Drat

Ok, I had this weird idea about interrelatedness and women in politics.

See, there is this Dutch party I always vote for (except with local elections), and, almost four years ago, I voted for this lady who was talked about as being destined to become the new leader of the party in time. Today, precisely such a person was chosen, but IT WASN'T HER!

She was one of the two main candidates, but she did not get the majority of the votes. Some guy won who is our current minister of state (kingdom) affairs.
There is another lady who is talked about as being destined to become the new leader of the party, and I fear now that she will be voted away as well (course, this is a totally irrational fear and the two situations are completely different).

I hope it's not prophetic. I want the witch to reign.

June

In praise of this month, as we have so many sweet roses at home, which by the way are a pain to deadhead, taken from the country diary of an Edwardian lady as one of her entries for June.

'For the Rose, ho, the Rose! is the eye of the flowers,
Is the blush of the meadows that feel themselves fair,
Is the lightning of beauty that strikes through the bowers,
On pale lovers who sit in the glow unaware.
Ho, the Rose breathes of love! Ho, the Rose lifts the cup
To the red lips of Cypris invoked for a guest!
Ho, the Rose, having curled its sweet leaves for the world,
Takes delight in the motion its petals keep up,
As they laugh to the wind as it laughs from the west!'

E.B.B. Trans. from Sappho

(E.B.B. stands for Elizabeth Barrett Browning)

The apocalyptic muses

Is it prophetic? Should I just give up trying? Why do all the pictures I try to take of this fleeting spirit fail? And after all that noisy clicking, just a bunch of gray blurs. I'm very upset by this all. I guess I shall have to see them again. One day I will succeed. And I still want to be in a picture with David Michael anyways.
The Berlin show we saw was very superterrestrial. Cheeky Julie looked like she lost some weight in her black dress, Simon Finn like he was a drunk junkie (Jerusalem was Whaaaaaaaa!! again). The first leaving was a classic One by One, with Maja first to last and Baby Dee on harp ending. The encore was a lovely Coal Black Smith, which is a really nice skipping song, we found out afterwards. Then there was just really long and loud applause, with lots of people already leaving. It must have been some ten, fifteen minutes till David came back with Maja. He said something about him having banged his head against a wall for some 20+ years and now being very impressed to discover that we had been there alongside him, banging our heads just as hard. So he thanked us for sharing this Patripasianistic Gnostic Apocalyptic Dark Dream vision with him. And he sang another Soft Black Stars song afterwards. Amazing ending!

Berlin, an impression

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I'm not interested in the workings of foreign toilets, but there were some peculiar things I noticed about German culture whilst being in Berlin for two weeks.

- Punks. They still exist. In fact, the streets are literally crowded with them, sitting around with their dogs. They're kinda like Torontonian bums, except they're younger; not all of them are that homeless; they usually stay in larger groups; and they're punk.

- Brunch. German's do the whole Sunday brunch thing as well. Except that their idea of a brunch consists of an all-you-can-eat buffet. This I think is a generally bad idea, for this way you eat way too much to get your money's worth (although you only need one meal a day).

-- Party! Some German's have good taste. There is a big market for Gothic music in Germany, for example. However, unfortunately, there's also too much techno. And the places where they play this shit are illegal parties in dilapidated basements. So yes, that wasn't the best thing ever. Also, the German's have this weird social custom of hitting the bottom of their beer bottles together every other second as a nonverbal way of saying cheers with every sip they take. Otherwise, they like getting drunk on (tiny) bottles of Jagenmeister. They think it's common courtesy to walk around drinking bottles of booze on the subways, and to leave them in the streets for the bums to pick up. They know how to party though, as shown by the Karneval der Kulturen, a funny parade. Two silly chickenguys thought it a good idea to worship me, the Hare Krishna's gave us sweet food with nuts, a guy almost died laughing because I gave him back a flyer I had gotten from someone else (there were too many pretty girls handing out flyers) when he tried to hand me one, so I thought I was rid of that piece of paper, when this clown came by handing out the same flyer and when I refused to take it he proceeded to hang on to my leg begging me to 'please take it' and wouldn't go away till I did. Some people thought I was a German student apparently, for they handed me a flyer about going abroad for a year. I just did that people! Anyways, it was fun, and then we had some Absinthe! (thank you, long haired roommate of Ze Wise One!) It was lovely. I think I have been an addict all my life but didn't know until I had my first glass.....