need someone to show me the way and to blame me and praise me, by right not of power but of authority, I need my father.
I thought I knew it, and that I had myself in hand, I dont [know?] any longer.


---The First Man / Albert Camus 
a - marginal inserts in the original manuscript
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...Finally, it is obvious that my father would never have published this manuscript as it is, first for the simple reason that he had not completed it, but also because he was a very reserved man and would no doubt have masked his own feelings far more in its final version. But it seems to me -- and I say this with hesitation, for I can claim no objectivity --- it seems to me that no one can most clearly hear my father's voice in this text because of its very rawness. That is why I hope readers will come to it a spirit of brotherhood. 


--   Editor's Notes by Catherine Camus March 1995

Berlin reading

想起多年前在三藩市山上看<愛你如愛生命> 裏王小波的一篇＜綠毛水怪＞;，哭得停不下來。這事是到了最近才跟送書給我的朋友提起。而當時的心情也沒有跟任何人提過。
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帶來這裏的的中文書都看完了，我到了一間英文書店找書看。那是一間可以付少許錢借書的地方。


我因而重讀了好久好久前看過沒大印象的吉本芭娜娜的＜廚房＞，邊看邊流淚。然後，我到那暫用的廚房給自己弄些食物。我不熱中下廚。但如果可以的話，都自己做飯，簡單的，一點算不上用心，卻常因而感到安穩平靜。

Berlin episode

Berlin art notes

at Staatsballett Berlin

and the sky on that cloudy old day

by choreographer Marco Goecke

My mind flying back to SF sometimes

New front door, same address

Same front step, same back-porch
Geraniums to the terrace
Sold my shoes to pay the rent
I won't be needing them
I won't be leaving too soon

Oh my dear, do undress
You look so different in those new shoes
To impress someone you have never met
Someone you already know
Is waiting behind my front door

And by the door you know I'll wait
Oh, by the window, by the gate
I'm waiting for your sound

So softly, dear, don't hesitate
The lion looms along the lake
And swallows every sound
But oh, I wish that I could take
That simple lonely way
That long cold lonely way
But these days it takes more than two feet
It takes four to fill the road
I fend and swing the axe at for

I've trampled all over the place
Swung to and fro and still no state
Has held me in its bounds

But by the bridge I'd like to stay
Oh, by the ocean, by the bay
And hope that you'll come around

Oh, my dear, do undress
You look so different in those new clothes
To impress someone you have never met
I'm the one needing you
I'm the one with no shoes

So by the door you know I'll wait
Oh, looking out the golden gate
She yawns into the morning...

Berlin episode

neighbourhood

a park next to The Haus der Kulturen der Welt

Berlin copybook

摘自作者前言：


如果讀者只肯把這個悲劇視為一個怪現象的筆錄，把主人公視為病人；如果他們未曾看出主人公身上具有某些懇切的思想與非常普遍的意義，那麼不能怪這些思想或這個悲劇，而應當怪作者，我是說應當怪作者的苯拙，盡管作者在本書中投進了全部熱情、全部淚水和全部心血。然而，一部作品的實際意義和一朝一夕的公眾對它的興趣，這兩件事畢竟大相徑庭。寧可拿好貨而無人問津，也不屑于嘩眾取寵，圖一時之快；我以為這樣考慮算不上自命不凡。


眼下，我什麼也不想証明，只求認真繪製，並為這一畫幅配好光亮色彩。
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摘自內文：


'而這一夜是多麼銘心刻骨，以致我唯獨時時念起它。這是我們心靈交融的片刻的歡笑。但是我認為這歡笑是愛情的句點，也是唯一的句點，此后，唉! 心靈再也難于跨越；而心靈要使幸福重生，只能在奮力中消損；阻止幸福的，莫過于對幸福的回憶。唉! 我始終記得那一夜。' -- 米歇爾Michel


'因為我不喜歡回憶，我認為那樣會阻礙未來的到達，並且讓過去侵入。我是在完全忘卻昨天的前提下，才強行繼承每時每刻。曾經幸福，絕不能使我滿足。我不相信死去的東西----總把不再存在和從未有過兩種情況混為一談。' -- 梅納爾克Ménalque

'背德者' 紀德 L'immoraliste, Andre Gide

Berlin art notes / vocabularies

Seascape (Sea-Sea)

1970

oil on canvas

At Neue Nationalgalerie

Gerhard Richter: Panorama 

Cloud

1970

oil on canvas

seestück | wolke | see

Berlin art notes

At  Schaubuehne

after August Strindberg
Direction: Katie Mitchell and Leo Warner (ca. 85 min.)

