mimi dies

'Marcello she is dead' 7.57
'MIMI MIMI!' 8.54

from The Tin Drum by Günter Grass

To limit the damage, for I've always loved fine glassware, I restricted myself, when they tried to take my drum away at night, even though it belonged in bed with me, to punishing one or more light bulbs from the fourfold effort of our living-room lamp. Thus on my fourth birthday, in early September nineteen twenty-eight, I plunged the entire assembled birthday company - my parents, the Bronskis, Grandmother Koljaiczek, the Schefflers, and the Greffs, who had given me everything under the sun: tin soldiers, a sailing ship, a fire engine, but no tin drum - plunged the whole lot of them, who wanted to waste my time playing with tin soldiers, with all this fire-engine nonsense, who begrudged me my battered but trusty drum, who planned to take it away and palm off on me instead a silly little ship with the top sails set all wrong, all those with eyes only to overlook me and my wishes - plunged them all, with an expanding circular scream that slew all four light bulbs of our hanging lamp into primeval darkness.

(translated by Breon Mitchell, Vintage Books, London, 2010, page 56)

love this
favourite moment about 1.47 take me awaaaiiiiy
some great performances

makes me feel wierd for all sorts of reasons

david bennett talks about his kindheit.

happy birthday to me! this song is so dark.

from The Tin Drum by Günter Grass

This excerpt describes when Oskar and his family first discover what he can do with his voice. In the German version, Grass inventively uses a verb 'zersingen' to describe the phenomena in which Oskar shatters glass with his voice. The translator, Breon Mitchell, creates a verb for the english version: 'singshatter'.


"...they planned to take that drum away from me and replace it. A stupid piece of chocolate was offered as bait. Mama held it out, pursing her lips. It was Matzerath who reached for my crippled drum with a show of severity. I clung to a wreck. He pulled. My strength, which was barely adequate for drumming, began to fail. One red flame after another slid slowly away, the rim of the frame was about to slip from my grasp, when, for the first time, Oskar, who till that day had been deemed a quiet, almost well-behaved child, produced his first destructively effective scream: the polished round crystal that protected the honey-yellow face of the grandfather clock from dust and dying flies shattered and fell, still splintering, to the reddish-brown floorboards - for the carpet didn't quite reach to the base of the clock. The interior of the precious clock, however, was undamaged: the pendulum continued serenely - if you can say this of a pendulum - on its way, and the same for the hands. Not even the chimes, which reacted sensitively, almost hysterically, to the slightest jolt, to beer wagons rolling by on the street, gave any sign of having been impressed by my scream; only the glass gave a start, but one that startled it to bits.

'The clock is broken!' cried Matzerath, and released the drum. With a brief glance I satisfied myself that my scream had done no real damage to the clock, that only the crystal was gone. But for Matzerath, and for Mama and Uncle Jan Bronski, who was paying his usual Sunday afternoon call, more than the glass covering the clock's face seemed to have fallen to pieces. They blanched, exchanged shifting, helpless glances, reached out for the tiled stove, seized hold of piano and buffet, were afraid to stir from the spot, and Jan Bronski's dry lips moved, as he cast his eyes upward in supplication, in what I still believe today was my uncle's attempt to utter a prayer for aid and mercy, something like O Lamb of God, who taketh away the sins of the world - misere nobis. And his text three times and then one Lord I am not worthy that Thou shouldst enter under my roof, say but the word...

Of course the Lord said not a word. After all, the clock wasn't broken, just the glass. But the grown-ups have a strange and childish relationship to their clocks, childish in the sense in which I was never a child. Yet the clock may well be the grown-ups' greatest achievement. Be that as it may: to the extant that grown-ups can be creative, and with diligence, ambition, and a little luck actually are, they become creatures of their own epoch-making inventions the moment they create them.

But the clock remains nothing without the grown-up. He winds it, sets it forward or back, takes it to the clockmaker to be checked, cleaned, and if necessary repaired. Like the cry of the cuckoo that fades too soon, like overturned salt cellars, spiders in the morning, black cats from the left, the uncle's portrait that falls from the wall when the hook pulls from the plaster, just as with mirrors, grown-ups see more behind and in clocks than clocks can possibly signify.

Mama, who in spite of a few whimsical fancies was the most level-headed, even if she could be flighty at times, and always interpreted any apparent sign in her favour, found words to save the situation.

'Broken glass brings good luck!' she cried, snapping her fingers brought out dustpan and brush, and swept up the shards of good luck.

If I take my mama's words at face value, I brought my parents, my relatives, acquaintances, and even strangers plenty of good luck, for every time someone tried to take my drum, windowpanes, glasses of beer, empty beer bottles, perfume bottles redolent of spring, crystal bowls heaped with artificial fruit, in short, all glassware blown in glassworks by the glass blowers' art and sold on the market, from plain glass to art glass, were screamshattered, singshattered, shardshaterred.


(Translated by Breon Mitchell, Vintage Books, London, 2010, page 54 - 56)

Little Jimmy Scott

i'm addicted

one theory was that the wind matched the resonance of the bridge

buy your phonetics fan tshirt here!

banshee in the movies = a sonic scream in the movies.
never experienced that before.

sympathetic vibration is making me giddy.
"to unleash the forces of the universe, we have to work with sympathetic vibrations"
he used to watch the windows in church vibrate when the choir sang. thats how it all started.

or listen to this post.

"Welcome back John Ernst Worrell Keely"

whats with the parrots? nice juxtaposition.

i am singing into this drum...

love the phantom. sometimes people say i look like the phantom with my mask.

i first learnt about the possibilities of vocal power from my first and loveliest singing teacher who said that caruso cracked the crystal in the chandelier with his high es. i used to be a boy soprano and she would teach me and her little dogs would bark at her feet and lots of birds in and out of cages would tweet along with the lessons from outside by the pool. that was runaway bay in the 90s but i am not a boy soprano anymore.

TANGOWERK by NHOAH - Dancing On The Volcano - NHOAH feat. Headvoice (Short Version) from TANGOWERK by NHOAH on Vimeo.

headvoice sings dancing on the volcano in tangowerk by nhoah.

invisible becomes visible

excuse me but what are you lookin at?
foto by york wegerhoff

dreaming

kazoo

so much passion

dada in the dinosaur in gdᾹnsk

when dada went inside that dinosaur i didnt know what to expect
but i ended up learning something about myself
cause we both screamed

oh what but to think or do

OH! ALMIGHTY power
WHAT A FEELING IS A COME UPON ME
FOR I AM HERE AMONGST THE HUMANS
AND OH
OH
OH
WHAT BUT TO THINK OR DO OR WHAT
BUT TO BE AMONGST THE HUMANS
for to but there to be
for to but there to be
for to but there to be
with the seeings
with the beeings of my home planet
to be normal amongst mine

TOMORROW I SHALL BE AT DINNER
TOMORROW I SHALL SPEAK AND SAY THE THINGS
THAT I WISH
AND I WILL BLINK AND CATCH A GLIMPSE
OF THIS OTHER PLACE
ONLY VERY MOMENTARILY
AND ALL WILL OVERWHELM ME IN ITS fLUCKINESS
BUT STILL

I HAVE TO DO THIS
I HAVE TO DO THIS