a vancouver rain-day...

I don't remember when I last spent a day like this but I know when I've last seen one and already then would soo have preferred to join in.... falling asleep at 5.30 in the morning ... waking up at 9.30 but being saturday, figured no harm done in 'forcing' myself to more sleep ... up at lunchtime which automatically was interpreted as reason enough for a really large breakfast, accompanied by more episodes of my lattest obsession - then some more TV on the side of sports, then the briefest of moments filled with more apartment sprucing up ideas for the class-social-meeting here next week - but after a selection of posters to be put up I realized I don't have (enough) appropriate tape to be gentle to my work-intensive-walls thus project postponed for a few more episodes, later more tv over cooking potatoes and cleaning up the kitchen where in lieu of a dishwasher and due to only little cooking over the week (as there was not much more than breakfast food here until thursday night anyway) dishes had piled up since my red-wine-makes-blue-stains-on-the-kitchen-wall-risotto last monday. Then fried potatoes with green beens and tv for dinner and one more episode for a dessert of kiwi and yoghurt. Due to the amount of food some more evening sports alongside more TV. And now I am thinking to go to bed, but as my laptop is already here and my current reading material not at my bedside but in my bag by the door, I might chose TV over literature for night-entertainment....
With a non-day of such proportions, I am earnestly planning on 2 judith butler texts tomorrow, some laundry and I have to do some more grocery shopping, my fridge thinks, and might while being at it also look for power-strips for decorations and band-aids for my feet because last night I wore my new SF-bright-red sneakers about which it was already suggested to slowly break them in.... well the blisters I have probably once again prove that listening to friends and being less pig-headed could have advantages...
and then in the afternoon an abstracting meeting with classmates, I hope

another thursday exhaustion...

another thursday and the two hours in between are always too little... in the morning 10-12 visiting lecture in our american exceptionalism class by Prof. Ostendorf on Multiculturalism with actually really interesting insights - though most of them only really clarified / i.e. really revealed his position in the private meeting afterwards. then - due to that meeting - only 1 hour lunch break which to get soup at the american bagel shop around the corner is hardly enough because the really nice guy working there is even and considerably slower than the Hollerbusch in MQ was or any other bio-place - which seems to have slow movements in their job-descriptions - could ever be...
then the Fluck seminar which catapulted me right back to the beginning of the semester with the difference that by now I don't seem to care anymore to embarrass myself... because Fluck asked on our perception of the Don Pease text we read in terms or the state of exception and transnationalism and from his question it was clear we had a rather different reading experience. Which I voiced ... basically by introducing my interpretation and follow up questions with "We are talking about the essay on his take on Planetary Literature .. right??!?" But Fluck being patient as he is, let me stutter through my objections of the text before politely pointing out the many wrong taken turns in my reading and in the discussion gave a nice reading and then interpretation. And then we ended with the Lacan and Castoriadis positions on the imaginary and it was someone else's turn to make half an ass out of themselves... but in the end we left with rather enlightened ideas about concepts of the imaginary... we did not connect that (I mean Fluck did, but not apparent to me / us) connect that to the overall theme of the semester in which it very logically fits and adds to according to today's opening statement. But the great thing is, he is going to give an even better comprehensive summary at the beginning of next class and until then we also had time to think more and eventually it all makes sense ... at least as long as I listen... once I start to try and reproduce or apply things, I am still more than lost ... who would have thought identity issues could be so complicated and all our attempts to shed the discussion requesting more pressing questions we are forced to admit that all theoretical questions burn down to this key issue in some form or another....
then two hours for post-seminar-discussions with peers, and 3 conference organization meetings before the evening colloquium on Transgendered America ... which was interesting both in terms of the argument but even more in terms of the (rather bad) performance of the speaker in the Q&A ... because while - contrary to the scholars present - I and a colleague were willing to buy his argument, we would have argued and countered totally different ...
on the way home finally some grocery shopping... I love opening hours till 10 pm daily (incl. Sunday) ... so no more breakfast food for dinner as happend these past days with only fruit, jam, butter and one still untouched carrot in the fridge...

filmtermin in wien

am 1. Feb um 13 uhr unbedingt wohlfühlkino einplanen - der neue SRK Schnulzinger *cho chweet* kommt im Filmcasino: Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi! Go watch!

on absence...

