BROKENMUSES BLOG - CLICK HERE FOR A PRINT VERSION

28 December 2008
'Ugh' can be pronounced in 8 ways in English. See the following sentence by Tony Benn: 'Going through the Borough of Slough, I bought enough doughnuts to give me a cough, which made me laugh.'

27 December 2008
From my collection of t-shirt prints: I saw a shirt today with a print that translates to something like 'star shaped cinnamon biscuit'.

26 December 2008
The British Department for Children, Schools and Families has produced more than 150,000 leaflets for 'the season to be careful' to advise parents in preventing typical Christmas Day accidents which have sent people to hospital such as:
- Parents stabbing themselves with scissors they’ve grabbed instead of screwdrivers to assemble toys;
- People cutting themselves with knives they are using to open presents too quickly;
- Children falling off rocking horses or smashing new bikes into walls;
- Tripping over toys and trailing cables in the rush to try out new computers and other appliances;
- Gravy exploding in microwave ovens;
- Tipsy party guests toppling down stairs or crashing to the floor when they miss their seat at the dinner table.
For more information on the leaflet click here, for a comment in the Guardian, click here.

24/25 December 2008
Sending holiday greetings has become difficult in today's world. The most politically correct one I found this year was the following:
Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low stress, non-addictive, gender neutral celebration of the winter/summer solstice holiday, practiced with the most enjoyable traditions of religious persuasion or secular practices of your choice with respect for the religious/secular persuasions and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all.
I also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2009, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make our country great (not to imply that it is necessarily greater than any other country) and without regard to the race, creed, colour, age, physical ability, religious faith or sexual preference of the recipient.
By accepting this greeting, you are accepting the following terms an conditions:
This greeting is subject to clarification or withdrawal. It is freely transferable with no alteration to the original greeting.
It implies no promise by the wisher to actually implement any of the wishes for her/himself or others and is void where prohibited by law, and irrevocable at the sole discretion of the wisher.
This wish is warranted to perform as expected within the usual application of good tidings for a period of one year or until the issuance of a subsequent holiday greeting, whichever comes first, and warranty is limited to replacement of this wish or issuance of a new wish at the sole discretion of the wisher; me, in this instance.

21 December 2008
Some people are genuinely rude I think. I quote: “Please send me your comments/thoughs by the end of the year if you have any.”

20 Dezember 2008
According to Manner, every two seconds a Manner Neapolitan Wafer is is eaten in Austria.

19 December 2008
Vienna or at least parts of Vienna face a hostile takeover by either Christmas market booths or the ever present wasabi nut. Whereas the former is widely visible and can be smelled clearly and distinguishably (what is called “Punsch” is most often just lousy hot wine with loads of sugar and some artificial flavours), the latter is much more subtle. Whole market areas that were used for selling fresh or dried fruits and nuts before are now devoted to a big, green artificial peanut covered with wassabi paste.

18 December 2008
An online service informed me today via e-mail that again Christmas will fall on the 24th of December this year. That insightful comment reminded me about a book I read a few years ago with the title: Our second daughter is again a girl.

17 December 2008
Isn’t it interesting that extracorporeal shock wave lithotripsy for treating kidney stones was invented by Dornier because of problems the company was facing with their supersonic aircrafts due to shock waves? More here.

15 December 2008
Sometimes being ahead of time it is rather easy. What I heard today just seems to prove it: “The Directive from 1998 is already 20 years old.”

12 December 2008
What I forgot to mention about Tokyo: I met James Bond! Click here to see a picture of Daniel Craig and me and please take into consideration that I had a heavy cold and high fever. Bond girls look differently I have to admit.

10 December 2008
From the classes in basic logic reasoning: “We have the solution and you tell us what the problem is, right?”

9 December 2008
From my collection of circular definitions: „A connected world is a better world because it helps connecting people to other people“.

8 December 2008
I think one could make a lot of money with seminars on basic logic reasoning for IT support personnel. One basic modul would deal with the thought of “no e-mail without e-mail” or in other words “I cannot send an email to my client describing his problem and possible solutions if he does not have e-mail access and reports exactly that as a problem”. Module two would be “if – then correlations” or “why the user needs to have an Internet connection before he is told to search for a solution on a particular website. Module three could be “a good because and an even better but” such as having better explanations for non-functioning services than “it’s not working because the user is in Belgium”. A module for the advanced staff would then be “there is only so much a user can take”.

6 December 2008
As a private person it is getting more and more difficult to visit factories. Today and therefore with a two week delay I received an email refusing me a visit of a factory in Sendai/Japan. They would not do guided tours for tourists they said. Well. What also interests me to a large extent would be visiting old factory buildings that are not used any more.

5 December 2008
Sometimes I wonder about modern day’s professions. About their names, that is. And I think at times it is really not at all easy to figure out, what is meant. Who would have thought that a job ad for an „after sales service technician“ actually searches for a watchmaker?

4 December 2008
Announcement in a bus: Passengers should not use their mobile phones as they annoy their neighbours.

3 December 2008
Why would somebody put his bed’s head board in the office garage? Probably that is meant for not bumping into the wall when parking.

2 December 2008
Tales from the Dilbert side of my life: For whatever mysterious reason the IT department seems to believe that I am the responsible administrator for a particular IT service. They gave my name to everyone who reported a problem. As the server for that service seems to be down since many hours, a number of people contacted me in varying degrees of anger, telling me to get the problem fixed. I spent the day telling them that I had no idea what this was all about.

29 November 2008
I am back again in good old Europe where things don’t move as smoothly as in Japan. But on the other hand at least people do not wear protecting masks and so you do not feel as being part of a science fiction movie that is all about rebel bacteria and where you are the only one who has not heard about an effective means of protection, yet. And still they hit me hard. I have still not recovered from one of the most annoying colds I had during recent years.

20 - 28 November 2008
Tokyo is very much first world. Everything seems to work out, things function smoothly and people do not make big fuzz about it. Trains are on time, taxis available on every corner of the city, people genuinely friendly and helpful and no one seems to be stressed out.
My first impression of Tokyo was the toilets. The seats are heated and most of them have a quite sophisticated menu. You can chose from various bidet functions and – most interestingly – put a flush sound on. So without actually flushing you can enjoy a flush sound. The flushing button as such is often not part of the sophisticated mechanism and rather hidden.
Already on the way from the airport it is stunning how little advertisement there is next to the road or on buildings. It is like big cities should be; you concentrate on the skyline and you are not distracted by advertisement.
What is the biggest metropolitan area in the world does not give that impression at all. When looking at it from top of a skyscraper, you can see it’s enormous dimensions but when walking in the streets you have the feeling of being in a small town or discovering a certain neighbourhood of such town. There is no rush, the air is clean, there are hardly any traffic jams and there is no shouting or other forms of loud noise. People are not moving in a hasty way either. Next to skyscrapers there are residential areas where you walk in the middle of the street and don’t even think of the possibility of a car running you over.
There are many vending machines in Tokyo where you can buy most anything from. Mostly it is hot and cold drinks, but there are also food vending machines with attached kitchen. You chose your food first, pay and as soon as it is done you are allowed into the shop. People still smoke a lot in Japan. There are cigarette vending machines with cigarettes brands called Hope, Seven Stars, Pianissimo, Cabin and Péche.
Other interesting brand names were: “dog’s care joker” for a shop with dog supplies and “Doughnut Plant” for a doughnut restaurant.
The Mori Art Museum greets visitors with the words: “Visitors who have consumed alcohol will not be permitted inside the museum.” In the museum there was a sculpture of a tuk-tuk motor rickshaw made of artificial bones and called “Autosaurus”. That was very special I thought.

20 November 2008
I always thought that although most shopping streets look alike, no matter in which city you are, they have a distinctive smell. In Brussels, it is the smell of waffles. Since I walked past the “gourmet wander waffle London“ booth yesterday night, I am giving up on the idea of distinctive smells.

19 November 2008
An advertisement in a shop in London’s Oxford street – decorated for Christmas - reads “the more the merrier”. I guess that slogan has been agreed upon well ahead of the current global financial turmoil situation.

18 November 2008
News on my name: A taxi driver wrote me a receipt for Marie Brandel and a hotel was reserved on the name of Margit Brandelille.

17 November 2008
Unfortunately I missed an interesting project in the KDW (Kaufhaus des Westens) in Berlin, called “revolting mannequins”:

16 November 2008
I had an odd flight today. My luggage decided to spend the night in Vienna instead of coming with me to Brussels and the stewardess said “all remaining passengers are kindly requested to board the aircraft. Otherwise they will be uploaded.”

15. November 2008
J. M. Keynes said after some disappointments: „Three things drive me crazy: love, jealousy and studying share prices.

13 November 2008
My mother says that a colour iPod does not become white when washing it in the washing machine (not even at 60 degrees). She has to know as she tried it recently. She also says that it does not become an iPod shuffle through washing although since then there is some noise when shaking it. Interestingly enough the new one though reshuffles songs when you shake it.

11 November 2008
In Belgium, the 11 November is a national holiday that reminds people of the end of the World War I. In Austria, the carnival season starts on November 11 at 11:11.

10 November 2008
The slogan of a bio supermarket reads: „Be positive – health is an attitude!“. This will for sure make really ill people very happy…

8 November 2008
My best friend Margit Kuchler-D’Aiello’s novel has been published! It is called “Portrait eines Balkonsitzers“. The blurb says: “Mr. T. is sitting on his balcony and looks at the world. He is rather content until one day his attention is drawn to a young woman in the neighbouring house… Margit Kuchler-D’Aiello has written a touching story full of melancholy and poetry. It is a story about aging and longing, about failing, about hopelessness and the fragility of love.”

7 November 2008
From my “meeting quotes” series, this time a quote during a moderate dispute: A: I have the feeling I live in a parallel universe! B: I can assure you that this is the case.

6 November 2008
On core (immaterial) values: A beggar in Brussels city center plays the European anthem on a flute.

5 November 2008
On core (material) values: Nutella is raffling a golden Nutella pot (14 carat).

4 November 2008
There are different dustmen in Brussels. There are those who are just regular garbage collectors and then there are those with an over dimensioned hoover. The machine is then either used to hoover leaves or to blow away leaves. Those that hoover leaves can mostly be found at intersections with little or no trees and thus little or no leaves on the ground. The others are mainly populating alleys with loads of leaves. There they use the hoover to blow leaves into nice patterns.