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Where does the rest of the text come from?

There’s some poetry by Inger Christensen, who is a contemporary Danish poet. I love the idea of putting Strindberg, the great misogynist, together with feminist poetry.

How different is your Miss Julie ‘remix’ to the original play?

The basic idea is that when you watch Miss Julie normally, in a normal production, or even in an abnormal production, you’re always looking at it in a wide shot, in film terms. But cinematic subjectivity is not really possible in theatre, so here we’ve taken one character, the least significant character – the maid, Christine – and we’re telling the story through her eyes. Which means that, when she falls asleep, the action of the play stops and we go into her dreams...

We’re doing the play from the point of view of the least important character and, you know, it’s very moving to watch the main action through the eyes of a person who is actually going to be really, profoundly affected by the action, but who the two protagonists don’t really care about. It’s like us in life, really. These grand dramas play out, but there’s a lot of collateral damage. There’s amazing damage to this woman’s life: this was the man she loved, her fiancé, the man she was going to spend the rest of her life with, and in one evening all that is irrevocably destroyed. And she just watches the dismantling of her entire future, second by second, while these careless people don’t even think about her.

...

So the production’s development has been driven by the filming?

It was totally led by the film output. You can watch the scenes played in the kitchen, live, but you can also watch the film. You get the normal theatrical reality: there is the Swedish kitchen, they’re all in period costumes, they’re all acting out the scene. But the film shows the point of view of the person falling asleep in the corner [laughs], so it’s all very interesting...

If you’re into film, you’re really going to love it. And if you like the play, it will challenge your understanding of what a play is!

How has your idea of what a play can or should be changed over the course of your career?

For me, at the heart of everything is an attempt, maybe a pretty foolhardy attempt, to capture and crystallize how we experience ourselves in our environment – the very fragile, tiny, delicate strands of our perceptions – and to try to do that very accurately, so that it’s very respectful to life. Film enables you to do that so delicately and precisely: you see those little movements of your little finger.

Very often in life, the enormous events are not big royal pageants...the enormous events are when at breakfast, with two people who’ve been married for years and years, one person stretches out their hand and the other just removes it… and in that moment the world changes for those two people.

-- quoted from http://www.exberliner.com/reviews/an-interview-with-katie-mitchell

Berlin episode

Berlin copybook

當他往外看去，他看見市集廣場與一輛校車的截景；在咖啡館裡，他看見左右牆壁的截景------一座未加熱的壁爐，上面立著一束花，另一邊有一座掛衣架，一把兩傘掛在上面。他瞥見另一截景裡有架點唱機，光點緩緩穿越唱機移動，然後停在被選擇的號碼上，在它旁邊有架香煙自動販賣機，其上又是一束花。接著又是另一個截景------店老闆在吧台後方，替那位站在他身旁的女服務生打開她擺在托盤上的瓶子。最後是他自己的截景------他伸展而出的雙腿，加上濕又髒的鞋頭貼皮，還有卓上巨大的煙灰缸，旁邊較小的瓶，以及此刻無人坐的鄰桌上一只盛滿的酒杯。校車駛離之後，如他此刻發覺的，朝向廣場的視角幾乎與明信片上的視角相同：這裡，裝飾繁複的嘖泉旁有一座黑死病紀念柱的截景；那裡，在景象邊緣有一輛踏車的截景。


守門員的焦慮 / 彼得。漢克
Die Angst des Tormanns beim Elfmeter / Peter Handke

The Goalie's Anxiety at the Penalty Kick  / Peter Handke