I Don't Care About Latté Art

Today is Friday.

It's close to end of business day, and I take the elevator down the five stories and make my way towards the grand exit. I open the heavy cast-iron door to be greeted immediately by the city's traffic noise.

Luckily, I am not looking for the expensive coffee shops, that value latté art but not always taste. I am looking for the local coffee connoisseur–the one where you can converse about the latest great novel, read the Paris Review or the New Yorker. 

A honking howl of the first, then the second, and now the third by the traffic light, warning pedestrians–although we have the right of way–that a motor beneath their buttocks is a powerful thing, making us all impatient. 

I am reminded how brief my lunch break is and hop into the closest coffee chain, feeling like a hypocrite for not supporting a local business. Than I shrug internally, knowing there are no local businesses left in Downtown, Midtown, heck even Uptown New York City due to hungry real estate giants that are hunching over the city with their claws, swallowing up any local pride for art, and individuality, and culture, and diversity and. so. on. 

At least I will not go for fancyfied flavors that are supposed to cheat my taste buds–they beg to differ these days, at this age. I stick with a generic, boring black brew. The line is long, but I don't mind, now that I am away from the angry car honking for a minute, feeling European, knowing I will savor my coffee and not pour it down my throat, while I am hasting down the sidewalk or pasting down the stuffed streets cursing and cussing with the other drivers in a choir of city chaos. Then I notice the delighted words of a vacationer behind me.

"What is a muck-she-ah-toe?" says the cheery Dutch voice behind me to his friend. 

"I think it is something with milk." replies his American friend. 

"Oh, coffee to me is like a dessert, but I don't drink these special coffee drinks." Without looking at the man, I can tell he is smiling. 

The American friend nods politely. 

"But I like espressos, and I always put sugar in mine, so it makes it even more like a dessert. A good espresso is like my candy." The Dutch man chuckles in delight. 

Oh Europeans, I smile. We don't care about latté art or fancy-sounding flavors. 

The line moves, I grab my black coffee. The Dutch and the American are next. 

"Pardon, what is a muck-she-ah-toe?" 

I want to give the question bearer a hug. I walk out, greeted with a wave of angry traffic sounds, hush into the office building, forward looking to the simple joy of a black cup of coffee, knowing the weekend is just around the corner. Oh these small delights, what a joy they are. 

9/11 Is a Teenager (We Will Never Forget)

13 Years Later

As the memorial lights pierce the Manhattan sky in memory of. September 11, forever a dark day. We cried a thousand times, tears of unjust suffering here and elsewhere. The numbers 9+11 in combination, innocent no more. These numbers forever engraved our minds with horror. So we chant: united we stand.

Louder. Forever. You and I together.

I also wanted to share a quote from "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close". It is one of my all time favorite novels. 

(Don't read on if you haven't read the book, instead, read the book by Jonathan Safran Foer.) The ending is so powerful and genius. In it, the protagonist Oskar reverses the horrors of the imagery of "the jumpers" who jumped out of the twin towers windows, before the building collapsed. 

"I ripped the pages out of the book. I reversed the order, so the last was the first, and the first was the last. When I flipped through them, it looked like the man was floating up through the sky. And if I'd had more pictures, he would've flown through a window, back into the building, and the smoke would've poured into the hole that plane was about to come out of." 

Beautiful Life

Sometimes

 life is so beautiful, 

thinking about it makes me want to cry

of joy, of course. 

In a twisted way it is kind of painful, too. It's so beautiful it hurts.

Note to self: 

Advice doesn't work until the person we were attempting to advise has their own experience with the issue. Then they will try to give someone else the advice that doesn't work.

Setting It Free

I did not know where to go with it. 

I took it with me. Like an invisible string that was tied around my leg. I was dragging along, tangling up in everything I passed.

I did not know where to go with it.

I scrunched it up and swallowed it.

Pushed it up under my cheeks. 

Divided it into different spots of my forehead.

Hid it in the upper area of my eye sockets.

Deposited it into one side of my skull.

Placed it in front of my eyes like fog. 

Attached it to my muscles in my lower legs.

Let it flow up and down my arms, all the way to the finger tips. 

Glued it onto my bones in both feet.

I placed it in all of those places.

Now I am consciously letting it go, for it had served its purpose.

It slowed me down. 

Made me weak.

Had me cry.

Took my voice.

Tied me up.

Paralyzed  me.

Hid the light from me. 

Made me fall. 

Stole my heartbeat. 

Good bye sadness.

Farewell fear.

I do not need you to show me the world through your tinted glass anymore. 

I accept.

I agree.

I am setting myself free. 

  

The Day My Heart Got Ripped Out

I had these reoccurring dreams ever since I left:

Something happened to you, and I was not by your side to help. It represented my biggest fear. 