3 November 2008
I wanted to make an appointment at an institute for Thursday. Sympathetically enough, they still use a paper agenda with loose sheets for each day. Much to the embarrassment of the assistant, they had lost Thursday. She mumbled that this had never happened before that they lost a whole day. She then had a last attempt searching and pointing to the other end of the room asked her colleague: “Veronique, can you search for Thursday over there?”

2 November 2008
I uploaded a few pictures from the recent exhibition opening in Austria.

1 November 2008
What’s new on the market is the so-called BachPod, an iPod that contains the complete works of Johann Sebastian Bach. On a parallel issue I sometimes ask myself whether future generations - instead of browsing albums with their childhood photographs - will receive a memory stick from their parents with the complete childhood photo compilation.

31 October 2008
On winning time (taken from my “meeting quotes” series): I will actually, kind of, sort of like double-check…

30 October 2008
And again another story on my name: I reserved a table in a restaurant on my name. When I got there I was greeted with the words: “Good evening, Madame Wandel”. [In German, “Wandel” means change.]

29 October 2008
There are bags from bookshops that read: Attention, reading might endanger stupidity.

28 October 2008
From BBC News: “Man's arm trapped in train toilet: TGV toilets are equipped with a powerful suction system. A passenger on a French train had to be rescued by firemen after having his arm sucked down the on-board toilet. The 26-year-old victim was trapped when he tried to fish out his mobile phone, which had fallen into the toilet bowl, and fell foul of the suction system. The high-speed TGV train had to stop for two hours while firemen cut through the train's pipework. The man was carried away by emergency services, with the toilet still attached to his arm. "He came out on a stretcher, with his hand still jammed in the toilet bowl, which they had to saw clean off," said Benoit Gigou, a witness to the man's plight. The incident happened on Sunday evening, aboard a train travelling in western France between La Rochelle and Paris.”

27 October 2008
Belgium has a club called the “League of Optimists of the Kingdom of Belgium”. According to their brochure their purpose is “to help bring about a change in the mentality of the inhabitants of Belgium, encouraging optimism and enthusiasm, good humour and positive thinking, greater daring and a spirit of enterprise, tolerance and understanding between individual citizens and communities”.

26 October 2008
Sometimes I feel like a city map on two legs. Random people looking for addresses come to me and ask me. Today it was in particular funny. The houses the girl was looking for had recently been torn down.

25 October 2008
There is a book with the title: Women who read are dangerous (by Stefan Bollmann).

23 October 2008
Another one on the Fortis advertisements: As said they still advertise with the incredible slogan: “Life is a curve – where are you on it?” but they also ask underneath the picture of that curve: “Are you heading to the right direction?

22 October 2008
The exhibition opening in Brussels tonight went really well. It was very pleasant and I had the chance to talk to many people. When I mounted the pictures last Friday I noticed that the cleaning personnel looked at my pictures and I had a good debate with them. That was a really nice compliment I thought. Also yesterday it seemed that everybody really discussed the pictures.

21 October 2008
A typical one day business trip: Getting up at five in the morning and returning home after eleven at night. On my way back home I finalized the preparation for my exhibition opening tomorrow. All pictures now have their little tags.

20 October 2008
New tales from Absurdistan: Fortis still advertises with the incredible slogan: “Life is a curve – where are you on it?”
There is a Belgian label called: But were is the sun? (Mais Il Est Où Le Soleil?) and a new (Belgian?) movie called “Let’s talk about the rain” (parle-moi de la pluie).

17 October 2008
Quotes from a very entertaining meeting: “I can tell you one thing, this is not inconsistent with what we’ve just said. This is just a daisy argument!” and A: “And, did they say anything intelligent on the subject whatsoever?” B: “Let’s double check, we can’t preclude that.”

16 October 2008
Again on the never ending story of my name. I added a subsite to an Intranetsite. In normal circumstances the new page shows the author’s name at the very bottom, something like MargitBrandl. But to my surprise today the new site all of a sudden said SabineBrandt. Isn’t that weird. Now it is not just about taking away my first name, it is also about changing my second name. It seems Birgit was only the beginning.

15 October 2008
The exhibition opening yesterday night was a really good party with over 100 guests. Most of them were really interested in pictures and I guess everyone has seen my pictures. The most interesting comment was: “Even though your pictures capture inanimate objects, they seem to be the liveliest ones”.
A lady asked me why, by all means, broken mannequins. I said, exactly because they are broken. We had a lively discussion, interrupted many times though. She spent at least 2 hours in front of one of my pictures, a mannequin from Moscow (Inside Gum). That made quite an impression on me.

14 October 2008
Hairdresser to customer: "How old are you by the way?"
Customer: "Seventeen."
Hairdresser: "And how are you coping with that?"

13 October 2008
Worked. Drove to Germany. Worked. Refueled. Drove back.

10 October 2008
On the current financial crisis: I read the following insight on some well-known and now bankrupt banks: 'There are two sides to a Balance Sheet - Left & the Right (Liabilities and Assets respectively). On the Left side there is nothing right - and on the right side there is nothing left'.

9. Oktober 2008
On the way to the airport in Bucharest, the driver was very positive about Tarom, the national airline that would bring me back to Brussels. He said: "Our pilotes are the best in the world. Should there be an accident, it wasn't their fault."

8 October 2008
Is it a sign of fatigue when you become dizzy in a running sushi restaurant just because the food is moving past you all the time?

1 October 2008
Worked. Had dinner. Went home.
In Paris they would say: Métro, boulot, dodo.

29 September 2008
There are still occupied houses in Berlin, one seeems to be a real artist's camp.

26 September 2008
What a statement: „Our current debate shows that there is only a marginal corridor for consensus…”

23 September 2008
I am not officially known as THE corporate spammer. A few latecomers are still spamming back. A nice one today read: “Please don´t pusch [sic!] the button answer all. It´s terribble [sic!].” In essence he is right.

21 September 2008
Seen on a t-shirt in Paris: “I am muslim. Don’t panic.”

20 September 2008
I would not have thought that my “bride” is still where she used to be 6 years ago when I first took a picture of her. But she is, I found her again on what seems to be the biggest antiques and flea market in the world, located in Paris.

19 September 2008
I think I’ve understood today what they mean by glass ceiling. It almost definitely has to do with soundproofing. And so the story goes:
VIP: I’ve just missed a call from a number starting with +27. +27, that’s the country code for…?
Margit: South Africa.
Deputy VIP (pretending nobody has said anything, yet): I don’t know.
VIP: Hm…
Margit: South Africa.
Deputy VIP (still pretending nobody has said anything, yet, checking something at his mobile phone, face lightening up): South Africa!
VIP: Ah, yes, South Africa, thanks!

18 September 2008
From the pool of realistic quotes: “I have a personal opinion on that but that is irrelevant”. What a statement from a civil servant, every administration would love to have people like that.

17 September 2008
We’re back to Birgit. The newest slogan is “Birgit take me off that list”. But also Margrit, Mgit and Martingit have been used lately. To be fair I have to admit I have a huge pool of potential spelling errors as I got about 100.000 e-mails since yesterday.
Nevertheless “Birgit take me off that list” almost sounds like a song title.

16 September 2008
After calling me Birgit has become popular, the newest trend seems to be calling me “Kathrin”.

11 September 2008
Tales from Absurdistan: At night I sit down at a restaurant table. The waiter comes over. I tell him that I am still waiting for someone but would like to see the menu already. Instead of the menu he brings me coffee.

9 September 2008
I saw another half mattress today. Not the other half of the one from a few days ago, though.

8 September 2008
Tonight I used my retouches color set for the first time, trying to recolor some black and white prints. I like the redundancy of that work in the age of digital photoshopping. It is the luxury of the outdated, the physical pleasure of the old-fashioned.

7 September 2008
I got to know a street artist called Mimi the Clown. I saw his work earlier in Brussels and Paris and was always asking myself who was behind it.

6 September 2008
I recently read: “If you are good at anything, that is beauty.”

5 September 2008
My e-mail client does not work. There is a new hotline. They are friendlier than the previous ones but equally unhelpful. In order to refer to the problem, you need a number. The number was sent to me by e-mail which I cannot access (as this is precisely the problem).
In the past there was Yves. Yves worked for the previous hotline. Whenever I called – sometimes up to 10 times a day – he would ask me for name and essential PC data. He refused to recognize me. He did not even show a sign of recognition. Never.
The new hotline employees are not allowed to state their names. They also do not have a personal telephone number. So there are neither traceable nor responsible. I do not know what I like better, forgetful Yves or the no name world. A day in the life of Yves, that would be at least a title for a tragedy. I am not in the mood for comedies.

4 September 2008
I attended a workshop and can report back a nice quote: “… it depends whether you live more or less than 25 km away from your home”. Living away from your own home is an interesting attempt and requires further study I think.

3 September 2008
A conversation from across the corridor: A: “I hate my car, I just hate it!” B: “So why is that?” A: “It’s missing some essential parts!” B: “What? A steering wheel?”

Still 2 September 2008
Democracy live. I spent a good part of the day in the European Parliament, listening to their Plenary debate. A good 20 out of 785 or so people were present. A few of them had helmets on their desks, interestingly enough only on the Socialist’s side.
Note: On 7 August, a 200-square meter section of the ceiling of the Parliament’s building in Strasbourg fell down. Subsequently the Plenary session exceptionally takes place in Brussels this week.

2 September 2008
He holiday season is finally over. The best thing to recognize that is the amount of conference calls. During a call today, three colleagues faced the following difficulties: A: “I can barely hear you”. B: “No, no, that’s all right, we’re here!” A: “As far as I can tell from the acoustics, to me it sounds you’re in a toilet!” B: “I can reassure you, we’re NOT in a toilet!” At least not together I assumed.

1 September 2008
On my way to work I came past half (!) a mattress that someone had thrown away there. I understand that after a while you throw away a mattress. But half a mattress?

29 August 2008
26 August: Someone refers to me as Birgit in an e-mail addressed to a whole group. Slightly hurt I politely corrected that and got an appology. 29 August, same person, same group, same mistake „Birgit and I propose…“. Alzheimer is a subtle disease and affects the short term memory first. I wonder whether we’ve now found common ground for my name. I feel that there is hardly any room for a compromise on my end.

