notice nr. 2 from fb

no one threw eggs on me

Mittwoch, 29. April 2009 um 08:20

 

The plan for last tonight looked like this: we go out with friends and watch a Champions League match in a bar with some friends. Suddenly I got sick (and, no, haven’t met anyone from Mexico recently), so I had to ditch Admir & co. for staying in bed tonight… and suddenly the urge to write came…This one I could name:

“How to Play Truant at Work”

And the story goes like this: Last Friday arrived and being super tired from four previous unexciting days, I decided to break my rule. For my lunch break, instead of eternal question: “Indian or Italian?”, I went for some food – for soul! As an appetizer, I went for Maison Martin Margiela and main meal – William Eggleston. (Those in Munich or art-junkies might know that I am talking about latest exhibitions in Haus der Kunst.)

William Eggleston’s photos really amazed me. There is so much color, so much democracy in choosing the motives and all of them in the end equally interested. I just loved those with Elvis’ living room or shower cabin or endless shoots from American South… this is really what fascinates: a country as the United States, which is dictating world trends (in anything?) to be so retrograded and contradictive inside. I warmly recommend! Margiela’s show was nothing new to me. Avantgarde and anonymity are the words that describe the design and, as a proud owner of one of his art pieces (my boots), I have almost fainted when I saw them there as an exhibit. Two pics as a preview I am attaching below…
(To interrupt a bit this serenade to visual art, I have to remind you that I listen in the moment to Lady GaGa and Arctic Monkeys when I go for a run … nothing haute-couture about that :))

I will end this story with a great movie that we have watched last week at home. As fans of Arte (German-French channel), we have booked Monday evening to watch Kramer vs. Kramer. For those who haven’t heard about it, a movie from 1979, which got several Oscars and have Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep in the main roles. It is such a refreshment to watch nowadays a movie made in 70s or 80s, a movie without special effects and airbrushing, where the point was – to act. I watched this story when I was about 6 and remember me being somewhat puzzled with the drama between two adults. (Wife leaves a husband and a son.) I can’t explain those feelings now, but that tells me how in each of us, children, there was always this need for family, parents to care for each other, and I think that was a reason why this movie, normally not appropriate for children, stayed in my memory for so long.

This time puzzled me another thing: Dustin Hoffmans’ character, an extremely successful graphic designer in Manhattan, is having an secretary and an office – without computer!!! Laptop!!! Mobile phone!!! What you see is a huge pile of papers on his desk and him, in the next scene, looking for a next job in classifieds, circling the adds (no Monster!!!), while a headhunter looks for available jobs browsing his folders in a paper-box. Now this is what I call good old days.

william eggleston untitled, 1965–68 and 1972–74, from Los Alamos, 2003 private collection

Sunnies by Maison Martin Margiela: The effect is to look like anonymous people from the newspapers, with a black bar over their eyes.

Kramer vs. Kramer

one of the first scenes