The day I got the call from you my heart got ripped out, this time I wasn't dreaming.

I could not be by your side. 

I could not hold your hand. 

I could not wipe away your tears. 

I could not be there for you in your darkest hours. 

I could not cheer you up with my silly stories. 

I could not give you strength from afar.

I felt like I had failed you as your daughter. 

Erasing Memory

A young couple, both in their early twenties, are struggling through adolescence for several reasons:
It's the years after college--reality hits;
they are chasing their dreams (but they have them, and that's the most important).
They are searching for their identities (as everyone does around that age, no one is really sure of who they are).
They have been in a relationship since their teens, and although they believe in true love, and in the fact that they can be together for the rest of their lives, they are getting sidetracked, leading them to feel unsure after a couple of years (but thats usually what people go through, they need to reconfirm that what they are doing and investing in is still right)... The author actually believes that people loose sight of what they already know by influences they cannot control, say friends, financial issues, or problems with the current job. But what the author thinks is minor, the characters are more significant.




So it is around that time of instability and doubts when he goes to a party. She often prefers to be home to read, rest, think, or write. She feels that when she goes out drinking, she wastes a whole day (which would be the day after when she feels hungover). Don't get her wrong, she likes to go out, but just not as frequently as her significant other. He, on the other hand needs to go out to let loose and forget about the stress of his day. He is a hard worker, and even when he goes out he often considers it networking events (but usually it is just getting together to party). So it is Friday, and on Fridays he goes out (on Saturdays and Wednesdays, too), that's just the way it's been lately. And all throughout his teens. He is a very social person, whereas she can be introverted. However, both meet in the middle and feed off of their current moods. Sometimes, when she would usually stay home, she decides to go out with him, and when he wants to go out he decides to stay in to enjoy some time with her. It works, that's how they create a kind of balance. Anyway, around that time, it wasn't much of a balance, and he goes to this party.

He drinks too much.
He meets an unimposing blond.
She is just there, and happens to offer herself to him.
He is amazed of that simpleness and does not really think about it. He has always been a rebel. At that point he just wants to see how far he could go. He didn't really think.
There it happened.
Poor blond plays innocent.
He takes her home and ends up in bed with her.

She finds out and a world falls apart. Everything she has believed in becomes invalid; at least that's what she feels at the moment.

She bursts into tears, needlessly to describe her voice when she says the following words, "You destroyed our innocence." Her words sounded so painful, that the neighbor above who witnessed her yelling almost felt bad (without knowing what is going on). After those words she falls down to the floor.

There they are. Situated on the floor, crawled up into a ball off two people, crying together. He is holding her, although she doesn't want him to. It feels like they have left their bodies for a moment and are watching themselves from the kitchen ceiling. Everything they do then is so cliche that it does feel like they are in a bad movie. A movie she never agreed to play a part in she later says.

Now, a couple either separates or moves on. Why did they want to move on? Because they felt like what they had was more than one stupid mistake. They want to survive, but moving on isn't as easy as they thought, the mistake seems to have a greater impact on them, and more influence then they would like to admit.

Sometimes things are easier said than done, and after a year of trying, the topic still comes up in certain situations, or even randomly makes its way up to the surface. The point is reached where they become unsure of their original decision--trying to overcome the bad.

It is a day like that when she walks around in the city. Christmas is coming up, and all the lights and decorations everywhere remind her of her childhood. Back when life was so innocent, she thought. Her walk is slow, and she is not really going anywhere in specific, she just needed some air, is what she told him. She is caught up in her thoughts and doesn't see the guy approaching her with full speed on a bike. When he is right beside her, she feels a jerk on her arm and realizes that bastard snatched her purse. She turns around, but he is gone. "Help" was all she could stumble out, and there she is running into the direction of where the thieve left. She wasn't prepared for such calamity. But after a couple of minutes of running as fast as her legs can carry her, she gives up. She breathes heavily; her thorax is moving up and down quickly. She turns down her head and lets her shoulders fall to catch her breath. She is devastated, when her sad eyes glimpse something interesting on the floor. She picks up a flyer.

Back home she explains her finding.
"It says there is a medical scientist in the city who experiments with erasing memory."
He thinks she is crazy. "Yes, experimenting is not knowing. What if it is dangerous?"
"It might be, but I am willing to take the risk." They keep on discussing and come to an agreement.

It is a beautiful day. Must have been about two months later. Their last night together was just as nice as the sun rays embracing their walk. They loved each other in a way they have never done before, on the verge of maybe not being able to see each other again, love can be so passionate. They are walking to the secret location of this doctor. It is a secret location because they are the first ones to do it, and they do not want the press to be all over them in case something goes wrong.

