Order is power.Henri Frederic Amiel
Bünzli is Swiss German word that has no direct translation. A Bünzli is a person who works eight-to-five (note the extra hour), has order at all times (open the cupboard and you'll find the food ordered alphabetically and according to its nutritional value), loves to clean, never breaks with his daily routine, has sex on a fixed day... well I think you get the idea.
Now don't get me wrong, I don't say that Henri Frederic Amiel was a Bünzli although it's possible. But he was a Swiss (I am shocked and relieved at the same time. What if apart from the Germans and the Swiss the world would have more of these order-fanatics? I'd probably end up smiling down from a "Wanted" poster) who believes that order is power. However the fact that he was a writer, philosopher and theologist somewhat disqualifies him, since Bünzlis constantly mind their own business, something no writer can afford.
Tuesday, November 29, 2005
Sunday, November 27, 2005
201 Words on Sunday: Voting in Switzerland
Once in my life I made it into the most popular newspaper in Zurich. Yeah I know what you think, but in fact the circulation was at about 380’000. Not bad. The picture showed me with three of my activist friends, all of us wearing gas masks and orange overalls (in fact I looked like an orange baby-elephant standing on its hind legs) throwing empty barrels into the lake of Zurich. This meant to symbolize the waste if the Swiss would not vote to ban nuclear energy. Despite of our efforts we lost. In the evening my relatives called and said that they had just seen me on national TV. A broken environmental activist looking really pissed off. Hm good thing I got out of that overall…
Today I don’t even know the dates and I don’t bother to vote most of the times. Guess what has been happening now. Each and every single time the Swiss voted what I wanted them to. Today it seems like it will happen again. I take this as a message. The next time I want to get dressed up it had better nothing to do with baby elephants or national politics.
Today I don’t even know the dates and I don’t bother to vote most of the times. Guess what has been happening now. Each and every single time the Swiss voted what I wanted them to. Today it seems like it will happen again. I take this as a message. The next time I want to get dressed up it had better nothing to do with baby elephants or national politics.
The architect who designed democracy
"The truth is more important than the facts."Frank Lloyd Wright
This is so true and today more than ever. I think what he means is that truth is kind of a unity whereas facts may be true as well, but they're just fractions of a big picture. Just because you've found a part of a puzzle, it doesn't mean that you know what the finished piece would look like. However it's the entire piece that counts.
Frank Lloyd Wright was an architect who believed that a house is not just some kind of protection but that its design influences the people who live in it. Plainly he was one of the first to understand that if you live in a dark dump your life will be very different than if you feel comfortable at home. He didn't only create houses, bridges or museums but also furniture, glass and just about everything else you can design somehow. Moreover he was a philosopher and an educator as well.
"Whether people are fully conscious of this or not, they actually derive countenance and sustenance from the 'atmosphere' of the things they live in or with. They are rooted in them just as a plant is in the soil in which it is planted."
I like the thought that I am rooted, just like a plant. No wonder people get more sick nowadays, moving around without having the time to settle somewhere.
This is so true and today more than ever. I think what he means is that truth is kind of a unity whereas facts may be true as well, but they're just fractions of a big picture. Just because you've found a part of a puzzle, it doesn't mean that you know what the finished piece would look like. However it's the entire piece that counts.
Frank Lloyd Wright was an architect who believed that a house is not just some kind of protection but that its design influences the people who live in it. Plainly he was one of the first to understand that if you live in a dark dump your life will be very different than if you feel comfortable at home. He didn't only create houses, bridges or museums but also furniture, glass and just about everything else you can design somehow. Moreover he was a philosopher and an educator as well.
"Whether people are fully conscious of this or not, they actually derive countenance and sustenance from the 'atmosphere' of the things they live in or with. They are rooted in them just as a plant is in the soil in which it is planted."
I like the thought that I am rooted, just like a plant. No wonder people get more sick nowadays, moving around without having the time to settle somewhere.