How do we deal with absence? If one of us leaves, is he or she the one responsible to stay in contact, meaning personal one to one contact or is that a mutual responsibility? Is it easier for the one gone into a new life to deal with absence as the void is less visible or is leaving not also isolation oneself? And once you have become used to an absence and it continues to be felt only in nostalgia of how it once used to be but is not an actual emptiness in everyday life, can you reestablish contact? And can it feel natural or is it forced? Should you force yourself and/or another into it because you once felt so perfect together and could not fathom being alone, if the continued exchange is not happening by itself out of a shared need? Do some relationships only have meaning in close proximity and is this a bad thing? Is it not also natural and can it not also mean that even while you might be out of one another's life, if and when you meet up again it feels as if none of you had ever left? Are we not just trained to mourn absence and conditioned to think in our narcism that everyone who does not care for us daily AND lets us know that she or he does, is not a part of us or our life anymore? In times of despair one usually realizes the many wonderful people out there ready to catch you.

Radical Imaginary

Can anyone please explain Castoriadis' idea of the radical imaginary to me - and in a more down to earth and graspable way than Wolfgan Iser did? Just spent an hour reading that chapter and have absolutely no clue what I read and what either Iser or Castoriadis possibly mean...

An Oscar for Amitabh Bachchan

On New Year's Day in San Francisco I was fortunate enough to see Slumdog Millionaire with Carola. And although there was an annoying couple sitting beside us ... she was heavily pregnant and very indignant towards any noise producing form of utterance including laughs and breathing, let alone whispered comments ... and I suspect that even our restricting ourselves to the 'vah re vah' gesture of appreciation did not sit with her too well ... and then again, apart from the fact that the dialogues were in Hindi which she likely did not understand and had to be satisfied with whatever the subtitles offered, she missed a lot of the movie anyway - about 4-7 levels of meaning - due to her not being well-versed in Hindi film culture. But enough of voicing my still lingering annoyance - the more important thing is: Go Watch That Movie!!
It is really great film, as even the Western and more specifically US film fraternity has in the meantime acknowledged. The movie received, I think, four Golden Globes - one for the terrific music by A. R. Rahman, a much deserved acknowledgement of his genius - several Critics Choice Awards, the Screen Actor's Guild Award, the Producer's Award and is currently nominated for 10 Academy Awards. The director, of course is not Indian, but then again, that gives the movie the option to run in the main categories in the first place. It is also currently in the top 5. And if you watch it, let me tell you, that the most appalling scene in the first half is shot on real location, but the substance is peanut butter and chocolate....
However, my real point is that if this movie should get an Oscar, it is actually an award for Amitabh Bachchans lifetime achievements. I admit, I still have to read the novel on which it is based, but the filmic adaptation is very much a homage to the veteran and still very active megastar in Hindi movies. He is not only evoked on screen as the super hero of the slum kids, and as the host of the first season of the Indian version of 'Who Wants To Be A Millionaire' - 'Kaun Banega Crorepati' (the second season, by the way, was hosted by SRK) but the whole movie setup was also very much a reliving of the 1970s and 1980s movies he made so famous - the 'Angry Young Man' movies, full on with redemption of the 'good at heart but crook by circumstances character' just before he dies to save the really good guy who then gets reunited with his love interest. If this sounds cheesy, it is only due to the one-line-summary. Go watch the movie and then go home and watch Sholay, or Zanjeer, or Coolie ...
Slumdog Millionaire is of course also a very contemporary movie - and please take note of the terrific police inspector played by Irrfan Khan (who will come to the screens in February again as Billu Barber with SRK) ... he is one of Indias currently best Charakterdarsteller! I have yet to see a bad performance by him.
So you go watch, I get the novel, then watch the film again and should I ever find the time these coming month will look into the option of refining my above claim into an essay for the Journal of South Asian Popular Culture ... and we all know that this will never happen.... because, writing blogs like this, is also just one way of my not really favorite but definitely dominant form of time pass: procrastination

