Leaving luggage behind: My spring books


Two days and a 71% solar eclipse ago, spring officially started, at least in theory. Looking out of my window it rather looks and feels like early autumn. Never mind, I’ll postpone my bicycle tour and strolling around in my new spring outfit and instead celebrate the start of spring indoors with the heater turned up to 22°C, a freshly boiled aromatised black spring tea, tasty Swiss choclate and travelling to other people’s lives by reading.
Selbstporträt mit Flusspferd by Arno Geiger: After a long time I found an author (although Austrian;-) that knows how to use the German language and how to create vivid pictures in the mind: 32 year old Julian travels back in time to his early twenties when he split up with his girlfriend he admired so much for her stable self while he was drifting. Who was I back then? How did I feel?Geiger hit the nerve of the inside of a 22 year-old as I experienced it. I realised that some things got really easier since then although the time studying retrospectively often seems the most unburdened time.
Umweg nach Hause by Jonathan Evison (English original title: The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving): On this one week road-trip every passenger has his personal luggage to carry (I would say the size of the biggest Gregory backpack available) and demons to fight. After the week each person is smarter in regard to their demons, got rid of part of their luggage, made new friendships and goes back to their lives with new energy. What also made me smile is how each character is described in the front inside-cover of the book including the position in the car they occupy.

The Weekender (Issue No. 16/2015): My favourite world-escape magazine this time features two dropout stories that will stay in my mind for a while:
1. A Dutch Family that moved to a little place in Portugal to live in a Yurt. When I read the article it turned out that I know the area pretty well, it is a stone’s throw away from where I married last year. Maybe I already met one of the family members when strolling around the cork oak-bamboo-eucalyptus forests or caught a wave on the beach with them… Is life not all about coincidences?
2. An artist spending half the year (the summer months) in the little village of Cabo Polonio on the Atlantic coast of Uruguay in a house he built mostly from things he found on the beach. Because of massive sand dunes Cabo is only accessible by foot, horse or 4×4. So, the perfect place for world-escape.
It’s spring time baby!


1. That’s what happens when a designer goes on a business trip to Amsterdam and passes a photobox. I love you too!
2. Blue top by American Apparel
3. Protea Flower necklace from Swiss designer Florian T.
4. Nail polish by Zoya (ZP 441)
5. Portuguese ceramic swallow from La vida portuguesa.
6. A definite sign of spring: Anemones in all different colours. And a definite way to put bad thoughts away. Thank you mummy!
7. I call them: White “Little Muck Pants”. I got them on sale from Stine Goya and couldn’t resist. I still do not know why the silk pants were in a winter collection…
8. Lipstick by Mäc (VEGAS VOLT B70)
February: Confetti Rain


CD 1
1. Me! I Disconnect From You – Grace Jones
2. No Diggity – Blackstreet ft. Dr Dre
3. Country Living – Gladiators
4. Why – Jojo Effect
5. Baby Bye Bye – Kitty, Daisy & Lewis
6. Burn This City Down – Anna Rossinelli
7. Play With Fire – The Rolling Stones
8. Paradise Circus (GUI BORATTO Remix) – Massive Attack
9. Boombadom – Rocket Empire
10. I’ve Seen The Rain – The April Maze
11. Vampires (Afrolicious & Rob Garza remix) – Thievery Corporation
12. Timothy - Jet
13. The Man Who Sold The World – Nirvana
14. What’s Up – 4 Non Blondes
15. Bad Girl – Devendra Banhart
CD2
Anarchmelie – Amelie
33°55ʼS, 18°25ʼE – City of the Protea Flower


Florian T. loves travelling and aesthetic objects with meaning - as do I. He chose for each city he selected for his necklace collection an object that he connects with the city and created pendants in different materials. I couldn’t resist on my weekend trip to Zurich for valentine’s day to get a protea flower necklace from the Swiss designer. Highlightmyday made the decision easier as lovebirds got 31% off the normal price when kissing in the shop. Great valentine’s idea!
The owner of highlightmyday shares the shop with a vintage clothes’ shop. It’s a great and friendly place to get inspiration and in touch with the locals:
highlightmyday
Josefstr. 144
8005 Zurich
Berlinale 2015 -Strong women on the screen

Berlin fights the winter in February with the glamour of the biggest audience film festival in the world: The Berlinale. My favourite movies on the first weekend of the Berlinale are all about strong women in different stages of life.
Ixcanul

Photo: Berlinale 2015
“You are carrying the light of life in you” – María’s mother says, lovingly washing her 17 year old daughter that got pregnant from a coffee picker who fled into the USA and left Maria behind. Now she cannot marry the man her parents chose for her: The owner of the coffee plantation. The livelihood of the whole family is at risk now. María feels guilty for her family’s situation although her parents still give all her love to her. María makes a momentous decision following an old kakchiquel-Maya myth to help her Family, which ends in a disaster…
The film demonstrates very well how globalisation has arrived also in a remote Kakchiquel-Maya-village in Guatemala: On the one hand the young peoples’ dream of a better life in the U.S. and on the other hand they cannot speak the official language of the country they live in and are therefore caught in the arbitrariness of the plantation owners.