28 August 2008
Why do I get invitations to luncheon (!) meetings on “Obesity and Weight Loss: The Empowered Consumer”? Probably the new slogan in Brussels is “Burn fat, not oil”.

26 August 2008
There are very interesting t-shirt prints out there. A recent one read: “I taste good”. In a restaurant I saw a guy whose sweatshirt read “vagina lover”. On her t-shirt, his girlfriend only committed to “mango”. A little boy in Stockholm sported a shirt reading “trouble maker”, and a guy in Brussels one stating “trouble with authorities”.

25 August 2008
Welcome to Absurdistan: While I wait at an intersection, a woman in pink pyjamas (!) is crossing the street pushing an empty buggy (!) and a person is calling me, happily informing me that he won’t be able to join me for a meeting that took place a week ago.

23 August 2008
A t-shirt in Amsterdam read: Cereal killer.

21 August 2008
The seven deadly sins are contrasted with the seven holy virtues. They vary to quite some extend depending on the source chosen. There is chastity, abstinence, temperance, diligence, patience, kindness and humility. But also chastity, temperance, liberality, diligence, patience, kindness and humility and another set that reads prudence, justice, restraint, courage, faith, hope and love or loving-kindness.
Anyway, to my knowledge there are no new virtues that reflect the age of globalization.

20 August 2008
I just learned yesterday that the Vatican has added seven new deadly sins for the age of globalization. The original ones are lust, gluttony, avarice, sloth, anger, envy and pride. They were laid down in the 6th century by Pope Gregory the Great and popularised in the Middle Ages by Dante in The Inferno. A distinction is drawn between mortal and venial sins. Mortal or deadly sins threaten the soul with eternal damnation and immediate descend to hell unless absolvation is sought before death through confession and penitence.
Whereas the old sins were personal in nature, the new sins are social (it should be added that the old ones are by no means abandoned):
1. "Bioethical" violations such as birth control
2. "Morally dubious" experiments such as stem cell research
3. Drug abuse
4. Polluting the environment
5. Contributing to widening divide between rich and poor
6. Excessive wealth
7. Creating poverty

19 August 2008
On saying it bluntly: “20 years ago when you were green, you were a freak. Everybody laughed about you, except other greens of course.”

18 August 2008
Isn’t that a form of globalization, being in Amsterdam on Sunday, sleeping in Brussels, having Indian food on Monday in Helsinki and biking to the hotel after that?

15 August 2008
Brussels bi-annual flower carpet on the Grand Place is ready and can be admired for the next three days. It is truly splendid, a masterpiece made of flowers! I had ever seen it before, as I was out of town during the two previous occasions.

14 August 2008
Heard during a lunch discussion, the topic being neighboring countries: “Well, I don’t want to be judgmental, but they are stupid, unsatisfied idiots there!”
Well, so much for not being too judgmental.

13 August 2008
A friend of mine sent me a quote from the Kung Fu Panda movie that is really nice: 'Yesterday is History. Tomorrow is Mystery. Today is a Gift. This is why we call it "Present"'...

12 August 2008
A quote from an e-mail that came in during the holiday season: “I just came from vacation and life is still somewhat disorganized. This is of course a state that will continue…”

11 August 2008
Leaving Stockholm seems to be difficult for me any time I am visiting this charming city. When I was here for the last time, I missed my plane due a delay caused by a traffic jam following a heavy car accident (where I for heaven’s sake was not involved). Today my flight was cancelled because baggage handlers on Brussels airport went on strike.
All that is dwarfed by an incident that happened earlier today in the archipelago around Stockholm. We were called by some neighbors and asked to help rescuing a guy who has shipwrecked with a little boat. The boat, not more than a nutshell, has turned upside down and swam unmanned in a channel between two islands. The driver had been rescued already and brought to the shore. When we arrived there, the man who had saved him and brought him over to the shore had his head in his lap and seemed to wait for a doctor to arrive. The shipwrecked person did seem to be pale and in severe shock, as if he was unconscious. In fact he was dead already when we came there. We thought that the coast guard, a helicopter that just landed there with a team of experts and the medical team that arrived on another ship would do the trick of reviving him but in fact all help came too late.

10 August 2008
A trip to beautiful Stockholm city center where we saw a Lennart Nilsson photo exhibition called “Somewhere in Stockholm”. It was very interesting to see that in his earlier work Nilsson, Sweden’s most well known photographer who is famous for his medical photography, has taken black and white images of Stockholm. Around 40 pictures taken between the 1940ies and the 1960ies, none of them previously exhibited, are shown in the Kulturhuset until 7 September. Also have a look at www.lennartnilsson.com.

9 August 2008
A boat tour in the Stockholm archipelago took somehow longer than expected. Also in Sweden it tends to get dark around ten at night…

8 August 2008
I read a nice quote along the lines of “Real achievements need passion…”

7 August 2008
In 1865, the Boston Post opined: "Well-informed people know it is impossible to transmit the voice over wires. Even if it were, it would be of no practical value."

6 August 2008
Even universities do marketing. The Yale university advertises its summer courses with the slogan: „Same veritas. More lux.”

5 August 2008
I got a post card from the “beginning of the world”, a slogan Brittany obviously uses. I’d be interested if there is any region that advertises itself as the end of the world.

4 August 2008
From the sound bites collection: „The group was very successful. No effort was made to seek consensus.”

1 August 2008
One can hardly believe it but there are CDs out there for babies. They carry nice titles like „baby dream“, „classical lullabies“ and „nature sounds“.

31 July 2008
Driving back to Brussels took much longer than expected. But being on the road there is plenty to learn. For example that Worms is not only a legendary town but a real city with a Nibelungen festival. They even have wine from the area with names like sea spider and donkey’s skin.

30 July 2008
A nice Freudian slip towards me: „… there is no problem as you do not have a wife or children“.
On a different subject I was reminded about the special language of real estate agents when trying to rent out impossible apartments, e.g. saying spacious apartment and in brackets: 34 square meters.

29 July 2008
Isn’t it odd that the VIP computer hotline deletes my enquiries not on grounds like I was not entitled to VIP service but because of my “Viennese” accent?

28 July 2008
I hear a very interesting radio program on recent research done on happiness. They foud that in order to be happy and contented with a job or more generally an occupation, one has to find positive replies to the following three questions:
1. What do I think makes sense?
2. What do I really like, what pleases me and makes me feel good?
3. What am I really good at?

27 July 2008
Once more Mariazell and the Basilica there. What’s new there? Well, they do not only sell gingerbread there but also gingerbread ice cream and there is a pizza place and a bet and win bar close to the church.#

26 July 2008
Someone who was interested in acquiring a Broken Muses picture had to refrain from doing so as he was held back by his family. The argument being that he is a hopeless collector and on top of that has 34 pairs of shoes. Unless he is willing to throw some things away they would oppose any new acquisition.

25 July 2008
The tourist season should be at its peak but in fact there is not too much going on in Istria at the moment. In Novigrad’s five or so harbor restaurants there was not a single person at lunchtime today!

24 July 2008
Rovinj is always worth a tour!

23 July 2008
We went to some stalactite caves today in Baredine, in between the towns of Porec and Vizinada.

22 July 2008
Istria is full of old and interesting little towns. A real discovery was Grožnjan, a town full of galleries. The one that made the biggest impression on me is run by the artist Jozef Todjeraš. He makes little terracotta heads that resemble doll heads, cuts them most often in four pieces and re-assembles them in an intriguing fashion.

20 July 2008
After a very nice wedding party I drove further to Croatia. A thousand kilometers can be a long way. Finally I ended up at the entrance of the local nudist camp. With the help of my dear friends in the end I arrived safely to where I was supposed to go.

19 July 2008
Europe without frontiers - that is always impressive. Nowadays you only seem to recognize having passed another frontier and thus being in another country when recognizing that your mobile phone is booked into another country’s network.

18 July 2008
On politeness in the electronic world: Using my great new list I invited for a meeting. The tool was kind enough to send me – on behalf of myself - an invitation as well. Trying to be polite, I wanted to accept the invitation and pushed the appropriate button. I received the following warning message: “As the meeting organizer you do not need to respond to the invitation.”

17 July 2008
I feel a little like the Sorcerer's Apprentice. In trying to make my life easier I wanted to set up an e-mail reflector and accidentally subscribed about 57.000 people. Now I am trying to get most of them off the list again… I am just about to get rid of all the Florians. Filipos are next. But there are still 50.000 to go.

16 July 2008
A thoughtful reader has alerted me to the fact that his company has specific employees that are responsible for certain corridors. In an emergency case those corridor agents need to make sure that everybody has left their rooms. There is even a job description for that kind of job. According to that description, apart from foreign languages, a corridor agent has to have a loud voice. It is worth mentioning, that there are also deputy corridor agents. It would be interesting to know whether there are training workshop for all corridor agents worldwide.

15 July 2008
Some restaurants in Brussels have interesting names. One is called “Ultimate Atom”, another one “Second Element” and a third one “Ultimate Hallucination”. I have been to the latter one just recently and what is worth mentioning is that they sell Champaign in full and half full glasses.

14 July 2008
On Belgium: There are beers with raspberry, peach and cherry taste (I should say that they are actually brewed together with those fruits) which taste uncommon to put it diplomatically. One of the best known breweries is called "a la mort subite", to the sudden death. As far as I know they do not own the rights of the equally well known beer "Delirium Tremens".

12 July 2008
The photo museum in Charleroi is a real discovery! It is said to be the largest photo museum in Europe with about 50.000 prints and over one million negatives. From one of the billboards I noted down the following quote: “Is photography a mirror, a view of reality or a relection of the photographer’s subjectivity? The two complement each other – a window can open onto a mirror and a mirror can reflect a window.”

11 July 2008
" The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done, and self-restraint enough to keep from meddling with them while they do it." Theodore Roosevelt

9 July 2008
It has been quite a while since I last had as bad a meal as today. They ran out of sandwiches on the train to Strasbourg and what was advertised as the „salade compose“ turned out to be stinky cubes of ham on a variety of salads that have gone bad a while ago. Ah yes, and no dressing available.

5 July 2008
Albert Einstein said: Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.
He also said: The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax.