Dreifache Kanalreinigung

Ich war gestern beim weltbesten Zahnarzt ... und das will was heißen, weil ich war eigentlich schon in wien bei der weltbesten und verständnisvollsten Zahnärztin gewesen .... nicht nur dass der typ all meine spombanadln ertrug ... er begrüßte mich mit den worten: Sie sehen eh ganz entspannt aus. Worauf ich: Naja, ich hatte mir nälmich überlegt, dass sie mich ja eigentlich gar nicht brauchen, oder? Er etwas verdutzt: Naja... ich: also ich mein ich hab ja eh nix zu sagen bei der geplanten aktion also dachte ich ich mach einfach nur den mund weit auf und hör laute musik und lass sie machen. Er: Ach so meinen Sie, ja solange sie da bleiben während ich ihren Zahn operiere geht das in Ordnung
und hat dann super in zeichensprache mit mir kommuniziert, obowhl ich den mp3 player nachdem er fertig gebohrt hatte, längst ausgeschaltet hatte - war süss
Und dann hat er mir drei Zahnkanäle gereinigt und von totem nerven und zeugsmaterial (das da seit so einem jahr immer wieder ein Fisterl macht und füllt und leert und kreislauf und ekelig...) gereinigt und jetzt mit medizin gefüllt und zugemacht und in 3 wochen nochmal. Aber sowas von ohne schmerzen und fast schon lustig, dass ich tatsächlich noch meine Zahnarztabneigung verlieren könnte.... wenn das mal nicht zu einem muster wird und ich im neuen leben hier bis Ablauf der 3 jahre plötzlich einen Hansi-Kanarienvogel hüte...

read and watch-ed

As I did not leave the house again for all of the weekend (except to get canned tuna I could open without a can opener...) nothing happened worth telling ... not even my new things lists get miraculously done by themselves... but need to finally tell you about a GREAT book I read in SF ... and about a movie I saw on Friday night because of course I still hit every BW-movies that makes it to the big screen here and thanks Ganesha-ji there are a lot more here than in Vienna...
So the book is Madras on Rainy Days by a new literary voice: Samina Ali. One of the very few books that not only made me halt for especially beautiful sentences or intense scenes but almost even made me choke on suppressed tears - and for those of you who don't know me - I hardly ever cry in movies or literature (few noticable exceptions: almost tears at the end of Kal Ho Na Ho, real tears / sobbing / choking at the end of the first viewing of Waqt and the end of Francis Itani's novel Deafening)
The story itself is fascinating (yes I am back on Ali's debut novel) as it is about a traditionally brought up Muslim Southern Indian Girl - though brought up in the USA and in India - never feeling to really belong and suffering from her father's betrayal of her mother (=divorce and remarriage). After some resistance the heroine enters an arranged marriage (but bleeding from a self-effected and not totally successful abortion) - and starts for the first time feeling welcome and belonging in a family. That, of course, is not to last, but the emotional outpours and twists of the story are fascinating to read along, the shaping of the protagonist's opinions and especially the language. After a long time again a book I found hard to put away ... and my brief plot outline here does not even faintly approach doing justice to the text! Sorry for that, broken down to 3 lines it sounds sensationalist and bland - it is not! And even the exoticization in it is not insufferable...
And, last Friday at Potsdamer Platz I watched Chandni Chowk to China. Of course, a rather silly action film, but very much playing with this silliness and thus it really did work for me. Not a must see again, but a nice time pass and the way some critics slaughtered the film is just not justified, as they did not take the metatextual elements into consideration and intertextual play at work. And I find myself increasingly taken by Akshay Kumar's performances. So I will have to get my old hard-disk to work again as it would hold many of his old gems like the Khiladi movies...
Oh and I called my family this morning who inquired whether I still blog - meaning they still never looked at it - and also ignored me for about a third of the phone call for other discussions amongst themselves ... should I feel as if not cared for??? But as I was calling them already, I also got asked - in the usual by the way fashion - whether I would like to be the godmother for the confirmation of my beloved and already godchild Anna - which I am delighted to do ... although I am not sure whether the Catholic Church will be just as delighted ...

