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2008-05-26

... nothing really new and insightful to tell, but I feel already bad, if I don't write an update for a week. Which is kind of funny and sad, since I don't have exactly a crowd waiting in angony for the next lines of poor English ...

Then: Just a really sweet video from somewhere in the web:

microwaves are handy alien breeders

Haha, that was a pun: Cell phones are called "handies" in Germany. Haha.

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2008-05-15

Back from the Wave-Gotik-Treffen (short WGT), the largest gothic and dark wave festival in Europe (as far as I know)! The WGT is always a special experience quite unlike other festivals. There are not just a few bands following each other on three stages, there are bands, readings, plays, parties, movies, exhibitions, markets, and so on. Also, all these events are scattered all over Leipzig to 26 (!) locations.
So, you have to travel a lot through the city - which is good, since Leipzig itself is somewhat of a star of the WGT with it's very own flair of lost beauty: Leipzig, at the right spots, looks like a withered rose or a forgotten garden. There are once beautiful city-houses now without glass in the windows but a dark gleam of decay shimmering through. This is like the perfect contrast to Munich, where any building looks recently painted and the lawn in all parks is perfectly trimmed... I'm not sure what I like better.
So much for my recently awakened taste for "Verfall". The WGT is also in other aspects a feast for the eyes: Many visitors go to great lengths to tweak their appearance with make-up, tons of hairspray and a myriad of leather, latex, lingerie, torn nylons, brokat, corsets, and whatthef*ckisthats. What might sound random to you now, actually follows very elaborate rules and is supposed to please the eye - and it does, once you discover the gothics' esthetics. Some outfits were downright gorgeous.

The bands and events:

• DAS ICH: Impressive. Two keyboarder and one singer dressed like the devil managed to do one of the best performances of all bands. However, they apparently forgot about their time budget and had to leave the stage before they could play their greatest hit "destillat". Well, at least for "Kain und Abel", "Krieger" or "Schwanenschrei" was enough time
• UNHEILIG: Actually, a lot better than expected. I've seen Unheilig a few years before on a different stage (but also at the WGT) and didn't like it particularly. This time however, perhaps because of the dark surroundings, the singer "Der Graf" (the earl) was able to impress with his charisma and stage presence ... and his voice of course, which sounds live as deep and controlled as on studio records.
• BLUTENGEL: Bad. Very bad. It wasn't completely their fault, since their in-ear monitors didn't work and they had to guess what they are currently singing. Also, the guy at mixer did a poor job blending the music from the ipod with the singing and thus pronounced every off-key note. But even without those difficulties, I'm not sure, if I would have enjoyed the show very much: The stage seemed always a little empty and the songs they selected were not my favorite ones.
• PARADISE LOST: All right. I didn't expect much and somehow that's what I got. Well, their show might have been quite good, if you like and know their music - and not just three songs like me ;)
• GOTHMINISTER: Nice. A lot harder than the records I heard from them before. However the bright daylight and the rather peaceful and relaxed surroundings at the "Parkbühne" somewhat damaged the atmosphere.
• COVENANT: Really nice: Good music selection (apart from "Leiermann" all I wanted was there), fine show. Definitely one of my favorites!
• TRAGIC BLACK: Missed. :( . Stupid public transportation.
• EMILIE AUTUMN: A very impressive reading located in the noble "Schauspielhaus". Profound and disconcerting experiences and thoughts recited in sympathetic and sometimes startingly cheery way.
• ZEITENWÄNDE:A play by Oswald Henke, the lead singer of the sadly discontinued Goethes Erben. Lots of big, existential questions, answer-approaches displayed through haunting utopias played by Henke himself and a selection of young professional actors. One actually needs to see this play more than once to understand all the layers and ideas - unfortunately we couldn't find the time to do this. The thin line between genius and madness seems stupid here: Henke appears to be a more or less mad genius.
• SAMSAS TRAUM: A big disappointment for me! I expected beautiful melodies and delicate fantasies - and what I got was ... Death Metal. If you like Death Metal and go without expectations to ST you might have actually a good time. For me it was lots of songs I've never heard before (and don't intend to hear again) and songs altered to fit the musicians on the stage. This worked sometimes ok ("Stromausfall im Herzspital") or more often plainly horrible ("Für immer"). Also, I missed the supporting female voice a lot.
• OBSESSION BIZARRE party: We weren't allowed in. Our clothes were just too ordinary. Too bad, this party was great fun the last times :(
• SIXTINA:This is a location, not an act. However, a good place to spend some time with fine ebm, dark wave and absinth. Also the photot-gallery in the ancient cellar-vaults was nice. Unfortunately, the cellar-cinema "Hofkino" presenting the movie "The secretary" was way too popular for us to get in :(
• DARKFLOWER: *Schattenreichparty*:A nice dark club packed with people and great music from ebm to industrial. I can hardly imagine a better way to spend a night ;)
• SALTATIO MORTIS: Possibly the best live band of the whole WGT. Although I didn't know most of the songs (I somwhow missed the newest record) my voice was after no other performance this hoarse!
• FAUN: As expected a very atmospheric performance. This band would have been better located on one of the open air stages under a sky full of stars than in the huge agra-hall. Still nice, though.
• CORVUS CORAX: They did their very best to keep the crowd entertained, but faced a difficult task in that: They were the very last band on the last night, so many visitors were already on their way home or leaving and the remaining lot seemed a little tired. Furthermore, there's no singing in their songs and after an hour of bagpipe- and shawm-based music you can't help but get a little bored. Even though, a good closure for the WGT - or almost-closure :)
• AGRA 4.2: DJ RONAN HARRIS: The last party of the wgt - and what a party. It's most probably not a good idea to drink until 5 a.m. when you intend to drive home before 10 a.m. but with this location music (and drinks) we just couldn't help ourselves. :)

