cher frère
Alles Gute, kleiner Bruder!
Precisely three years ago, at exactly this time, I was sitting about and chatting with peers at the Sibersee (“an einem kleinen Badesee mit Grillstelle und Beach-Volleyball-Feld machen wir ein Mittags-Picknik und genießen den Rest des Tages”); less than an hour later we would all climb unto a bus back to Tübingen, dreading the inevitable - indeed, that evening we were to be compelled to make an ensemble, mandatory trip to an "authentic German disco". Before the conclusion of the night, I was indeed thanking whatever omnipotent power had decided that to happen, as I was most happily being seduced in the garden of that youth hostel, and wow, we'd hardly be who we are now if that had never happened.
Last year, at this moment, I was kind of stressed out and running late, and trying to figure out how to make decent lemonade, my face was kind of red from embarrassment everytime I remembered a message I had recieved the night before, maybe, but I was also resigned and determined, and reeling from a number of other things, amongst them confusion. And also worries about family matters, and concern about school matters, and also terrific curiosity and maybe a bit of frustration about other things.
Far more importantly than these reminiscences though, and ultimately the trump-all fact pertaining to this date, is that 20 years ago, give or take a few hours, our immediately succeeding brother was born, and we say...huzzah, Happy Birthday Iñaki, for even though you'll never read this, you are a fine, if at times misguided, chap, one of my favourite siblings, and indeed now one of those folks in their third decade of existence.
Quick things:
1) One of my other vaguely ambitious plots for the remainder of the year is to create a completely backdated separate livejournal in which to transfer the information recorded in the various journals-of-sorts kept while I was in Germany, which have since been lingering about on bookshelves throughout the house. Ideally, I would also want to scan whichever letters-I-sent-whilst-there currently in the possession of people to whom I have easy access, and publish those there as well, as a sort of archive of that year, since the essential documents are just sitting here, and my record-keeping during that year was remarkably extensive.
2) Before the year is out I also want to become a member of Reporters Without Borders, because they're great, damnit.
3) Most times during the week I get to work via automobile, but a number of times I do end up returning by foot and...I rather love it. If I'm feeling social, I can take a route that inevitably makes me bump into someone I know; if I'm not though, I cut across this pretty awesome swath of the Gables and then through the sweeping expanses of the Golf Course, and it's all quaintly pastoral in a fairly excellent sort of way.
4) Media:
- Kontroll: Was fucking awesome, and one of the most enjoyable movies I've seen all year. Thank ye, Slava Balter.
- Was Nütz In Der Liebe Gedanken: Was also quite enjoyable. The design of the film is pretty good. It occurs to me that, since Goodbye Lenin! (and even a bit then) Daniel Brühl has displayed a notably limited acting range, and he basically does the same brooding, furrowed-brow thing in this film as he did in Die Fatten Jahre Sind Vorbei. I'd wager we'll see the exact same deal in the new film he's shooting, in which he once again plays a social-outcast-type, though this time in Spanish. I'm kind of intrigued to hear his accent, actually. Um, but yeah, fun, really, really pretty (the cinematography was happy happy), plus it was in the twenties, plus all the other actors were great, and it was a very good way of explaining the lead-up to a shocking, yet trivial-in-the-grand-scheme-of-things event. And I like the title, too - 'What use is love in thoughts'?...some of the poems in it were smashing as well.
- Dazed and Confused: Ha, what a guilty pleasure of a movie.
- Episodes upon episodes of Are You Being Served: What an awesome awesome britcom (explanation, for those who don't know it). And I really enjoy this parody.
5) I also really like it when storms (especially lightning storms) roll in, especially if I'm on the beach and I can actually watch the clouds come in and break over us. Equally pleasurable: when it starts raining whilst your swimming. Ultimately pleasurable: having a lightning storm roll in whilst swimming on the beach.
6) The dusk here is also like my favourite thing in the world, rivaled only maybe by the lighting on full-moon nights in the Gables. Well, and the beach, too...and the Grove. Well, yeah, full moons, in Miami, in general...
7) ...Which, fortunately, we shall be enjoying, it would seem, this upcoming December. In an absolutely stunning diplomatic coup, we single-handedly created a lobbying force of the sort that quickly mobilized the siblings and managed to heavy-handidly veto some outrageous, half-wit plot to spend the winter holidays in Granada. Poppycock, m'lords; leave the Alhambra to the Moors, for we are for Christmas in the tropics, what what! After resoundingly negative response from the masses, the proposition was rescinded, to great fanfare, and so we say, huzzah, reserve me a seat at the annual Johnson Family Christmas Party, (if, of course, I make the cut).
8) Which reminds us, we're ridiculously pleased with our Lord Chancellor; well done, Maddy.
Und, now I must get back to my commissions, and so adieu, adieu.