academic adrenalin

Of course I only managed about 1 page and a bit .... but almost finished the article in the subway this morning ... not without ramming my elbow into someone's head and almost stabbing another with my pencil. And then had an exciting discussion and many arguments flying for 2 hours of academic exchange - and not as we had feared yesterday, about whether history could ever be objective - as this impossibility is by now well established anyway so it was more on moral and ideological aspects of writing in general - of academic investigations and how or what can make them wrong (while, of course, there is no right) ... sounds all very banal if broken down here now, but the discussions, examples and arguments / counterarguments were really great fun and some even thought provoking and multi-disciplinary and all.
Still on my summer school application.... *stöhn*

post-midnights

Irgendwie grad immer bis 2 uhr morgens wach und nach mitternacht mal wieder am produktivsten .. also außer ich beginne an meinem lese-pensum zu arbeiten das nicht fiction betrifft, dann natürlich weiterhin höchstens 10 seiten, meistens eher nur in der gegend von 1-2 absätzen. Sollte aber heute noch meinen CV überarbeiten und ein Abstract erfinden für eine Summer School Application in Dartmouth College, Hanover
Will da hin, von uns 15 dürfen aber nur 2 (bzw bekommen es nur 2 bezahlt und für selber zahlen zu teuer)
Außerdem hab ich noch besagte 10 Seiten zu einem Essay / Chapter von Zinn zu radical history vor mir, die ich aber ev. schaffe, weil mich der aufsatz eher disturbed oder gar aufregt ob seines vorschlags zur geschichtsschreibung als moralisierende oder sogar bewusst ideologische. Gut er geht zwar von der nachvollziehbaren bzw. unterstreichbaren premisse aus, dass man ohnehin nicht ohne 'message' schreiben könne, schon gar nicht geschichte, aber er geht eben über den üblichen subjektivitätsansatz des sich bewusstseins hinaus und verlangt eine 'idea of writing history in such a way as to extend human sensibilities' und während er das auch wirklich gut meint, also Geschichte so zu schreiben, dass es der Verbesserung der Welt dient, ist dies doch eine gefährliche Grundlage, die mehr oder weniger ideologienverbreitung verlangt. Sprich, auch wenn ich mit seinen einstellungen was eine bessere welt wäre (ob unseres eher gemeinsamen kulturellen hintergrunds) deutlich d'accord gehe, so hab ich doch ein massives problem mit seinem geforderten Zugang zur Geschichtsschreibung per se.
Also mal sehen ob ich die 10 Seiten noch schaffe... zuerst mal an CV und den noch sehr mühsamen Abstract, weil ich keine wirklich klare Idee habe was ich machen will und wie ich Transkulturalität so sehe...

twittering

got signed up on twitter yesterday and added my twittering to the side-bar ... so much for productive procrastination. did a bit of conference-orga-stuff and am putting off writing an important abstract and application for a great summer school to be handed in tomorrow ... and still much reading to do

