Filed under: bla bla on writing and language, In the mood for, notes on cph, Santiago stories
8:06 AM Number 18. Kiss
“I’ll heat the seat” was the last sentence she said before he closed the door and she walked down the stairs, took the bike through the hipster area, along the lakes, along the lines, crossed the immigrant area, reached the posher one where she found the queue. On the way she had counted 2 persons with slightly darker skin. Here there was a queue of 17. The bell rang, it was 8 o’clock and a woman opened the door, gave them a number and a the COPENHAGEN post. They all sat down, facing the desks and the aquarium. And the sign with numbers. It was not lit yet, but next to it was another sign: EXPECTED WAITING TIME IN MINUTES. While writing this sentence it moved from 009 to 011. And the office was not open yet. Only slowly getting full. One kid, having a soft drink. Others sitting in silence apart from the neighbouring guy talking on the phone. The only other blond in the room. Legs moving, up and down. Impatience.
8:07 AM :)2 kisses.
”Lad os ligeledes på dette sted fremhæve, at der under hans fobi er en umiskendelige fortrængning at [sic] disse to hos ham veludviklede komponenter af seksualaktiviteter. Han skammer sig over at urinere i andres påsyn, anklager sig selv for at røre ved tissemanden, anstrenger sig også for at opgive onanien og væmmes ved ‘pølse’, ‘tis’ og alt, hvad der minder derom. I fantasien om barneplejen tilbagekalder han denne sidste fortrængning.”[i]
8:40 AM The residency permit sales has begun :-B
“Good morning and welcome to the Danish Immigration service…In the Information Desk you can get information about passport and resident permit cards…On the digital newspaper you can get information about how to behave in the immigration centre…We give service to all applicants in order of numbers”
Why is it that even in an immigration office the voice over mimics a flight attendant explaining the safety instructions? “There are four exit doors, two on each side of the airplane equipped with slide rafts that automatically inflate. There are also four window exits over the wings equipped with evacuation slides. Each exit is marked with a sign overhead…To ensure your safety, your seatbelt should be fastened at all times when you’re seated…”[ii]
8:40 AM Buy 2 please.
“Wireless Network. While you are waiting you can use our wireless network – please contact Information for password and logon.”
She goes to the Information Desk, there is no information about internet and the queue is long. EXPECTED WAITING TIME IN MINUTES 043. Thursday seems to be a decent day. EXPECTED WAITING TIME IN MINUTES 044. “Syrian refugees receive Danish support” says the COPENHAGEN post on the neighbouring table. The telephone guy is gone and now there is an almost blond guy with glasses, short hair a brown sweater, jeans and brown leather shoes. He could look like a classical musician.
8:51 AM Now number 18. Waiting for you and number 35 @-}–
Well, they all seem friendly, the people behind the desk. Another kid. Sweet curls. Big eyes. Panorama. Up and down. Oh, a cup of black tea. EXPECTED WAITING TIME IN MINUTES 051. Yesterday, they paid 6.270 DKK for the green card residency permit application. It seems like…a lot.
8:56 AM phone call. “Am in front of the ice cream place, just to check so I don’t do it wrong. Should I go left towards where we lived before or right toward the centre? The ice cream place on the square? Go left, it will be on your left hand side. Before Føtex. OK. It went fast, no, from you came till number 18. Yes. Now it’s number 25 and we are number 35. OK. A kiss. And see you soon.”
Trying to sit straight. The pain in the shoulder and arm is climbing up on her from the right side. “Jamen, det står her. Det kan godt forlænges.” Sentences sneak out from the desk area.
They also have to fill out the form. It’s not there, in the folders on the wall, she can’t do it before him, before his arrival.
Today her ears are not scratching. Only the neck. Hair is down, even though it creates heat and increases the scratching underneath. “Questions can be answered at the Information Desk” EXPECTED WAITING TIME IN MINUTES 050. Now it’s number 31. 32. EXPECTED WAITING TIME IN MINUTES 047. Number 33.