4 July 2008
There are gifts that come around and go around, like for example a nice large box of exquisite chocolates. Everybody is happy to get them. What has proven to be absolutely wrong was to open such a box. The content proved to be rather prehistoric: the chocolate was covered by a thick white film and literally nothing was eatable anymore.

2 July 2008
I was standing next to a neighbor in the elevator. He had an ID badge and I was close enough to secretly read it. It read Free Lancer. I thought, what a terrific name and that this probably has lead to some hilarious confusion already until I found out that of course he was called Freddy so-and-so and that was just the job title.

22 - 28 June 2008
Montreal

21 June 2008
On my way to Canada with Jet Airways the steward called me Mrs. Brandy. As he was Indian, he wiggled with his head. I saw that there was no chance to get on with Brandl. So I suggested that Brand would do as well, but he kept wiggling his head and stayed with Brandy. Actually I started to like Brandy. And after all that’s what my Belgian registration card reads as well. They pronounce it Brandi, though.
On the ground and after quite some months with no major male-female confusion, the customs officer waved me through while saying “all right, go ahead, Sir!” At least he did not stop me.

20 June 2008
Two songs are played up and down in the Belgian radio. One keeps repeating your eyes are as big as the moon and the other refers to a silhouette that resembles the loved person. I wonder how a silhouette of a person with eyes as big as the moon might look like.

19 June 2008
Today’s witticism was: Delegation can be learned but the comfort zone for many people is in micromanagement.

18 June 2008
A friend of mine says it is better to be known for being eccentric than not being known at all.

16 June 2008
A friend of mine has programmed a widget for my blog - unfortunately for Apple users only. What is rather cool and what is a nice inspiration is that he is calling it "broken blog"

15 June 2008
Another trend in the seminar business I spotted in a newspaper: There are seminars to “de-resent”. Anti anger training.

14 June 2008
The newest trend in calling anyone a manager is having the profession of “engagement manager”. I have to admit that I have absolutely no idea what that person would do in his day to day work.

13 June 2008
I followed an 80 slide presentation today – which as such already qualifies for power point poisoning. The tragically funny part about it was that the whole concept was built on outlining terms and conditions for a group of “exempt” and another group of “non-exempt” people. Somebody dared to ask “exempt from what?” and just got the answer from the guy who was not only presenting but really should have known “I have no idea”. What a brilliant way of wasting about 80 people’s time. One could also talk about a dilbertesk afternoon.

12 June 2008
Probably Freud would have had a good time hearing me say: And whom are you going to cook tonight? I think I wanted to say what…

11 June 2008
A nice new lesson for those who have some difficulties with logic reasoning (heard in a meeting today): Well, if we finish step one, we can then start with step two.

10 June 2008
After a long pause something adding to the „sort of kind of“ collection: Some people like to end all their sentences with “and stuff like that”. And I mean ALL sentences.

9 June 2008
A nice quotation from a conference call: Would everyone please open the first Excel shield… I always thought that these spreadsheets are used for protecting and hiding reasons.

8 June 2008
Now the Leuven exhibition – after having been extended twice – is finally over. I brought the pictures back home and made room for another artist’s exhibit there in Leuven.

6 June 2008
A friend told me that in today’s world bus drivers are called “destination managers”.

5 June 2008
From the series of nice filling sentences: “We can have as many opinions on this issue as we have people in the room.“

4 June 2008
Since my car needs to be fixed I have a rental car for the time being. Yesterday I wanted to put something in the trunk and discovered a huge bag with many little bags inside. Although I did not really want to see what’s inside I could not resist checking it out. And well, it was bread, loads of old and dry bread. Is this the rental company’s way to communicate their driver’s omen?

3 June 2008
There is something I find quite frightening when it comes to telephone conferences. There are people who get started very vividly, they state their name and say hello to everyone but then they fall silent. From time to time you hear them breathing and that is in a way frightening.

2 June 2008
On hot days you can smell some people before you can actually see them. But I should of course mention that I am shortsighted.

1 June 2008
Meanwhile smokers are discriminated against (see blog entry from May 14). At Munich’s central station they have painted parking place sized spots with a smoking sign in the middle. There and only there smokers can gather.

30 May 2008
The Austrians are never to be blamed: A train conductor said in his announcement right after taking over in Salzburg from his German colleagues: “Due to a delay on German territory (!) we are 12 minutes behind schedule.”
The reason for the delay was that several children were playing on the train tracks somewhere between Munich and Salzburg. The German conductor had announced we would stop there for 10 to 15 minutes. Probably to let them finish their games.

29 May 2008
From the collection of last and concluding lines of people’s e-mail messages: "enthusiasm is contagious, start and epidemic".

28 May 2008
The newest trend seems to be hotel rooms specially designed for women. A Brussels hotel is very proud of it I heard and offers not only magazines, but also extra toiletries and a special professional hairdryer.

27 May 2008
Brussels has a broken plane now. It seems to be very popular to go to the place where the cargo flight crashed a few days ago.

26 May 2008
The gipsy quarter in Bucharest is somehow smaller than I remembered it. Nevertheless it is an interesting area. There was a street that was devoted to flowers. People were sitting in front of their houses, working on flower bouquets.

25 May 2008
Another memory from 2002 was the immense amount of wedding dresses that were sold in Bucharest. Although much seems to have changed, wedding dresses are still sold all over the place. In the old town almost every shop seems to specialize in wedding dresses or bride’s necessities. It almost looks like collective obsession. And actually there was even a wedding that we saw on Saturday night. It was slightly disappointing as most guests seemed to have either already left the place or never shown up. My suspicion was that most guests were taking a paddleboat tour on the lake that surrounded the restaurant where the wedding dinner was hosted.

24 May 2008
I did not now that they’re now even offering visits to the Parliamentary Palace, the huge monument that Ceausescu had built in the eighties. Unfortunately one would have had to pre-book it quite some time in advance so we did not have the chance to get in. Nevertheless it is an impressive building, somehow so big that it seems almost unreal.
From my earlier stay I remember alleys leading to it with half-finished monumental houses where the cranes marked with the construction year 1989 were just left over. I did not find these streets anymore, it may very well be so that in the meantime the buildings have been finished and the cranes been removed.

23 May 2008
Since my last trip to Bucharest in 2002, many things have changed. The city is much more modern and westernized than it used to be. Huge advertisement billboards are mounted to buildings and give the impression of being in just any other city. What fascinated me in 2002 was that you constantly had to watch your step in order not to fall into a hole in the ground, step into motor oil or dog excrements. Not to speak about stumbling over a dog. Well, there are still bumps and deep holes in the streets and sidewalks and one has to watch one’s step. There seems to be less oil and less dogs but for the latter still too many for a biobigot person like me.

22 May 2008
On my way to Romania I needed to go through Vienna. It seems that a little odd to just have a stopover in a city were you once lived.

21 May 2008
Isn’t it bizarre if a waiter is greeting with the words „I am sure you take a lager beer!“?

20 May 2008
Is there a cure for cynicism?

19 May 2008
I took a very beautiful picture of a muse in Slovenia and developed it today.

18 May 2008
One of the best reactions I got regarding some black an white pictures (taken in New York in April 2008) came from an eleven year old boy: “… hmmm… I guess it has been quite a while ago since you were there, right?”

17 May 2008
According to the New York Times there is a special term for disliking certain animals, it is called biobigotry.

16 May 2008
I think I will start a collection of last and concluding lines of people’s mobile e-mail messages. A nice one reads: “I am sending this on move so please excuse the lack of grammar and spelling.”

14 May 2008
Smokers are not treated well anymore these days. Meanwhile – seen at an airport today - they have to go into closed cages, four at maximum to smoke inside a glass cube watching the non-disturbed non-smokers outside.

13 May 2008
I am not superstitious but we have the 13th and a black cat was coming from the left side, well, that is almost too much.

10 May 2008
The homeless woman is still sitting on that doorstep day in and day out (see blog entry of March 23).

7 May 2008
As we know there are lousy jobs out there (see blog entry from February 8 - shark on a diving fair and Feb. 15 - policeman directing traffic together with a functioning traffic light). If you have to wear a red tight dress, playing a pregnant woman that is in fact pregnant with a magazine that is just about to be published, well, I do not know whether that is really a fun job.

2 May 2008
After quite some time I’ve been to the movies again. „Bienvenue chez les Ch’tis“, which is a really funny comedy about prejudices.

30. April 2008
The suicidal pigeons in front of my office window are back. The tree where they obviously are nesting is about to bloom and stretches its branches against the windows. That leads to a rather frightening scratching sound and as if that was not irritating enough, those pigeons are sitting there and keep staring towards the window. From time to time they then fly against the window and probably suffer from a traumatic brain injury and immediately drop dead.

28 April 2008
Taken from the series of avoiding immediate action: “We are really just starting and not aiming very high with fast actions.”

24 April 2008
Close to being allowed access to the collection of circular definitions: We must not confuse the term service with the term service.

23 April 2008
Recently I saw a picture of some vegetables by Markus Vater stating that they „like plants because they have a different organic background“.

22 April 2008
There are hotels who charge 1.5 Euros for using the shower (and forbid using it after 10 p.m.) but offer wireless Internet access in the room for free.

21 April 2008
What is he deeper meaning of a magic tree in a convertible?

20 April 2008
Viktor & Rolf say that fear is a bad advisor.

19 April 2008
Spending most of the day at Frankfurt airport is a rather boring thing.

18 April 2008
„ I still have a video conference with the Pope“ was one of the best excuses for declining an appointment on short notice that I have heard in a long time.

17 April 2008
It is Thursday and I was sitting next to a guy whose socks said “Friday” in elegant print. Luckily I was not close enough to find out whether they were from last Friday.

14 April 2008
My insurance company kindly let me know that there is no Malaria in Austria and no Malaria in Belgium.

13 April 2008
The former Golden Tulip hotel is now part of the Thon hotels chain. I am not quite sure whether changing from golden tulip to tuna fish was really an improvement.

12 April 2008
The latest hotel ad in Brussels reads: “Come, get closer, stay a while and experience the way you deserve to be treated.” Isn’t that nice.