therapie am dach

loving tuesdays! Because on Tuesday we have class until 2 in the philosophy building (i.e. NIG) which also houses the large and not bad mensa ... thus some of us afterwards have lunch together which is always very very nice and then coffee at the PI cafe on the top floor. And today Azadeh totally freaked out because there was a dog and everyone started to tell her that he is a good harmless cutie - will ja nur spielen - or not even that much, but she still kept getting more panicky and all and I rescued her because i sooo know that feeling from my little bird-issue.... so we escaped onto the roof (an move appreciated esp. by the smokers in the group) and there I defended Azadeh and of course started relating my little birdy-issues and the pigeon incident of last April when I ended up shivering and all teary clutching a cup of tea and no coat at 11 pm in front of our house.... triggering, I suppose, all sorts of abused-woman-ideas in passers by and breaking down when the waitresses from the cafe asked what had happened and between sobs I coughed 'there ... is a... bird in ... my room....' Stefan then bravely (and delivered by sports car) came to the rescue, of course!
Anyway, I think people from my class are slowly starting to 'get me' - i.e. get the idea that I might possibly be a tiny bit weird ... maybe I should for once start talking about myself a little less and keep some of those stories for later times ...
And again no Literature Seminar this week - although my own paper would have been discussed tomorrow - as not only members of the group but also the teacher is ill .... better for me because this way I hope Yuliya will also be there next week and give her input which I am very much looking forward to.
thus just more reading time for Thursday which will likely bring a boring class on American Exceptionalism - at least if I judge by the bits i read so far - we will talk about the 'objectivity' and 'memory' of 'history' which is fine but was already to some extend covered last week ... and identity questions (Hall, Butler, Fluck) for the culture class which I hope will again prove to be very dense and interesting ... but unfortunately two of the texts are not yet available... so I will either have to read them from screen or go some place for the printing tomorrow as i will not be in the Villa.... oh poor me, so much difficulties ;) I love it when life's biggest problem is the immediate access to free printing...
Although ... the front tire of my bike is airless - AGAIN - the third time in a month (2 weeks of which the bike was in the shop over christmas break) and always in the morning, i.e. in front of the house - thus I start getting paranoid and suspecting one of my neighbors of sabotaging it ... I will pump it up again, if the air fails again, will check the tire myself for possibly some hidden spike that is in the outer part and ruining any new tube I had put in and will store the bike in the back yard. If the pattern continues, I suppose I will then have to choose a different path of action...

procrastination rocks!

at least if you still manage to get things done....
(and as apparently my family is not interested in this blog - not to think my life ;)) I can as well indulge in some code-switching - especially as I have no off-screen social contacts to speak of since the Telekom Techniker left my bedroom Friday afternoon and thus all my language input (no output to speak of) over the last days was English and Hindi - lucky yous that I decided on English today ...
So I procrastinated quite effectively this weekend with a load of bolly-sports, really good progress on watching two seasons of 'men in trees' for the second time, I successfully finished the second season of 'pushing daisies' as well as 'Andaaz' (oh kitne pyaari hai), 'Accidental Husband' and am half-way through 'Jaan' - an early Ajay Devgan (snoopy-vulture-face to Christina) with all the ingredients of an action-romance of the Mid-1990s Hindi film industry - delightful (especially the incredible amount of inconsistencies and weird jumps in story line).
BUT I also managed to finally hand in my paper for the conference proceedings of a conference I attended in Graz (in April) ... shame really, the original deadline was Sep. 1, moved to Oct 15 ignored till Nov 20, after a rather brief involvment forgotten again with my head bowed in shame until Christmas greetings and a final extension to Jan 10 arrived and thus the paper was sent on Jan 11 at 11 am ... thus only 4 month, 10 days and especially 11 hours late... How will I ever mend my procrastinating ways if people are so nice to me and let me get by with it....
And I wrote a few long e-mails, sent a rather too long and not well structured dissertation outline to my seminar group for discussion on Wednesday, did grocery shopping on Sunday (I just love the Edeka on Südkreuz for their 9-22 / 7 days a week opening hours) love the sunny winter days (from the other side of the window, that is) and my bedroom as I wake up looking into the rising sun (or sometimes the first faint red light on the horizon to tell me to stay in bed for another couple of hours ...
Oh and before anyone gets cheesy ideas about the Telekom Techniker - he brought filth, yes, but only on his shoes onto my new floor and he used dirty language but only because he could not get my line to work properly for more than an hour which resulted in several repeated work routines at the ports on the street, in the back yard and in my apartment - i.e. he had to climb the three flights of stairs again and again and whatever he did did not work properly and once we had it all set up and it worked the guys from the central office told him that the line we were using shows the danger of interference and thus sub-optimal performance especially for my internet connection was to be expected - and there he went again... cursing... and as the phone plug is on the wall in my bedroom and I set up all the routers and stuff there, I admit, I had a man in my bedroom. And my phone is working.