“Learn Danish! Ballerup Sprogcenter.” And a smiling row of teeth. the COPENHAGEN post. “Refugees aided, rebels frustrated”. A hooded guy in a corner with a kalashnikof. the COPENHAGEN post. Now also teens are queueing for the Information Desk. Lip balm. Dry air. “Har du en kuglepen?” “Ja” “Må jeg låne een?” “Ja. Sort er nok bedst, ikke” How does the woman know she’s not Russian, like all the French and Chilean guys thought? “Foto og lydoptagelser forbudt” Number 35. “Tak ska du ha’” “Tak ska du ha’”. “Tryk! Udad, udad” Two happy faces leave the office. Number 36. No scandal. “Så du skal betale gebyrer?”
EXPECTED WAITING TIME IN MINUTES 054. “Så når du er i Danmark…”
A nice cup of tea. Maybe even a chai tea. With whipped cream. Cinnamon. Floffy milk. Oh. “PAS” “INFORMATION” “UDGANG/EXIT”
“…middelalderlige lærde brugte tegnet til at markere, hvor man skulle trække vejret i forbindelse med recitation.”[iii] Breath, breath, breath, breath, breath, breath, breath, breath, breath.
“Andersens Wank er en konceptuel bog, hvor skriften forholder sig mere til et koncept end til slutproduktet – altså hvor produktionsmåden er vigtigere end hvad der produceres.”[iv] It makes her wondering whether this text she is now writing is rather a sort of process writing, where the process is more important than the outcome. At least this is how she feels. To get something out of this time. Of this seat-heating, extended time. EXPECTED WAITING TIME IN MINUTES 063. Waiting for the call that says, hi, I’m on my way. Of getting the documents handed over and the temporary application-processing residency permit confirmed. Number 41. Third number passed, now jumping to 48, 56, 70, 82, 92. EXPECTED WAITING TIME IN MINUTES 065. There is a smell of ashtray, that smell that sometimes infiltrates the clothes of heavy smokers.
The neighbour with the brown sweater and the brown shoes leaves the office. Slight smile, slight relief? Slight disappointment? And a baby, coming out of the toilet. Hanging on her mother’s arm. Doors opening and closing with an empty metal sound. The sound of the next number in the queue, up-down, bim-bim.
These fish in the aquarium. Yellow, blue, black and grey. Counting. Stops, 50? 40? Too little space, too little water? Rocks and sound, air bubbles into the water, dividing the waiting area from the desk area. Breast feeding and a woman with weak legs. “Hvis du lige flytter den stol, der.” … “Det ser ikke så slemt ud.” … “Alt efter hva…….” … “Det er nummer 71…” EXPECTED WAITING TIME IN MINUTES 071. EXPECTED WAITING TIME IN MINUTES 072.
9:52 AM All fine? :-*
EXPECTED WAITING TIME IN MINUTES 074
.
.
9:55 AM Yes now leaving the copy place. Kiss.
Number 48…………….
.
.
“Last week, figures from Infomedia revealed that in 2006, at the peak of the Mohammed cartoon crisis, the national newspapers wrote an average of 14 articles a day on Islam and integration. Five years on and those figures have halved.” the COPENHAGEN post. EXPECTED WAITING TIME IN MINUTES 069
Her neighbours on the left side. “Jeg tror det er den her form vi skal udfylde. Jeg går lige op og spø’r. Du er asylansøger, ik’? Og dit pas udløber i juni. Ja, så er det godt at du får et nyt. Men jeg forstår ikke for her står der det udløb i 2004?”
“Nej, den er for børn, du skal tage den der nede.”
“Hvem ringer, Skat? It’s Nim. Hvem er Nim? I Don’t know.”
10:06 AM Ok. Now on my way to you. 3 kisses.
10:07 AM 3 kisses for the bike ride
.
.
Hot chocolate from the automate. Identical with the one they had at the folk school where she grew up. 4 years old. Playing in the hallways. Ping pong. Whirling around until getting dizzy. Falling. Automate hot chocolate. The best part was the foam. On top.
.
Tasteless.