11 April 2008
Underestimating the distance from Brussels, I went to an exhibition on “Radical Advertising” in Düsseldorf. In total it was about a 500 km drive and starting at 19:00 was probably a bit late but nevertheless it was truly worth it. A series of black and white shots of oversized Calvin Klein posters in cities made quite an impression on me. And although up to now I had been rather skeptical on video art I saw some intriguing scenes of a guy trying to just blend everything – from coke and chicken to iPhones – using an ordinary kitchen blender.

10 April 2008
From a toilet poster: “If you sprinkle when you tinkle be a sweetie and wipe the seatie!”

9 April 2008
Too soon we are leaving New York again, heading back to Washington and from there to Europe.

8 April 2008
In the Museum of Modern Art I found a very interesting statement by Ann Temkin, the Blanchette Rockefeller curator of painting and sculpture who said: “… Beauty is found in the everyday rather than in the ideal.”
SoHo is fascinating as always although I did not find my New York Muses that I took a picture of some three years ago. What I did find though was the Italian coffee place I like to go to in Broom Street in Little Italy.

7 April 2008
Yesterday - after a quite intense photo equipment shopping tour - we saw an exhibition of the Chinese artist Cai Guo-Qiang, called “I want to believe” in the NY Guggenheim Museum. His installations are fabulous. Cars are hanging down in a spiral from the ceiling of the Guggenheim. A ship wreck is placed on broken china, gunpowder pictures are framed by videos of explosions he has arranged in many places all over the world and wolves are arranged in the shape of a flying dragon.
Having seen the flat iron building and parts of Fifth Avenue, we saw the Empire State Building and Groud Zero today and walked all the way across Brooklyn Bridge.

6 April 2008
Eight years ago the Broken Muses concept started with a picture I took at the Italian Market in Philadelphia. Yesterday on my way from Washington DC to New York I spent a few hours chasing them. After having almost given up I was lucky and discovered them – hiding in a narrow corner. They have suffered surprisingly little over those last eight years. Some have a few more scratches, the occasional nose has bigger bruise but in general I would say they are doing just fine.

5 April 2008
Some quotes to remember:
Some Think Tanks do not much thinking but lot of talking.
Not knowing much does not prevent you from having an opinion.
A response to crisis is re-organization.
Often there is a triumph of experience over performance.
Most groups increase efficiency if they lose one of their managers.
86 Mio barrels of oil are consumed worldwide per day.
Looking at the western world’s economy today, what’s left for my children to do is burger flipping or working as gender equality consultant.

30 March till 4 April, 2008
It feels good to be back to University even if it is just for a few days. It feels like intellectual holidays. Being at a US university is also a very interesting experience. The identification with the school is omnipresent. Apart from t-shirts, sweatshirts and other trinkets, the University bookstore sells even Georgetown University pajamas.

30 March 2008
Boarding a long-haul flight and having a look at the necessaries they had out, one gets a good overview about what globalization means. The plastic package reads: Bag – made in China, socks – made in China , eye mask – made in China, ear plugs – made in USA, tissue – made in China, mints – made in Spain, marine body butter – made in USA, toothbrush – made in China, toothpaste – made in India and romance card – made in USA. Interestingly enough, the romance card made in USA is missing.
Another airline, different security requirements. I find the following very charming: “If you are sitting in an exit row please identify yourself to allow for reseating if: You lack the ability to read, speak or understand the language, or the graphic form, or the ability to understand oral crew commands in the language specified by the airline.” So how can you possibly find out about you obligation to identify yourself to the crew if you just don’t get it?

29 March 2008
Den Haag hosts an exhibition of Lucian Freud, Freud’ grandson, who is a painter. Next to that there is a Picasso exhibition. Both were really interesting.

24 March 2008
There are a few new India pictures when you click on that link and three new trinities!

23 March 2008
During an Easter walk in a big city: A homeless woman camps in a narrow entrance next to a new flower shop, the close by glass eye shop still presents a variety of glass eyes in their shop window, an old lady in a fox fur coat blows hr nose on the street using only her index finger and not far away there is an old ventilator leaning against a bus stop.

22 March 2008
A few days ago I took a plane and got a seat in the emergency row. What is a standard procedure is always an embarrassing spectacle. As soon as one is seated, a steward or a stewardess is leaning over, giving you looks like “I have my doubts that you can count to three”. Then, in a soft and slow voice he or she starts explaining about the tremendous responsibility that comes with that seat. All that concludes with “… and we strongly recommend reading the briefing card for passengers sitting at emergency exits” that can be found in the seat pocket in front of you. And well, this briefing card is worthwhile reading. I cite: “If there is a clear order from the crew, unfasten your seatbelt”. So if they accidentally forget about that order or if the order is just not clear enough, tough luck, the heroes at the emergency exit stay buckled up. Further in the text it reads “2. Check outside condition an only open exits which are not in direct danger area (e.g. fire)”. As if one would have the choice between opening more than one exit at a time anyway, but more importantly: one sits there, seatbelts unfastened, stares out of the window as told and thinks to oneself: if it is burning to my left and to my right, am I in a direct danger zone? If not than one has to remove “the cover”, pull the handle on the top of the exit and place the other hand in the grip mould on the window (points 3 and 4). After having managed that, one has to “move the exit inwards” (5) and “6. throw the exit out of the aircraft”. That seems to be a compromise text. Pull it in, throw it out and all in one go. Something just does not seem right here. Plus, it is not only the exit door that needs to go, the exit as a whole has no be thrown out of the plane. Isn’t that just to much to ask of a passenger who happens to sit at that exit? Finally one is told to get out on the wing – foot first, slide down the escape slide and assist passengers sliding down (7). So no jumping head over heels. Interestingly enough one has to assist others in sliding – now word about any other form of giving them a helping hand.

18 March 2008
My e-mail address died more or less completely. Not only that senders are told that I do not exist anymore, meanwhile it is even worse, telling me that I am an “unknown sender”.

17 March 2008
Little by little my e-mail account is dieing. Senders are told that I do not exist in the system anymore.

13 March 2008
For the collection of very positive thoughts and statements: “I was positively happy with the event.”

10 March 2008
Lousy weather ok, but no people queuing in front of my favorite AMT? That is unusual. And well, yes, there was a metal fence cordoning it off leaving me with 20 Eurocents and no chance to get closer to it.

9 March 2008
Price finding for locksmiths is closely linked to the degree of desperation of the one who has locked himself out. Plus there seems to be a weekend cartel in the sector.

8 March 2008
The photographer Miroslav Tichý says: Beauty and perfection does not interest anyone!

6. March 2008
Finlly I have uploaded some first pirctures from India. Just click here to see them!

3 March 2008
A little collection of sentences that help you to say nothing if you do not intend to say anything really: We cannot underestimate the issue. This matter is more important than urgent. It is never too late to do the right thing.

2 March 2008
I read in a newspaper article reflecting on art that there are no male muses. Which is actually true, all nine muses are female.

1 March 2008
In the dark room developing pictures again - a long learning curve.

29 February 2008
Following up on kind of, sort of: I have a jazz CD that’s called “Kind of Blue”.

28 February 2008
In a rather well-known institution in Brussels there are signs that point you to “restrooms and translators”. So you think those poor guys are mentioned together with the toilets. To my surprise those restrooms weren’t toilets but actual rooms for resting and reserved for the translators.

27 February 2008
When entering the European Parliament with a laptop you have to go to a special counter and register the laptop. There is a special form for it, requiring the PCs serial number and a signature of the owner. So far so good - assuming that there is a similar control when leaving the building. But there isn’t. In that sense I have brought my PC many times to the building but – theoretically – never brought it back outside.

24 February 2008
In the train from Austria to Germany today I discovered a so-called „tail light switch“. I thought it was “sort of” interesting.

23 February 2008
The rumors say that my beloved coffee shop in my hometown is almost bankrupt. Will it disappear?

22 February 2008
There are four different sorts of garbage bins at Munich central station in order to sort garbage for roper recycling. The local clochards have a difficult time grabbing into those bins because of the design of the bins. Nevertheless they carry foru different plastic bags with them in order to also sort the meager harvest.

21 February 2008
Is there reason to believe that a big office coffee machine that says “no flow” even though water supply and electricity are ok is just unhappy?

20 February 2008
Watching people boarding an aircraft is sometimes odd. What can you think of a passenger that carries a book showing with a summary on the backside that reads “My name is Joe. Actually I am a rather nice guy but sometimes I just kill people.”

19 February 2008
Isn’t it sarcastic if the hotline wishes you continue having a great day just after you told them that your computer just doesn’t work anymore?

18 February 2008
For whatever mysterious reason, „okidoki“ seems to be back in fashion again. I fear that “super-duper” will celebrate its revival soon, too. Thinking of it, together with “sort of“ and „kind of“ one could form some nice little sentences.

15 February 2008
In the series of really frustrating jobs (see blog entry of Feb. 8 – shark on a diving fair) there is another one: policeman directing traffic at an intersection together with a functioning traffic light. Without a working traffic light I can see some excitement but with one, well, that is then basically supporting the traffic light through waving and whistling.

14. Februar 2008
There is a tram here in Brussels that goes to what would translate like „Viennese“ and a bus which has its final stop at „Heroes“. So I guess Viennese and Heroes are not close. Can the Viennese be Heroes? How about those Heroes that want to become Viennese? Can you blame the Heroes that do not want to become Viennese? And what if both are just end stops?

13. Februar 2008
The „Kite Runner“ movie started today and is one of the best films based on a great novel I have ever seen. The other people in the cinema must have seen it likewise, they applauded after the show.

12. Februar 2008
How often can you use „actually“ in one single sentence?

11. Februar 2008
In a close by house people are in hunger strike since quite some time. It seems that the authorities do simply not react.

10 February 2008
The spa in Spa has something, especially on a beautiful day.

9 February 2008
A very well known hamburger restaurant chain advertises “Sauerkraut” burger in Holland. And they interestingly charge men 25 Eurocents for using their toilets while women go for free. On the other hand Holland is very blessed with ATMs. Today in Utrecht I saw four in a row, one next to the other!

8 February 2008
There are lousy jobs out there, for example being in a shark costume at a diver’s trade fair handing out brochures.

7 February 2008
It seems that Belgium has been annexed to the UK. That must have been done rather smoothly and without any media coverage. I just learned about it today when reading the not so fine print on my sandwich bag: „Please use a bin and keep Britain tidy!”