Saturday, November 26, 2005
Benjamin was a rather optimistic guy
Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other.Benjamin Franklin
Hmm I don't want to be too negative on this one, but honestly, don't you know people who don't even learn from experience? I mean nothing against good old Benj but if this were true we wouldn't have any drug addicts, politicians, demonstrators, workers or anything else. Somebody please explain this to me, maybe I'm wrong, but I'm under the impression that things that famous people say are automatically quotes...
Ok so let me make up a quote about experience:
I don't have much experience with trouble yet since I'm not senile enough to forget what other people told me about theirs.
Hmm I don't want to be too negative on this one, but honestly, don't you know people who don't even learn from experience? I mean nothing against good old Benj but if this were true we wouldn't have any drug addicts, politicians, demonstrators, workers or anything else. Somebody please explain this to me, maybe I'm wrong, but I'm under the impression that things that famous people say are automatically quotes...
Ok so let me make up a quote about experience:
I don't have much experience with trouble yet since I'm not senile enough to forget what other people told me about theirs.
Tuesday, November 22, 2005
Notes from a Small Island by Bill Bryson
Bill Bryson doesn’t encounter any big adventures in Britain. He just walks, rides the train and drives through the whole island to find out what exactly makes Britain British. On the way he tells us stories from the journalist world and about local history and heroes. You get to meet weirdos and normal people and start to ask yourself why something is normal in one place but positively strange in another. It is no objective travel piece, it’s highly opinionated and that’s what makes it partly so funny.
The book was published in 1992 and things have changed since then but nevertheless the buildings he talks about, the British manners and their enthusiasm about talking how to drive just anywhere (I’ve witnessed that myself a month ago) are still a fact today.
He compares places he’s been to twenty years before with the contemporary situation which is also interesting no matter if you’ve been to England in the seventies or not.
There is a lot of description so if you want suspense leave your hands off this book. I’m not exactly a description enthusiast but he can describe everyday situations so skilfully that I really had to rethink my position. However if you just want to relax and travel through Britain in your fantasy and explore the culture go for it.
What I personally liked best about this book is Bryson’s weird but highly entertaining thoughts about certain architects, the questions he asks that the world doesn’t really care about (why is a jumper called a jumper) and his dreams (owning an island and hunting down the guys who destroy Britain and the rest of the world). The episode where he’s in Glasgow is so funny I cried tears because I’ve experienced it just in that very way he describes it.
The book was published in 1992 and things have changed since then but nevertheless the buildings he talks about, the British manners and their enthusiasm about talking how to drive just anywhere (I’ve witnessed that myself a month ago) are still a fact today.
He compares places he’s been to twenty years before with the contemporary situation which is also interesting no matter if you’ve been to England in the seventies or not.
There is a lot of description so if you want suspense leave your hands off this book. I’m not exactly a description enthusiast but he can describe everyday situations so skilfully that I really had to rethink my position. However if you just want to relax and travel through Britain in your fantasy and explore the culture go for it.
What I personally liked best about this book is Bryson’s weird but highly entertaining thoughts about certain architects, the questions he asks that the world doesn’t really care about (why is a jumper called a jumper) and his dreams (owning an island and hunting down the guys who destroy Britain and the rest of the world). The episode where he’s in Glasgow is so funny I cried tears because I’ve experienced it just in that very way he describes it.
Sunday, November 06, 2005
Review: The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
The Secret Life of Bees is a soothing novel and a great read if your life is hectic and you frequently want to escape the rat race.
Lily lives with T.Ray, her dad who does not deserve to be called that way, in Sylvan/ South Carolina. Burdened with the knowledge that she has accidentally shot her mother Lily lives with T. Ray and Rosaleen, the coloured housekeeper and only person who loves her. It’s the time of Martin Luther King, Malcolm X and the Mississippi murders and the president has passed a law to enable coloured people to vote. Rosaleen decides to register but an encounter with white racists ends in Lily and Rosaleen being locked up in prison. T. Ray fetches Lily but leaves Rosaleen behind. Lily for whom Rosaleen is almost like a mother can’t bear life without her and when Rosaleen gets treated at the hospital, Lily decides to get her and run away. They leave Sylvan with only a picture of a black Mary and the words ‘Tiburon/ South Carolina’ scribbled on the back by Lily’s mother. She hopes to find out more about Deborah Fannel and whether she has really killed her or not.