.
.
EXPECTED WAITING TIME IN MINUTES 078
EXPECTED WAITING TIME IN MINUTES 079
.
.
[i] Freud, Sigmund &Place, Vanessa. ”Little Hans” in Andersens Wank. Århus: Edition After Hand, 2012, p. 90
[ii] http://airforces.fr/2010/12/02/flight-attendants-safety-instructions-with-script/
[iii] Place, Vanessa. Andersens Wank. Copenhagen: AfterHand, 2012, p. 97 (footnote)
[iv] Ibid. p. 94
Thanks to applicants and staff in The Danish Immigration Service, Thursday March 15.
Filed under: Dagens ord / Word(s) of the day, In the mood for, The Love Libration Movement
“If you play me, I’ll play you” is a sentence I still haven’t understood. It appeared in a talk by artist Hassan Khan at Homeworks IV in Beirut last April. It was just a sentence in a sampled pop song or something like that – but it has kept lingering in my head. Like a play back system. Now, reading an interview on love with the psychoanalyst Jacques-Alain Miller I’m wondering whether the sentence might be a synonym for a psychoanalytical understanding of a love relation between two people. Jacques Alain Miller says that one loves the person that can answer the question: “Who am I?” and it means that one has to acknowledge one has a lack that the other person can fill. As such, one is also dependent on the other person, which is why some people become aggressive from love – it’s difficult to admit one’s dependency and thereby one’s independency.
If you make me play, press the magical play button that make my self sing on all of its strings, then, I’ll play you(rs).
Ocean's Thirteen and a love dilettante in a screen. Flying to Beirut the 24th of October 2007
article by jose ossandon in the chilean online magazine plagio
article by mathias kryger in the danish newspaper politiken
both beautiful examples of precarious writings
Filed under: bla bla on writing and language, Dagens ord / Word(s) of the day, In the mood for
“Suddenly the door opened and the long sinister figure of Mr. Lytton Strachey stood on the threshold,” Woolf later recalled in a talk at the private Memoir Club. His entrance heralded her conversational liberation. Strachey pointed to a stain on the white dress worn by Virginia’s sister. “Semen?” he inquired.
“Can one really say it?” Woolf remembered thinking, “and we burst out laughing. With that one word all barriers of reticence and reserve went down. A flood of sacred fluid seemed to overwhelm us. Sex permeated our conversation. The word bugger was never far from our lips. We discussed copulation with the same excitement and openness that we had discussed the nature of good.”
-
About my red dot on a yellow dress
About Virginia Woolf
—–_____—–
Hamilton, Nigel. Biography. A Brief History. Harvard University Press : Cambridge/Massachusetts, London/England, 2007, p. 160-161
Love is a ruin. It decays, but it always stays the same. The use of it ceases to exist. We don’t know what to do with it. Anymore. So we sit. And we wait. We even left the chairs. Now they’re standing there, as two ruins in a lit setting. Spotlight is on. The stage is there. It’s freezing cold, at least minus 5 degrees. No wonder why we left. Not even the light makes it cozy or warm.
So I got them a strawberry plant. It has small green strawberries on it. Soon they’ll be red and ready to eat. And next year the plant will have dissiminated, more plants will grow from this one and so, in a couple of years their new family house will be full of green strawberry plants with white and yellow flowers. The plants will take over, cover the house. And then, the girl slept for thousand years. She woke up, there was a prince, able to cut his way through the strawberries and wake her up from her dream. What a shame, it was so nice to sleep, to stay with the ruin and live its dreamworld. Now she has to rediscover her house, the castle of her parents and the whole kingdom. Underneath the kingdom there’s a hidden world. It never ceased to decay. It keeps it’s life going, because no one dares to enter it. It cannot be decided to ruin. So she asked, what is it that cannot ruin? The love for someone, for a place? Is love existing as a renewed ruin, always alive… There was a temple, in India, a temple praising the sun. She laid down, drank a lot of water. The mountain was grey and stoney like the temple. Predicting the path of the sun. Thousands of years old. And on the way, a group of children followed them. Until they couldn’t walk anymore. To reach the ruin. As a never happy ending catastrophe. And there they sat, or did they, on two chairs in the freezing cold north. They temselves entering the only possible life, a decaying, collapsing life. Love is a ruin.