6 February 2008
Booking a non-smoking hotel room and a parking place in a hotel over an Internet platform, means you end up with a non-smoking parking place. Thinking of non-smoking parking place might really be a market gap…

5 February 2008
Had a chat with an anthropologist who basically summarized the findings of all the studies he had done so far in saying that what makes human beings special is that they behave irrational.

4 February 2008
On car dealers and copyright: “… and into this data slot you can put a data card just like the one you use on your PC. So you just download music and put it on the data card…”

3 February 2008
I have talked a lot about India today and shown pictures. India changes you to a certain degree and teaches you a lot about different values in different people’s lives. By the way, Calcutta has a town twinning agreement with Naples.

2 February 2008
A dizzy day after a long ball night and a nice train ride through Austria.

1 February 2008
Although I have not been to the Opera Ball yesterday I have been to the Coffee Maker’s Ball today. It was a great, impressive, cheerful and truly majestic party.

31 January 2008
Vienna is different. So they say in an advertisement. But yes, it is the country that has more ATMs than people. No, I exaggerate…

30 January 2008
Today I heard a piece of small talk, put to the extreme. “Well, thanks for the meeting and now we need to go out and I think we need to go through a door…”

29 January 2008
What I thought was a nice and huge sculpture of a snail – exhibited in a chic restaurant in Brussels - is obviously only a wheelbarrow that is put in a weird way with its handles pointing to the ceiling.

28. January 2008
Casanova has obviously said “I attribute nearly all the good fortune I have had to coincidences.” That is what my new mouse pad says.

27. January 2008
Nobody really looks great when having a parking ticket in his or her mouth.

25 January 2008
On a close by restaurant table people were drinking orange juice. I heard the following statement which would probably not really thrill the Nobel Prize committee: “If you give it a thought what we’re drinking here was three oranges just some minutes ago…”

24 January 2008
I have to admit that I thought spitting was not en vogue any more in Europe. Having a closer look at the street around a bus stop that I pass by almost every day gives another picture. It is not really sputum but rather remains of chewing gum but still. It seems that spitting has just come to another dimension.

23 January 2008
I should have kept the old habit of taking a day off at my birthday.

22 January 2008
In a garage in Brussels’ city center that I often use there is an old wrecked car. It used to be blue at the time and is now covered in a thick layer of dirt. A little while ago somebody wrote into the dust “Exists also in blue” (see blog from Dec. 16). Now there is a new line on the rear window that reads “Wash Me!”.

19 January 2008
In comparison with Delhi Brussels seems like a climatic spa. Nobody is running after me, touching me or wanting something. Red lights are not really ignored, they do are not only strong suggestions. Nobody is clearing his throat right next to me in order to spit in the next second. And I mean there is NO spitting at all. Over the last weeks I was already confident when there was no 180 degrees spitting or no direct spitting into my direction. Thomas Mann would have been thrilled by the amount of sputum there is in India. At the time I am sure there was plenty of spitting in Europe as well. I still remember the spitting pots that were mounted next to each reading room at my university. I always thought of them as ashtrays until somebody once explained they were actually spitting pots. Besides I am enjoying the warm light of ordinary light bulbs while reflecting on the incredible luxury of life in the western hemisphere.

18 January 2008
Travelling back to Europe I’ve been reading an excellent book called Animal’s People, written by an Indian author. In a way the journey back home could have even lasted longer.

17 January 2008
After three weeks trevelling back and forth through India, Delhi is almost boring. What cheers me up is the Cah Bar, a tea bar in the Oxford Bookstore. It seems to be hip in India’s main cities to sip tea. Also chains of coffee shops are booming. Nevertheless this tea bar in the bookstore is a real pearl. Indians seem to love reading. There are excellent newspapers and magazines and books can be bought on every corner. Literally. I’ve seen books being sold in tiny trolleys in railway stations, packed in plastic covers or piled up on the street and in various bookstores all over the place. What makes the Oxford Bookstore so special is probably not only their selection of books and the nice calm atmosphere but the concept of integrating the tea bar into that. There is a selection of over 40 different teas but the most fascinating one is still the marsala tea (black tea with cardamom) which comes in a silver, ape shaped tea glass holder.

16 January 2008
Agra is a two and a half hours train ride away from Delhi and home of the Taj Mahal, one of the world wonders. It is definitely an impressive building, although as one has seen so many pictures about it already, the big bang is not really happening. It is majestic, and the white marble is splendid. If you get closer it is not that white anymore but from a distance it looks bright white. The guide said that it is also cleaned once every few weeks as the air pollution is simply too high. Not too far away there is another very interesting site, the abandoned palaces of Fatehpur Sikri, including a Red Fort made out of red stand stone. Those sites are very touristy and so are the hundreds of trinket sellers that can be really annoying. Going back to Delhi in the evening confronted me again with the extreme poverty of this country. It is incredible how many people and especially children live in the poorest circumstances, often handicapped, lepers, and forced to begging. Children seem to live in or at lest in the vicinities of the railway station. They play on the tracks and when a train is about to arrive they quickly jump up on the platform, shake out their dirty clothes, smile a friendly smile and sign that they are hungry. As if their skinny bodies would not speak for themselves. Their skin is covered with dust and so are their clothes, some of them are only able to move using their arms and hands, while their feet and legs are underdeveloped and useless. It is shocking to an extend that is going over what one can support. Ignoring it is impossible and facing it almost unbearable. You want to help but feel that you are basically helpless give the vast number of cases.

15 January 2008
New Delhi, Old Delhi, two rather different places compared to the rest of India that I have seen so far. New Delhi is rather boring, there are wide streets and condominiums and modern hotels like everywhere else in the world. Old Delhi has a Red Fort, where you can only see the outskirts of the palaces within, an impressively huge Mosque and some busy market streets. People are running after you, begging and touching you constantly. It is impossible to just stop for a second and watch the scenery. Cannaught Place is a busy intersection and somehow the point where Old and New Delhi meet and is compared to other places rather calm and modern. The most modern subway has some stops there, there are bookshops and coffee houses and trinket sellers are relatively moderate.

14 January 2008
Finally my suitcase appeared again and with it all the films I had shot so far. Meanwhile they form part of my handluggage. Calcutta is really impressive, the Brits have done a really great job here. The so-called writers building for the clerks of the East India Company and the administration of India is amazingly beautiful and in a very good state. The Post Office looks like a cathedral and the Indian Museum is a huge complex hosting many dusty but interesting items. In one quarter one bookshop is next to the other and almost anything is available (second hand) on any subject in any language. In the middle of all that there is the „Indian Coffee House“, an insititution by all means. From how it looks and how it feels to be inside it could also be somewhere in the Arab world. A huge hall, lika a ballroom hosts many simple tables and a bee like humming so loud that a conversation is rather difficult. The coffee is great. The walls are painted in a light yellow that comes off on many places. The balcony in the first floor gives people an even better look over the rest of the place. The only (rather small) photograph on one of the walls shows the Rabindranath Thakur, winner of the Nobel Prize for literature. Besides that there is no other picture. The only other furniture are ancient fans all over the place. Right next to that quarter is a street with professional writers. They sit in open rooms one next to the other and write texts for their clients on really ancient typewriters.

13 January 2008
In a way Calcutta (Colcata) was the real target and centerpiece of my journey to India. I always assumed that Calcutta is the methaphor for India and whenever I heard „India“ I thought Calcutta. India`s former capital city is a real perl in the true sense of the word. It has been designed by the British as the London of the East and was meant to be even more beautiful than London. Many of the palaces and houses could also be in Europe, in Italy or France or Vienna. But mostly it reminds me of Palermo where also hundreds of beautiful buildings are just rotting and falling apart. All those nice buildings are very worn and everywhere you look there are people, plants, dust, dirt and pieces of walls, bricks and stones. Before getting to enjoy the city I was brought back to reality rather intensively. My luggage got lost on the flight from Kerala over Bangalore to Colcata. And with it all the films I have shot so far. Well, if only I get the suitcase back! To me, Calcutta`s most interesting quarter is the so-called potter`s lane. Calcutta adores goddess Kadi, a goddess of death that demands huge sacrifices from people. The usual sacrifice is donating a Kadi sculpture that has been made out of mud/clay from the Ganges river and throwing it back into the Ganges. Once a year there is a procession where this is widely done. The Ganges gives and Kadi takes. After that the potters start over again, take mud/clay out of the Genges and start sculpturing new huge statues. In many tiny streets there is one potter workshop next to the other. Some of them manufactue the inner straw skeleton of the sculpture, others add the first layer of clay to form the final lifesize statue and then again others model heads or hands to be added later on in the process. Numerous scupltors work there. Some of the statues are fresh and the clay is still wet, others are older and the clay breaks up, leaving traces and wrinkles. Broken Muses made out of clay. I was fascinated and wandered around in this maze of incredible craftsmen streets taking picture after picture.

12 January 2008
The difference between a five star hotel and a home stay is that it is easier getting in touch with local people and other travelers in the home stay. This morning right after breakfast I was offered to see the wedding pictures of the home stay owners. Although the house was packed with pictures of Christ, crosses, a Christmas tree and other related items I could have sworn they were Muslims. But in fact and against all conspiracy theory attempts on my side including the hidden picture of Mecca I’ve spotted close to my room they were Roman Catholics and got married 16 years ago. I briefly thought about a camouflage attempt but gave up on that thought quickly when I saw the wedding pictures that seemed almost Hindi (bright saris for the bride and a huge multilayered cake etc). The album and the pictures were so worn that about 5.000 – 10.000 people must have flipped through them already. The best part came after that. The husband asked in a very subtle voice whether he may show some more pictures. He said his father has “expired” just one week ago. The Indians do not speak of “passing away” or “dying”, rather they say someone is not so well anymore or simply he expired. I was slightly astonished, especially because I am not used to see pictures taken at a funeral. Those shots of the 82 year old showed a slightly blue face and were taken from a perspective that made the dead face seem huge and the grieving visitors besides and behind the corps looked rather small - relatively spoken. Weird and in a way rather funny. In the Jewish part of Cochi an artist had made quite some impression on me. The guy was in a long batik shirt with a huge Krishna on his back. According to a leaflet he offers sketching in a meditative environment. I was curious. He led me to his first floor loft studio where he made me sit down on a mat and started sketching. I posed but that did not really work out the way I had supposed it would. In the end the picture does not resemble me too much, the only thing which is rather realistic is the green color of my t-shirt. I waited for a attempt to start a meditation together. Instead he started chatting and told me about an old judge whom he had sculptured once. He showed me pictures of that sculpture and said that t has caused quite some controversy in the local news. We talked about his difficulties in finding a good spot for exhibiting and I told him about my pictures. He said he is friends with the minister of Culture in Kerala who could eventually be of help should I want to exhibit in Kerala. He gave me the Minister’s phone number and most importantly his name: he is called Mr. Baby.

