certhas

So.... another weekend wasted with doing nothing. This is becoming somewhat of a habit, I really need to get around to learn french.
Then again, you didn't come to the journal of a theoretical physicist for the action right?

A while ago a friend introduced me to the works of Penderecki via the Requiem and I have finally gotten around to listen to his music more in depth. In particular I have been listening over and over again to his Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima. This is a ten minute epiphany of the absolutness inherent in this event. It is quite frankly incredible. Devastating. By the time you have reached the end of this piece you have gazed into a nothingness the like of which Jean Paul never fathomed. And then you emerge to the thrill of being alive, the return to existence from this depths is brutal and exhilerating. The sole thing that redeems you being your very humanity, the mere fact of human existence.

Then work your way up to the Requiem.

I have also been listening to Boney M. ma ma ma ma Ma Baker!!!!

Then there's the poetry. I have just discovered Ingeborg Bachmann for me, and right now I consider her to be perhaps the greates German poet. All the control of language that Celan exhibits brought down to bear upon reality.

Unfortunately utterly intranslatable, but for the benefit of the German audience my current favorite is posted below.
(you can listen to Bachmann reading this poem here: http://www.gedichte.vu/die_gestundete_zeit.html another fantstic one here: http://www.gedichte.vu/dunkles_zu_sagen.html )
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Die gestundete Zeit

Es kommen hrtere Tage.
Die auf Widerruf gestundete Zeit
wird sichtbar am Horizont.
Bald mut du den Schuh schnren
und die Hunde zurckjagen in die Marschhfe.
Denn die Eingeweide der Fische
sind kalt geworden im Wind.
rmlich brennt das Licht der Lupinen.
Dein Blick spurt im Nebel:
die auf Widerruf gestundete Zeit
wird sichtbar am Horizont.

Drben versinkt dir die Geliebte im Sand,
er steigt um ihr wehendes Haar,
er fllt ihr ins Wort,
er befiehlt ihr zu schweigen,
er findet sie sterblich
und willig dem Abschied
nach jeder Umarmung.

Sieh dich nicht um.
Schnr deinen Schuh.
Jag die Hunde zurck.
Wirf die Fische ins Meer.
Lsch die Lupinen!

Es kommen hrtere Tage.