There they are, laying on the comfortable bed, similar to hospital beds. The room is completely white. But for the procedure the light is being turned off, and the room is being darkened. All they have now is their touch. They are holding each other's hand, and not knowing that they really are facing each other, because it is so dark, their faces are turned to each other. That's when they kiss; it's an intense kiss accompanied by these last words: "If we really are meant for each other, we will find each other again".

Off they go into deep hypnosis, or something thats comparable to it. And when they wake up from it, they will be in separate rooms, with a note in their hands telling them where they work, and what their names are, and that's all about that will be left. They will not know that they have once known each other. The future will tell whatever happens after that. No, this is not the story of Romeo and Juliet, is what the author thinks, it is a modern love story, but the authors thoughts are still very insignificant...

Die Toten Hosen

In June of this year I was able to be at one of the biggest events of this year, as part of working for the event venue "Stadthalle Bremerhaven, an open-air concert with Stigma, Trashmonkeys, Donots, and Millencolin. All of them were part of the pre-show for the headliner "Die Toten Hosen," one of Germany's biggest Bands. 12.000 fans came, and it was so much fun to photograph and write about this occasion.

Here is the article as I posted it on the website Stadthalle Bremerhaven




If you are interested in seeing my pictures of the event, follow these two links: Pictures of Die Toten Hosen, and Pictures of Stigma, Trashmonkeys, Donots, Millencolin


Here is a translation of the article I wrote about the open air concert with the "Toten Hosen" [The Dead Pants] – funny name for a band, I know. "Die Hosen" have been a band since 1982 and became an essential element in the German punk-rock movement. They have been able to sell over 23 million records to date, and are performing all over the world – which is very rare for a German band with predominant German lyrics. "Die Hosen" are definitely known by every German; therefore, I considered working at the concert an honor. Besides, I must say that the "Donots," pronounced do-nots, are a great live band. I love their song "Stop the Clocks". Check out their latest album "Coma Chameleon," it's worth it. And the "Trashmonkeys" have planted their song "Attitudes in Stereo" in my ear, ever since hearing it live.

Thanks for your interest, here is the English translation of "Open Air der Superlative--Die Toten Hosen"

An Open Air Concert of Superlative Quality: „Die Toten Hosen“ are performing live in Bremerhaven

An open-air concert of superlative quality took place on Saturday the 6th of June at Wilhelm-Kaisen-Platz in Bremerhaven. 12.000 fans came to enjoy one of the most successful German bands to date, “Die Toten Hosen” live. And if that would have not been enough to attract viewers, “Die Hosen” brought a number of punk-rock bands with them to animate the crowd before their show.

The beginning of the almost six-hour long concert is made by “Stigma,” a German alternative band that sings their songs in German, which is rare for this genre.

Next are the “Trashmonkeys.” “We are trying to break the sound-barriers, today,” says Andreas G. Wolfinger, the lead singer, and starts playing their current single “Leaving Home.” The band from Bremen gives there all for an hour, and says good-bye with “Attitudes in Stereo.” “The encore will be on our LP,” says Wolfinger and refers to the band’s merchandise, which is being sold on the festival grounds. The audience is thrilled. An enthusiastic viewer in the front row asks a security guard for the band’s name that had just finished their performance.

After a short break, the “Donots” step on stage. Ingo Knollmann —lead singer — understands how to thrill the audience. And after his band’s performance, and his funny statements, one could say the Donots have developed a friendly relationship with Bremerhaven’s audience. “Bremerhaven, you are windy,” he says, “Bremerhaven, but you’re still dressed very nicely.” Then he continuous with the last song, “Stop the Clocks,” and orders the audience to sing along, “At a Hosen concert every single song has to be sung along,” he adds, “At a ‘Hosen’ concert every single damn song is being sung along,” he smiles contagiously.

With the last pre-show performance, a punk-rock sound pours out of the speakers. The audience is still pleasantly hyped when “Millencolin” starts playing their songs. Nikola Sarcevic greets the crowd and explains that it is National Day in Sweden – their hometown; he is being ironic when he states that his band came from Sweden to be celebrating the holiday in Germany.

At dusk, after a four-hour long pre-show with a fantastic line-up, “Die Toten Hosen” finally begin their two hour performance. Campino and Co are pleasing the crowd with classics and new songs of their latest CD “In Aller Stille” [In All Silence]. “Machmalauter” [Turnitup], the motto of the upcoming tour that includes more open-air performances, seems like a complete success, as 12.000 fans leave happily and pleased at 11 pm.

Inauguration 2009

Die USA lieben ihren Präsidenten, oder?

Here is another translation of an article I wrote in January 2009 for DEICHHELDEN




Americans love their president, don’t they?

It has been official for over two weeks now, America’s first African-American president is officially in office and it seems that Americans love him. Furthermore, the whole world is fascinated with President Barack Obama. DEICHHELDEN reporter, Janina Marquordt, met five young Americans to find out how they have witnessed this historical event and asked them what they really think about their president.

