Peter Gabriel, Waldbühne Berlin
Peter Gabriel, Waldbühne Berlin
Finished reading: Hard Land by Benedict Wells 📚
On Richard’s grave are colourful flowers and large oversized chess pieces: a white pawn, a black knight and a white rook. Today I visited it for the first time after the funeral. The church clock showed eleven o’clock. The play-off match for the World Championship had just begun in Kazakhstan. The first World Chess Championship he could not watch. Richard was the best chess spectator imaginable. I don’t know if he would have liked the result. I will never know.
I have set up my job in such a way that I can master it. Age-appropriate, suffering-appropriate. I’m fast enough in my head. And then a crawler excavator comes along and piles up a mountain of work so high that I can no longer see over it. Five weeks to go, hardly any time left.
In the pedestrian zone in front of the coffee bar, a man had set up a chessboard. When he saw my curious and astonished look, he invited me to play a game. But I play pretty well, I said, and he replied that at least he would learn something. He was new in town and wanted to finish his doctorate in mathematics here. I asked what the topic was. I can no longer reproduce his answer even now, a few hours after our chess game. Something about geometric symmetries in higher-dimensional space. He explained it to me, and it could just as well have been a fairy tale as a scientific topic. When something is beyond our imagination, it is a miracle and reality at the same time.
Two and a half hours on the autobahn to Berlin to play a game of chess for two and a half hours and later drive home again for two and a half hours. That’s also a way to spend a Sunday. Anyway, my game ended in a draw and so my peace of mind is secured for this time.
Written communication is highly prone to misunderstandings. This is all the more true when it is conducted publicly. That alone speaks against a blog with a comment function. Watching the cracks in the ice all the time.
[Thoughts while cleaning up a database]
Finished reading: Das Schlossgespinst by Hans-Henner Hess 📚
Finished reading: Auf See by Theresia Enzensberger 📚
Finished reading: Lektionen by Ian McEwan 📚
Finished reading: Ein Sommer in Niendorf by Heinz Strunk 📚
In my mind I can always travel to the coastal forest on Bornholm.
Finished reading: Die letzte Kosmonautin by Brandon Q. Morris 📚
This is the most exhausting time in a long time, at least as far as I can remember.
Finished reading: Red Pill: Roman by Hari Kunzru 📚
A few years ago, with a lot of effort, I got out of the habit of making my mood dependent on the results of a football team, and I have to be careful to keep it that way.
Back from a week’s holiday on Bornholm, which was wonderful as always. There is nothing to see, and even that we had already looked at on our last visits to the island. No destinations, just cycling, cooking, reading and swimming. Absolute silence and total darkness at night. Now I have no desire at all to return to everyday life and feel the need to sleep for another week.
Finished reading: Der letzte echte Kuss by James Crumley 📚
Finished reading: Zwischen zwei Sternen by Becky Chambers 📚
Finished reading: Der Rote Diamant by Thomas Hürlimann 📚
Lomma, Lund, Lomography
The neighbours clear the pavement of weeds with a gas burner. We burn gas and produce carbon dioxide to destroy plants that store carbon dioxide. It has been 30 degrees Celsius outside for a week now. The pavement is spotless again. This world is crazy.
Finished reading: Ein Junge und sein Hund by Harlan Ellison 📚
Finished reading: Der lange Weg zu einem kleinen zornigen Planeten by Becky Chambers 📚
Summer continues to be relentlessly muggy, but the days are getting noticeably shorter, indicating that the heat will eventually come to an end this year too.