Ixcanul is the first contribution of Guatemala being shown at the Berlinale’s main competition sector. The film is based on a true story. All actors of the movie are ordinary people, not professionals.
Min lilla syster (My skinny sister)

Stella loves her older sister Katja, who is a talented ice-skater. She imitates her sister, trying desperately to ice-skate as well as her to impress Katja’s trainer. But something is wrong wth Katja. She is getting aggressive about little things, avoids eating at home, spending lots of time in her room crying - normal in puberty as their parents think. When Stella observes her sister and how she makes herself vomit after a family dinner, she realizes: Her sister is anorexic. What should she do? How can she help her sister? If Katja wouldn’t know the content of her diary she would go to her parents directly. The movie shows the burden that the whole family has to carry very well. I liked that the movie took the perspective of the little sister with the heavy burden she had to carry. Choosing a sport that is like modelling and ballet known for causing anorexia with young girls was a bit banal as well as the little sister represented a non sporty, intellectually interested, food loving sibling.

Dorsvloer vol Confetti (Confetti Harvest)

Photo: Berlinale 2015
Finding your way in life is not easy and is highly influenced by the family you are born into. Katelijne is one of seven siblings of a strict religious family somewhere in Holland in the countryside. In church, at home, at school – Katelijne is exposed to religious instructions everywhere. Fairytales, TV, radio everywhere the evil is hidden and therefore forbidden, although Katelijne loves making up stories. For her storytelling she seems to be punished by God: Her grandfather has to die, her older brother has to marry. But Katelijne finally makes her way. Confetti harvest is a coming of age story in a religious setting and shows: Growing up is not easy and in the end you have to find your way by yourself.

What does a real star say?

No pictures please…See you next year
January: Playing with my voodoo doll


1. El Condor Pasa – Simon & Garfunkel
2. Still D.R.E. – Dr. Dre
3. My Sharona – The Knack
4. Another one bites the dust – Queen
5. Hole in the middle – Emily Jane White
6. Big Jet Plane – Angus & Julia Stone
7. Hungry – Niklas Ibach
8. I kill her – Soko (Hannes Fischer)
9. The weary Kind – Ryan Bingham
10. Mykonos – Fleet Foxes
11. I can never go back – The Shangri-Las
12. Mend – Elsiane
13. Walk unafraid – First aid kit
14. Aldgate Patterns – Little people
Walking in Paris


3,5 hours later: Bienvenue à Paris. I really should do this more often, hopping on the TGV for a short trip to Paris. Well, Paris in January might not be the perfect time to travel, but hey it’s “soldes” which means you get the clothes in the little boutiques for up to 70% cheaper! I enjoy the sense of detail when they lovingly wrap up your new gatherings in the shops…

In some metrostations I felt like walking in a spaceship when finding my way out of the underground labyrinth.
December: Star Gazing with Charlie Brown


1. La Madrague (Antis Remix) – Brigitte Bardot
2. Keep The Streets Empty for Me – Fever Ray
3. Candy Walls – Trust
4. Weg eines Kriegers – Chakuza
5. You really got me – The Kinks
6. YouMedaAMess/ Black light smoke – Lovework
7. Sweet Dreams Are Made of This – The Eurythmics
8. El kilo – Orishas
9. Spiracle – Soap&Skin
10. Charlie Brown – Chakuza
11. Kelly watch the stars – Air
Welcome 2015


Plans and wishes
- Looooong holidays
- Refreshing my Spanish
- Discovering hidden treasures close by and far away
- Going on a girls’ trip
- Visit for the first time the Venice Biennale
- Planting heaps of flowers and herbs on our balconies in spring as to enjoy the spring and summer evenings in our two little escapes
- Wait no longer for the wooden tiles to be painted white and then manufacture my first cupboard
- Redecorate parts of our home with all the treasures we gathered last year
- Focusing on and being happy about the things I can change while letting the other things happen
Good luck to everyone of you out there for 2015! May all your wishes and expectations come true!
Thank you for sharing my thoughts, aesthetics, music and the little treasures of daily life with me!
Visit from Mr. Naïman from Beirut

Mr. Naïman says Merry Christmas!
Mr. Naïman visited me for christmas from far Beirut, Lebanon. Actually he thinks of staying a little bit longer. He so far enjoyed the bee’s wax candles on our christmas pyramid especially when it got dark and he could spot the patterns of the pyramid wings moving on the ceiling while he was lying on my wooden living room table and soaking in the fresh forest smell of the post-officer incense smoker.

He did not know the christmas story so I told him about Jesus, Joseph and Mary while standing at the pyramid with all the members of the christmas family carved out of wood like Mr. Naïman himself. As Mr. Naïman travelled light only with his summer outfit he was very lucky that he could spot the world outside my home packed up in a warm coat only the head looking out when we went on our bikes to church.
Beef wrapped up in ham, pancakes and puff pastry what we call “Beef Wellington” was a dish he tried for the first time. He found it delicious. “It is like wrapping up a christmas present while eating”, he said. He also liked the chocolate mint cookies although he found it strange that we bake cookies in the form of nutcrackers. For the evening Mr Naïman looks forward to tasting hot elderberry juice with vanilla cream topping and watch a real arthouse movie.
LEAVE A COMMENT