Megan Dixon, 25, Hyatsville, MD,
Katie Edwards, 22, Brooklyn, NYC,
Pat Roxas, 24, Manhattan, NYC,
Marie Jean-Louis, 25, Brooklyn, NYC,
Dwayne Hackett, 25, Brooklyn, NYC

For inauguration, the 20th of January, an estimated 1.5 million people went down to the National Mall to witness how Obama got sworn in, what did you do for inauguration?
Megan: I went to the National Mall with several friends of mine and watched the ceremony on jumbotrons. It was exciting and exhausting because we had stayed up all night the night before in order to get down there super early. It was crowded, and crazy, and for a while we didn’t think we would make it up to the Mall because they had closed down so many streets for security. We finally found a way and were actually close to the Washington Monument.
Marie: I was at work but we watched it on a small TV that my co-workers had organized, so I was able to watch most of it.
Pat: Woke up at 11 o’clock, (I couldn’t go to DC), turned on the TV and watched it, the best seat you can get is in front of your TV.
Megan: Yes, I could have just watched it on TV, I didn’t even see that much, but it felt great being able to be part of a huge historic moment and share it with others.

How did you feel when the first African-American president got sworn in?
Dwayne: Unfortunately, I was at work, so I missed a good portion of it; however, my highlight was to learn that he was the official president of the United States.
Pat: I voted for Obama, and I think that was more important than going to DC to see him being sworn in.

Do you remember the day Obama got elected, and did you expect him to win?
Katie: I didn’t think it was gonna happen but I kinda lost faith in our country the second round of Bush being in office. So I thought that it was really cool for a black president who was about change and a lot of new things happening, but I thought people didn’t wanna take that risk or do something different for once. I was kinda doubting our country but got pleasantly surprised.
Dwayne: I am from Barbados, our population is 95% black, so for me it was more so because his father was a direct descendant from Africa and his mother being mixed. You have this boy who would have, 50 years ago, been walked all over, not just because he is black but because he is mixed, to instantly becoming president of the United States. The fact that that you would have someone to come from the lowest of the lows, to catapult its way all the way of the top, was a world-changing event.
Megan: I had a bunch of friends over and we watched it on TV. I remembered the last elections when it was Kerry versus Bush, we thought Kerry would win, and then as the night went on, when it looked like he was winning, and didn’t at the end, made me feel so awful, it was so disappointing. So I had that in the back of my head and I was pretty sure, but also scared about what could happen if he wouldn’t win, just like Kerry. I couldn’t take my eyes off of the TV and when we learnt that Obama won, we were all screaming and dancing. On the news they started showing all the stuff that was going on in DC, all the people coming out in the streets to celebrate, so we decided to go down, too. People were high fiving and hugging strangers. It was definitely a night I will always remember.

What does Obama stand for, and what are you hoping will change?
Pat: Obama stands for a bunch of high expectations that need to be met. ‘We will harvest the wind, the sun, and the soil’, he said. We need new energy sources-our climate is changing. He’s definitely got a long four years.
Marie: He stands for the people, the middle class, the people that make up most of the United States, the ones that get screwed by our taxes. I want everybody out of Iraq. I want the economy to go back up. I want more fairness between classes. I want everybody to have health insurance, and I want woman to have the same rights. [A week and a half, after inauguration, Obama signs the “Lily Ledbecker Fair Pay Act”, under which pay is not determined by gender or skin color. The act was named after the now 70 year-old Lily Ledbecker, who went to the Supreme Court, to effectuate the same wage for females like herself, and their male co-workers, but her case had been denied.]
Megan: He is trying to bring in a new era of government that is transparent, and that actually works for the people more so than the big corporations. I am concerned of the state of our educational system, the state of health care. I also hope that he can help restore our reputation throughout the world.
Dwayne: There are so many things that I want to change, but what I really want to change is that I would prefer that he would find a way for companies’ recognition for the need of the people, meaning more jobs and fair payment for the jobs. I want payments to be adjusted.
Katie: I think he is a great icon of every person in America, like the president should be, and that’s why he has a lot on his plate. I hope that it will inspire other people to put their expectations in regards and actually do things to change. It’s everyone’s job to make something change, not just his. He is just not gonna fix everything, and I hope people will understand that.
Pat: He is not inspiring people, the people have to inspire him. He is the president that is subjected to change what the people want. He will only do what the people push him to do.
Katie: Anything is better than what we had for the past eight years, so even if he fails at everything, he still stands for something amazing that is way better than what we’ve had.
Dwayne: Exactly, regardless of all the turmoil we are going through, it was a world-changing event and I think it is the first of many dominos that will fall, probably all over the world. No matter how his presidency ends, it is a new age.

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