On Wong Kar Wai’s The Hand (2004), a short film out of three in the portmanteau film Eros.
She gratifies him.
(gratify • give (someone) pleasure or satisfaction • indulge or satisfy (a desire))
She gratifies him with her hand. Their first meeting takes place in her home, the place where she receives her lovers. She is a courtesan in the 1960’s China. He is a tailor with a lot of talent. That is why he is sent to the courtesan; to let his talent unfold. She asks him to undress and satisfies him with a quiet intensity. With her hand. His face is expressing pleasure and pain.
(pleasure • sensual gratification) (pain • physical suffering or discomfort caused by illness or injury • a feeling of marked discomfort in a particular part of the body • mental suffering or distress)
He continues to make her dresses. She continues to ignore him. He desires her. More and more. As she keeps him distant. He longs for a sensual touch. Replaces her body with her dresses. Pays all his attention to them. What he cannot give her in terms of touch, care, kisses, intimacy and lovemaking he gives to her dresses. He knows her figure, her body. Every inch is his territory – but only when measuring her. When he leaves her house, she becomes the territory of other men who desires her.
(desire • a strong feeling of wanting to have something or wishing for something to happen • strong sexual feeling or appetite)
Eros is sexual love or desire. In Wong Kar Wai’s The Hand eros seems to be both. Desire and love. Desire exists alongside with a love, which cannot be fulfilled. She’s a courtesane and he is a means for her to maintain her clients because he accomplish her beauty by impressive tailored dresses. This is where the economy is clear, it is an exchange of dresses and money, gratification and talent.
(talent • natural aptitude or skill • informal people regarded as sexually attractive or as prospective sexual partners)
The exchange is clear in the beginning of the film. “Give me your hand,” she says, while she gives him hers. She touches him to give him pleasure. Thereby she keeps his desire for that moment intact and his hands cannot but keep on making her new and always more beautiful dresses. She is aware of this, so she keeps him distant while loving his tender touch.
Towards the end the give and take is more ambiguous. He refuses her money and he doesn’t want to accept her offer of paying him back with sex. Still, she gratifies him once again. With her hand. This time the glamour is gone; she’s dying in a cheap hotel room, sick from chasing client in the streets at night. They touch each other, simultaneously, but she cannot return his kisses because of her state of contagiousness.
(contagious • (of a disease) spread from one person or organism to another by direct or indirect contact)
Her decline as a courtesan is the moment where the love between them can be fulfilled and their hands can meet in a mutual touch. But this moment also marks the impossibility of fulfilling their love. She is dying.
(dying • on the point of death)
What is left is the touch of their hands. His hands; measuring her body and touching her dress as a substitute for her body. Her hand; the shared memory of her initial touch.
(touch • (come so close to (an object) as to be or come into contact with it)
And then he comes back to the tailor office. He has said goodbye to his her. His face is expressing emptiness when the master asks him, if he has finished the dress for a Lady Liu. He doesn’t answer. This woman seems of no importance to him and therefore the dress as well. There was something particular to the woman of the hand. Something which made the exchange and the talent provoked from it show other levels of value not transferable into money.
(value • the regard that something is held to deserve; the importance or preciousness of something)
What she feels is not easy to know. Desire and love. Desire or love. Desire, love and necessity. His love last. It became her only hope.
(hope • a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen • a person or thing that may help or save someone • grounds for believing that something good may happen)
Filed under: In the mood for
…is from our first ‘let’s go for a drink’. It is here as a reminder of the red wine. The red wine I spelt on my dress. It makes me recall the moment, a moment with you.
I keep it on my dress – although the pink Vanish! Stain Remover don’t like our mess.
It’s hardly visible, but people notice. It’s there on the right thigh, pling, a dot in a moment. Dripping from the glass.