11 January 2008
A day on the beach of Cherrai. I drank way too much tea with Kardamom, the taste was simply wonderful. In that area the tourist trap has not been invented. Lunch was costing the equivalent of about 20 Eurocents. Mostly that beach is used by the locals to see the water. As neither men nor women can get out of their clothes, the waters are if at all just tested with their feet. It is most astonishing. Busses full of schoolchildren are brought over 120 km to that shore. 6 – 10 year old girls and boys are allowed to play near the sea but only with their school uniforms on. Their teachers wear the most colorful Saris but cannot get wet either. Most of the afternoon we’ve chatted with and English nurse who spends about three months of unpaid leave in an ashram, helping to set up a hospital. A very fine woman who has definitely gotten some insight in Inidan society.

10 January 2008
Cochi is a really nice town that has many hidden treasures. I saw how candles are made and how ginger is dried in the sunshine of a huge inner court of an old warehouse. Ginger and mango pickles are still handmade, packed and sealed in a very odd manner. Working conditions are more than hard. Some girls and women sit on almost broken chairs in a packed open air corridor of that old warehouse stirring pickles, pouring them into little plastic bags or sealing them with an archaic hot plastic sealing machine. One of these girls was so pretty that I could not help but think she would be a model elsewhere. Instead, her task was sticking labels to the filled little plastic bags. Another warehouse hosted all imaginable spices, packed into big bags for wholesale purposes. Most of those spices I had never seen before or never seen in a size as big (huge pepper seeds, dried chilly, cardamom, coriander). In the middle of the spices district all of a sudden there was an art gallery, showing impressive modern art works, mostly paintings and some installations. Unfortunately all of those who I would have shown some interest for were not for sale. In the hostel there are regular power cuts. They are even announced beforehand. During dinner there was one, bringing an interesting scenery to life: leftovers from dinner, smells after cold spices, mosquito sounds, and a lonely rocking chair that seems to move all by itself before I discover that there is a child in it. Just when the dripping candles were lit, I had the feeling to be in the Adams Family’s living room.

9 January 2008
Another five hour train ride away is Cochi, one of the oldest towns of Kerala. The Portuguese, Dutch and British used this town as main entry point for the spice trade. There are giant so-called “Chinese fishing nets” in the harbor. Those nets are huge and can only be bent into the water with the help of at least four people. The nets give the harbor a very nice skyline. One of the fishermen said that there are only 10 left where there used to be 24. The Tsunami destroyed most of them and since then the catch is most depressing and therefore the owners are reluctant to build up the missing nets again. Biologist forecast another 5 years until the big fishes will be coming to Cochin’s shore again. Nevertheless they must catch something because in one of the fish markets there was a massive amount of huge, flat, so-called “Pomfret” fish. It was a nice spectacle to see the Pomfrets being loaded into baskets, and after weighing packed into boxed cooled with crashed ice. The ice itself came in big blocks and was crushed with an enormous shredder.

8 January 2008
Finally leaving the jungle resort by jeep to take a train from Ooty to Metupalayiam. This train has been constructed in 1886 by the Swiss and has not been changed since. It leads through the Nilgeri mountains, showing an impressive panorama of mostly tea plantations. The train ride took about three and a half hours whereby most of the time the train was pulled by a historical diesel/steam engine. Although that was very nice it lead to a very dirty face. From Metupalayiam another train brought us to Coimbatore, the Indian fashion capital but as we were only arriving there at night there was no opportunity to check out the shops. The dialogue of the day (in a hotel): A: Do you have a free single room for tonight? B: Yes, for how many people? A: For one person! B: Yes, ok, a single room is available, but for how many people? … continued. The dialogue took place in a very friendly atmosphere with a lot of head wiggling on the Indian side. Wiggling in a way that resembles moving the head to either side, resembling the figure eight, neither nodding nor shaking the head is a frequent behavior pattern in India and can mean anything from yes to no, maybe, for sure, I do not understand, or not quite, I also see it that way or no, most certainly not to we will see or god only knows.

7 January 2008
Getting up at 6:15 during your holidays is not an easy task. Anyway, a trip to a village where they wash elephants in a river seemed to be worth it. We drove for about half an hour to arrive on the one side of the river that was not only in a very bad back light but also rather impassable. Well, an Elepghant was down in the river and about to be pulled to the other side. There \he was briefly washed and then quickly led away over a hill. A brief discussion with the driver to bring us to the other side resulted in a no based on a story that there is this forest ranger who does not allow tourists to be there. Shortly after that, two tourists were visible on the other side and sure enough the forste ranger was not mentioned anymore. We were brought to the other side. Unfortunately the last elephant was just about to be washed. The driver said that we should have started earlier, they always wash the elephants earlier and that he would have mentioned that to his boss anyway but nobody ever listens to him. Well. A serious discussion with that boss later on resulted in comforting words and pittyful looks. Of course they would take us on the afternoon toor again. But in the afternoon all of a sudden it was the regular tour and of course to be paid again. As I figured it would not be feature-length anyway I did not get into a serious argument with the guy. Tomorrow we are heading back towards civilization...

6 January 2008
Another long taxi ride brought us to the Nilgeris, a jungle area. The hotel here is in the middle of nowhere and called Jungle Retreat. Not only that they warn you from tigers and elephants on signs beneath the road going there, the welcome to the holtel was two large black Rottweiler type of dogs. I almost fainted. But in the end, the rooms here are marvellous and it is really quiet. Quite a change from the hectic city life during the last days. Interestingly enough there are only Americans staying here. Probably they mixed up India and Indiana - no that was not nice.

5 January 2008
Mysore used to be the capital city of one of the last Maharadja kingdoms. It is an ancient town although you cannot see that anymore. Most of the older buildings have been destroyed some 200 years ago and so the city looks rather young. The most interesting site is of course the Maharadja Palace. It is a palace out of the stories of 1001 nights although borderline kitsch most of the times. What is rather annoying is that one cannot take any pictures and even has to hand over all cameras at the entrance. The Green Hotel here is a really interesting place. It was built to serve as a palace for the unmarried sisters of the Mahardja, just outside the city. Then in the 1950ies it was transformed into movie studios and recently into an eco friendly hotel. You could see Miss Marple there. The main house unfortunately only hosts 7 rooms and we had to stay in the other buildig, most likely the servant`s rooms back in history. Anyway I got a glimpse into one of the rooms in the main building: it really looked like a bedroom for the court. The main block also hosts a library with a bed beneath the window, a reading divan, simply great. And the chess table in the games room was just tiny but brilliantly carved.

4 January 2008
The energy saving bulb has conquered India and puts everything into a cold and unfriendly light. Even in the train that we had to catch very early this morning heading west towards Asikere Junction gave you the sterile feeling of a hospital. After quite some time in the taxi, we visited the Hoysaleswara temple in Halebid which is a marvellous site, covered over and over with sculptures and reliefs. After another long ride we arrived to the Channekeshava temple in Belur. Hundreds and hundreds of figures are carved into the outside wall of the temple as well but in a different manner. After another two hour ride we came to Sravanabelagola, a temple that can only be reached after climbing up 600 or more steps. It hosts a 17m high monolithic statue of a naked god called Gomateshvara. Rumors say that it is the tallest monolithic statue on earth. What is impressive is that it is over 1000 years old. The most funny thing was that in a corridor behind the statue there are smaller statues and one of them was just cleaned by a naked man. I asked the tour guide for an explanation and he said that about 12 monchs serve there and four of them are naked. All the trinket sellers around these three temples are rather delighted when the rare tourist shows up. They are all called „Hello my name is Johnny Maybelater“. Yes, maybe later.

3 January 2008
After a short trip to Hospet center we took a flight back to Bangalore. The same instructions on how to use the sickness bags, a short flight and back we were to the luxury of the Windsor Manor Hotel where hot chocolate is not only served on the private terrace but also sweetened and stirred for you. Eventhe toothpaste tastes after cinamon here. I keep on wondering since quite some time why both the English and the Dutch who controlled the spice world market for such a long time actually never developped a special way of cooking based on all these spices themselves.

2 January 2008
The journey continues. Today it is a visit to Hampi and Hospet. On the flight to Bellary, Deccan Airways explained amongst the usual safety instructions the use of the sickness bags. In Hampi there are the remains of an old ancient kingdom that existed until about 1550. I did not quite get the whole story due to some consistency issues although the tour guide was quite knowledgeable. Anyway, he said also that towards the end of that monarchy the Portuguese brought quite some horses as present for the king and those horses then lived there together with the elephants (when they were not fighting in a battle). The elephant stalls have been uncovered and did not need too much restoration while the barracks for the elephant guards have completely rotten. So the life of an elephant at the time was so much more important, a clear discrimination in favor of the elephants. The most interesting palace in Hampi is the musical palace. It is a palace that consists of many columns with even smaller columns around them that seem to be there for aesthetic reasons only. But in fact they are hollow and make a beautiful noise if you touch them. You can play a full concert with different tones there. Unfortunately is just in the process of being renewed so one cannot touch those columns. Hospet is particularly remarkable as there are so many pigs on the streets. The way back to the hotel was easy; we just had to turn right at the big black pig that was eating garbage in a little hole there.

1 January 2008
It is unbelievable but the Dalai Lama came today to stay overnight in the same hotel in Bangalore. Together with 12 Buddhist monks I sat for several hours just outside the hotel lobby to wait for him. In a way it was like the preparation of the last supper. Being number 13 and constantly in trouble with the ceremony master of his holiness who doubted that my photo backpack contained only photo equipment. I was seen as security risk. While waiting I found out that almost all of the monks had mobile phones and on average four out of the twelve were in a call. Furthermore the rest did not sit there contemplating or meditating but rather chatted with their peers or wrote SMSes. The one that did not have a phone had his finger in his nose most of the time. In other words they seemed to be pretty modern and human. And then he finally came. A red carpet had been rolled out, the monks and other people from the Buddhist community of Bangalore lined up and last in line the only six Europeans waited for the Dalai Lama to come by. I was so excited and then he came and really shook hands with me! For a picture of that scene, please click here!!