back home

Zurück in Berlin und heimkommen fühlt sich sehr gut an ...
San Francisco war noch genial - am letzten Abend am Pazifik gestanden und in die untergegangene Sonne am Horizont geschaut inmitten von Sanddünen und dann völlig erschöpft zufällig im Castro Theater im Gay Viertel gelandet zu einem double feature - zuerst Breakfast at Tiffany's und dann noch ein Peter Sellers als Inspektor Clouseau... aber Breakfast war das eigentlich geniale - Audrey auf Großleinwand im wahrscheinlich architektonisch genialsten Kino in dem ich je war... und es gab eine life Orgel mit genialem Organisten vor und zwischen den Filmen ... unglaublich und unglaubliche Stimmung ... ein MUST!!!
Und heute erkannt, dass ich in der feiertagstechnisch schlechtesten Gegend gelandet bin - heiße 9 Feiertage im Jahr (im Vgl in Bayern 13 und in Wien mit Landesfeiertagen gar 17!!) Also heute Uni und kein Feiertag und es fühlte sich etwas weird an - gestern noch in San Francisco und heute wieder Berlin...
Aber kein Jetlag glaub ich, da völlig übermüdet erst um 22.30 ins Bett gestern und heute um halb 9 normal aufgestanden... und hab ja sehr viel und schon früh Morgensonne im Schlafzimmer... Vielleicht brauch ich doch noch mal Vorhänge im Sommer
Und Akhtar, unser Klassenkollege aus Bangladesh hat sich über Weihnachten verlobt in London... sehr lustig und süss - vor allem fast traditionell, also so halb-arrangierte Hochzeit und er wird schon in den nächsten Ferien heiraten, also im März. Bohut Mubarak und eben sehr witzig - also halt für mich, weil genauso wie immer in meiner Diss-Primärliteratur

don't forget to put some flowers in your hair....

ein monat fast - und was für eines ... die letzten wochen im dezember waren dann nur noch stress-renovierung (und ich habs JUBEL!!! geschafft 4 nächte vor Weihnachten schon in MEINER Wohnung zu verbringen und an den letzten beiden war dann sogar das Badezimmer schon benutzbar.... wobei trotzdem stefan jetzt schon mehr dort gewohnt hat als ich, da er zu einem Kongress in Berlin war...)
Ich aber very merry merry merry christmas bei Muttern in Oberösterreich... aber auch dort 2 tage zu spät aufgeschlagen und dann nur 3 Tage weil am 25. frühmorgens mit dem Zug nach München und dann ab ins Flugzeug und direkt nach San Francisco!!!!
und dort nach 2 Tagen sehr netter Konferenz und einem kurzen Blick auf aber nicht attendence of MLA riesen mega extrem Konferenz (sprich nächstes Jahr in Philly bin ich dann dort auch) jedenfalls dann endlich endlich (und mit einer Nacht Verspätung wegen der arroganten selbstgefälligen US-Immigration (sprich Air Canada gilt bei Ankunft hier als Inlandsflug - was aber einfach nur heißt, dass die das canadian territory einfach auch als ihr eigen betrachten (Siehe eine Telefonwerbung mit supergünstigen national tarifen "including Canada and Puerto Rico") - jedenfalls is die Immigration schon in Toronto am Airport und so musste Carola dort schon in die USA einreisen - aber die haben sich dafür genau so viel zeit gelassen dass sie ihren Anschlussflug versäumte und die Nacht dort verbringen musste und eben gleich wieder nach Canada einreisen und am nächsten Tag wieder ausreisen.... jedenfalls aber ist sie da und wir erobern San Francisco gemeinsam und geniales Sylvester.
Und heute schon der letzte Tag hier - morgen dann 12 Stunden Flug mit 9 h Zeitverschiebung - also sozusagen 21 Stunden unterwegs - dafür hab ich nach SF nur 3 gebraucht - fair is fair.