They hitchhike their way to Tiburon and stay at the house of the calendar sisters May, June and August. August, the oldest sister and a beekeeper agrees to let them stay under the condition that Lily helps with the bees. Lily and Rosaleen happily accept and invent a story about how Lily’s father got killed in a tractor accident and that her mother had died when she was a child and that they were on their way to Virginia to live with a distant relative. June doesn’t like Lily from the beginning and doesn’t seem to believe the story. May who suffers from a special condition and Rosaleen become friends.
Soon fourteen year old Lily meets Zach, August’s nephew who helps with the bees. Slowly the two of them fall in love while taking care of the bees, but they can’t be together because there’s still the notion, that coloured people are lower than white people.
Life unfolds quietly until Zach gets locked up in prison and suddenly T. Ray is in front of the door as well.
This novel is beautifully written, Lily has a distinct voice but actually my favourite character is May with her wailing wall. She is portrayed as a person without the ability to distinguish between her own problems and the problems of the world. The weight of the world gets heavier and heavier…
The plot about the dead mother and a daughter trying to find out about her is not new and certainly not the highlight of this book. However the power of this novel lies within the description of this different lifestyle which is relaxing although tending bees involves a lot of work.
Lily lives with T.Ray, her dad who does not deserve to be called that way, in Sylvan/ South Carolina. Burdened with the knowledge that she has accidentally shot her mother Lily lives with T. Ray and Rosaleen, the coloured housekeeper and only person who loves her. It’s the time of Martin Luther King, Malcolm X and the Mississippi murders and the president has passed a law to enable coloured people to vote. Rosaleen decides to register but an encounter with white racists ends in Lily and Rosaleen being locked up in prison. T. Ray fetches Lily but leaves Rosaleen behind. Lily for whom Rosaleen is almost like a mother can’t bear life without her and when Rosaleen gets treated at the hospital, Lily decides to get her and run away. They leave Sylvan with only a picture of a black Mary and the words ‘Tiburon/ South Carolina’ scribbled on the back by Lily’s mother. She hopes to find out more about Deborah Fannel and whether she has really killed her or not.
They hitchhike their way to Tiburon and stay at the house of the calendar sisters May, June and August. August, the oldest sister and a beekeeper agrees to let them stay under the condition that Lily helps with the bees. Lily and Rosaleen happily accept and invent a story about how Lily’s father got killed in a tractor accident and that her mother had died when she was a child and that they were on their way to Virginia to live with a distant relative. June doesn’t like Lily from the beginning and doesn’t seem to believe the story. May who suffers from a special condition and Rosaleen become friends.
Soon fourteen year old Lily meets Zach, August’s nephew who helps with the bees. Slowly the two of them fall in love while taking care of the bees, but they can’t be together because there’s still the notion, that coloured people are lower than white people.
Life unfolds quietly until Zach gets locked up in prison and suddenly T. Ray is in front of the door as well.
This novel is beautifully written, Lily has a distinct voice but actually my favourite character is May with her wailing wall. She is portrayed as a person without the ability to distinguish between her own problems and the problems of the world. The weight of the world gets heavier and heavier…
The plot about the dead mother and a daughter trying to find out about her is not new and certainly not the highlight of this book. However the power of this novel lies within the description of this different lifestyle which is relaxing although tending bees involves a lot of work.
Buchrezension: Wenn ich einmal gross bin von José Mauro de Vasconcelos
Man nehme sich einen verregneten Sonntag, einen warmen Tee, Taschentücher, eine Decke und dieses Buch.
Die Geschichte spielt in Brasilien und zeigt durch die Augen des fünfjährigen Sése wie es sich in den Armenvierteln lebt. Die Geschichte beruht auf wahren Gegebenheiten und die Tatsache, dass sein Lieblingsbruder Luis und seine Schwester Gloria, von denen im Buch die Rede jung gestorben sind macht das ganze noch trauriger.