31 December 2007
New Years eve and a quiet day with massages and sauna in the hotel. At night during the new years eve party, H. was awarded “Best European Bollywood dancer” and won a hotel voucher in Jaipur, 2000 km to the north and therefore not very useful.

30 December 2007
Leaving Mumbai and going to Bangalore. The rumour says that since outsourcing is not en voguie any more, there is already a new verb in English namely „to bangalore“. And really, Bangalore seems to be better off than Mumbai if that can be seen as a category at all. Also here people are poor, dentists pick teeth on the street and beggers have all kins of heartbreaking physical shortcomings. The city market is a great mixture of fruits, vegetbles, colors and flowers whereby this description is by no means sufficient. The floweres are folded to long chains that are devoted in temples or used in order to decorate statues or pictures. The smell is very pleasant and not even the smell of the ubiquitous leftovers of the holy cows can kill that smell.

29 December 2007
Those of you who have seen my first self-developed pictures already know the story and will probably never believe whom I have met in Bombay by pure coincidence. In a very picturesque market hall that would deserve a description on itself all of a sudden Mr. Kahn stood in front of me. Mr. Kahn, the artist from Paris whom I took some picture of last August. Those pictures were my first ever self-developed pictures! So there he was in flesh and blood! I was not only astonished but just merely happy. What a coincidence! Some might say: Will wonders never cease? How is it possible that you meet a person in a city of 20 million that you have seen only once before in Paris? And who has nevertheless left such an impression? I just could not believe it. He has left Bombay for Paris in 1973 and was there again to visit family. But it was the first time in years that he actually went back to India!
Just a few days before Christmas I had mailed him the pictures I had taken last summer. When promising him to do so in August I felt rather stupid, explaining that it might take months for me to actually send some pictures. The reason for that was that I was just about to install my darkroom and setting everything up to get started. In today’s digital age that sounded like a cheap excuse but probably too bad to be true.

28 December 2007
A visit to Bollywood was very high up on my „must see“ list for Inida. But that is not as easy as one would imagine. What people told me about Hollywood, basically buying a ticket and then being shown around in order to see how special effect are made is not happening here. A big sign at the entrance of Film City informs all visitors that they are not allowed to get in. After intense discussions I was informed that neither the ators nor the producers want to be disturbed on the set. I could try and send a fax to the administration but no, for today that will never work out. Slightly depressed and definitely disappointed I decided to check out with the tour organisation I had heard about whether they could help out. After searching with for an Internet cafe with an uninspired taxi driver I found their site but as it was lastly updated in 2002 and the phone was dead I thought that they have probably gone bankrupt or so. Before I could go on with searching for another solution the guy next to me in the Internet cafe announced in brilliant English that there will be a server update and no Internet connection anymore. I took the chance to tell him about my wrecked plans. He said that never having seen a Bollywood movie is not an issue as you have to be brain dead anyway to suffer through a three hour performance. He was pilot for Kahthar Airways by the way. But else he said it would not be a problem at all to actually see the studios as the owner of the cafe was regularly going to the studios and could definitely bring me in. So we tried it again, this time with the owner of the cafe and his nephew – just to be thrown out again and even more harshly than before. Under a certain performance pressure the guy than propsed to go to another studio where we faced a similar tretament but after long discussions and handing over some rupies were finally sucessful. And what a reward! They produce 800 films a year in Bollywood but just at this very moment thy were shooting a prisoner`s story „Prisoner 420“. At least 150 people were dressed up as either prisoners or guards, chatting and hanging out at the set waiting for the main character to show up. They were having a really good time especially after they got some attention of unexpected visitors. I shot many, many pictures. Especially in the cantine that really looked like tghe cantine of a prison with all the prisoners eating there. I have rarely before enjoyed a meal as much as there. And of course actors had a good time as well posing for my pictures.

27 December 2007
Mumbai (Bombay) is a huge and loud city where the ubiquitous poverty is overwhelming. My first impression was most depressing, people sleeping on the streets, mostly only wrapped into a piece of cloth. They roll themselves up on the sideways where cars pass by only a few centimeters away. Their belongings fit into a single platic bag which is placed besides or behind them. Some use plastic covers to have a roof or at least the impression of a tent over their heads. But then again, it is unbelievable how poor people can be and how privilegeded we are.

21 December 2007
My mailbox is inaccessible and neither opens, nor allows for sending or receiving anymore. That seems to be the protocol of a sudden death.

20 December 2007
My mailbox started telling me (via e-mail) that I cannot longer send anything as I do not longer exist.

19 December 2007
My mailbox does not accept incoming e-mails anymore and tells the respective senders that I do not longer exist.

18 December 2007
I heard that a racing driver once said his life was a car race. In betweein races he said he was just waiting.

17 December 2007
I finally managed to take a picture of the “sandwishes” billboard!

16 December 2007
I saw a car in a garage the other day which was grey and dirty as can be. It is obviously standing there since quite some time. Someone has written into the grey dirt: “Exists also in blue”.

15 December 2007
After a few more painstaking hours in the dark room I seem to find out more and more about the art of developping pictures. I fear that really only practice makes perfect…

14 December 2007
The discovery of slowness: Despite the ubiquitous hectic times just before Christmas I discovered a person who seems to be immune. Slightly impatient I watched her for about 25 minutes wrapping one (!) gift for me…

13 December 2007
Several hours and the first one hundred sheets of photo paper later I start to see some correlations and light at the end of the tunnel.

11 December 2007
Another nice item in the collection of circular definitions: I think that everybody who has arrived is here now.

10 December 2007
A meeting today was opened by the following kind statement: “I see some new faces around the table and some very old ones.”

9 December 2007
Today was the end of the five day exhibition Selection XXI.

8 December 2007
I spent most of the day at the exhibition venue. The interaction was mostly happening between the artists and not so much between the visitors and the artists.

6 December 2007
I went again to the exhibition venue. It is really interesting to see people watching my pictures, talking intensively about them. As I did not want to move too close I didn’t not get too much of the conversation but there was “amazing”, “incredible” and “impressive” in it.

5 December 2007
The evening of the evenings: Opening of the exhibition Selection XXI in St. Gilles in Brussels. There were several hundred people present, if not one thousand. Many of them had a look at my pictures, some of them asked questions. A few asked whether it was photos or paintings. Others had questions like why this subject, why mannequins, why broken? Recognition and criticism from unknown people is interesting. One lady said that those pictures seem sad. I would say melancholic, but that is a matter of definition. The evening went smoothly, the ambience was nice. There was Champaign and finger food – everything a vernissage requires.

4 December 2007
I had to hang up the pictures for tomorrow’s vernissage early this morning. I totally underestimated the long sharp edges of the aluminum surface and only found out when I felt the blood dripping down. Nevertheless the overall impression was really nice.

3 December 2007
I spoke out and handed over the last invitations for the exhibition opening on Wednesday night.

2 December 2007
I spent again some hours with developing pictures learning a lot. I definitely need to get some practice.

1 December 2007
I guess you must spoil before you spin. With regard to picture development I seem to produce quite some junk for the time being.

30 November 2007
This is fun, just click on the following LINK.

29 November 2007
Today I got the pictures form my exhibition next week. They are mounted on aluminum, perfectly done by my favorite laboratory and in a larger size than ever before.

28 November 2007
I got the invitations for my next exhibition, Selection XXI. They look marvelous!

27 November 2007
The “sandwish” billboard (see Blog entry of June 30, 2007) is back on the street!

26. November 2007
I saw a manual in a conference room today: “The art of setting up a telephone conference.”

23 November 2007
Read in a recipe today: „… and then add half a liter of chicken soup or alternatively guardian angel soup or ginger energy soup. “

22 November 2007
I had another lesson in black and white film development.

21 November 2007
Recently there was a big initiative in Vienna requiring all dog owners to carry little bags with them to collect dog shit on the spot and help keeping the city clean. Graz is even more progressive. Today I saw a dog shit bag dispenser next to a garbage bin.

20 November 2007
Together with a friend of mine who is a great graphic designer I worked on a Broken Muses brochure.

19 November 2007
I heard a sales person in a bookshop in Vienna saying to her colleague that there is this American who regularly comes to their shop and who speaks German very well but has some charming difficulties from time to time. Recently he was very concerned and told them something that would translate like: “I am so worried. My wife will be operated on her turtle”. What he wanted to say was “… will be operated on her thyroid gland”. The words are very similar in German.

18 November 2007
I did a two hours black and white family photo shooting. Enough work for picture development till Christmas…

17 November 2007
A few dozen birthday candles on a Sacher cake are a logistic challenge as well as a source for great heat.

16 November 2007
Flying out from Brussels I sat next to a guy asked me whether we had ever met before. After a little break he added: “If that is not the case, even better, because I need an unbiased pinion. So I found myself smelling at a stranger’s wrists helping to select the ideal perfume.

15 November 2007
I was finally able to develop my first black and white picture. It is a great abstract piece of work that will potentially shape history. It is deeply black, shiny, simply great!

14 November 2007
After various major mistakes in various flight bookings a very big German airline decided to say sorry through upgrading me to business class for one of the many flights where they messed up my bookings. I had great food and great drinks but to my astonishment I was the only one who ate. It seems to be posh to refuse excellent food when you are entitled to. Is this the latest trend in the luxury segment?

12 November 2007
One of the biggest threats nowadays can be put in simple words: “Let’s have an e-mail discussion”.

11 November 2007
After all I wanted to try and develop my first picture only to find out that I had everything but paper. That must have gone lost somewhere.

10 November 2007
Somebody said that it does not make a difference whether a dark room looks nice or not. It’s main aim is supposed to be dark anyway. Well, no sense for aesthetics…

9 November 2007
The neighbor’s dog is called Nero. Whether it is called after the emperor ort he color remains open.

8 November 2007
Is there an art movement in modern art which focuses on aesthetics?

7 November 2007
Can you or do you even have to assume that modern day walking canes w