Für Sése ist die Welt jedoch nicht nur traurig sondern ein einziges Abenteuer. Seine Familie ist arm weil sein Vater arbeitslos ist. Dies hindert den kleinen Jungen jedoch nicht daran sich mit Bäumen oder Fledermäusen zu unterhalten oder seinem „inneren Teufel“ zu folgen, der ihn ständig zu Streichen verleitet. Deswegen wird er zum Sündenbock der Familie degradiert und obwohl er noch ein Kind ist, fragt er sich was er auf dieser Welt verloren hat. Er ist verzweifelt, bis er Portuga, den „bösen“ Portugiesen kennenlernt… Portuga bringt Sésé bei, was echte Zuneigung ist. Für den Jungen beginnt die glücklichste Zeit des Lebens bis ein Unglück ihn aus seinen Träumen in die Realität zurückkatapultiert.
Es ist aus der Perspektive des Jungen geschrieben, manchmal verfällt der Autor jedoch aus unersichtlichen Gründen in die Erwachsenensprache, es stört beim Lesen jedoch nicht.
Wer mal nicht nur einfach Fakten sondern eine Geschichte aus den Slums von Brasilien lesen möchte ist hier richtig. Der Autor schafft es, selbst in Erwachsenen diesen Sinn für den Zauber der Welt zu wecken und im nächsten Moment weint man mit Sésé weil man weiss, dass es hunderttausende solcher Kinder wie ihn gibt.
Wenn der verregnete Sonntag sich dem Ende zuneigt, der Tee ausgetrunken und die Taschentücher gebraucht sind nehme man die Decke und schaue aus dem Fenster. Wer weiss vielleicht sieht man die Welt für einen Moment wie Sésé, die Farben der Welt in einem Wassertropfen….
Die Geschichte spielt in Brasilien und zeigt durch die Augen des fünfjährigen Sése wie es sich in den Armenvierteln lebt. Die Geschichte beruht auf wahren Gegebenheiten und die Tatsache, dass sein Lieblingsbruder Luis und seine Schwester Gloria, von denen im Buch die Rede jung gestorben sind macht das ganze noch trauriger.
Für Sése ist die Welt jedoch nicht nur traurig sondern ein einziges Abenteuer. Seine Familie ist arm weil sein Vater arbeitslos ist. Dies hindert den kleinen Jungen jedoch nicht daran sich mit Bäumen oder Fledermäusen zu unterhalten oder seinem „inneren Teufel“ zu folgen, der ihn ständig zu Streichen verleitet. Deswegen wird er zum Sündenbock der Familie degradiert und obwohl er noch ein Kind ist, fragt er sich was er auf dieser Welt verloren hat. Er ist verzweifelt, bis er Portuga, den „bösen“ Portugiesen kennenlernt… Portuga bringt Sésé bei, was echte Zuneigung ist. Für den Jungen beginnt die glücklichste Zeit des Lebens bis ein Unglück ihn aus seinen Träumen in die Realität zurückkatapultiert.
Es ist aus der Perspektive des Jungen geschrieben, manchmal verfällt der Autor jedoch aus unersichtlichen Gründen in die Erwachsenensprache, es stört beim Lesen jedoch nicht.
Wer mal nicht nur einfach Fakten sondern eine Geschichte aus den Slums von Brasilien lesen möchte ist hier richtig. Der Autor schafft es, selbst in Erwachsenen diesen Sinn für den Zauber der Welt zu wecken und im nächsten Moment weint man mit Sésé weil man weiss, dass es hunderttausende solcher Kinder wie ihn gibt.
Wenn der verregnete Sonntag sich dem Ende zuneigt, der Tee ausgetrunken und die Taschentücher gebraucht sind nehme man die Decke und schaue aus dem Fenster. Wer weiss vielleicht sieht man die Welt für einen Moment wie Sésé, die Farben der Welt in einem Wassertropfen….
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