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2008-05-06

Went to the Blade Night yesterday. At 7 pm as the web page said. Too bad, 7 pm was just an arbitrary point in time before the actual starting point, which was at 9 pm. So after mere two hours of strolling pointlessly around and freezing a little, the show finally started. Well, there was some good in the delay, after all: I had time for this fine photograph:

Well, all right, it's not soo fine, but I just don't have any others to show from the actual blade night. Don't think, I didn't try, but, well, the blade night happened at night (*whoa*) and my flash doesn't reach out further than my finger in front of the lens, so all other pictures I made are just smeared black in front of more black.

So, instead of the thousand words a picture is supposed to say (which is crap anyways. If you name every single pixel you are at 10,000 words at titchy 100x100 images already. Then there is exif, patterns, composition, blurb, blarb, ... "A picture x is worth about r(x)^3 + c(x) words for picture 'x' with 'r(x)' as resolution-function and 'c(x)' as content-intensity function" seems more accurate to me. At least as working hypothesis.) you just get these few:
Crowded, flashy lights on many boots, good asphalt, "don't go on the bicycle lane", flashy lights on many hats, "look at me"-guys suck, 18 kilometers are a long way on skates, bad asphalt, honking cars, skating on 4-lane roads is fun, hurting feet

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2008-05-01

This is almost xkcd-worthy:

This is something I would want on my shirt :)

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2008-04-29

Yesterday I went to see Emilie Autumn live in concert. I haven't heard much of here before, so I wasn't sure what to expect. But let's take it chronological:

Due to some family business (and the - since I was in a hurry - inevitable traffic jam) I arrived way later in Munich than I intended to, namely at 7:35pm. And the show was supposed to start at 8:00pm. So, I changed my outfit into something appropriate dark and jumped on my bike and pedaled with all might. Unprobable 10 minutes later I arrived at the Neuland - and my heart sank: I couldn't get tickets before and hoped to get them at the entrance. The entrance which was at that time surrounded by quite a crowed. Luckily, it turned out, the bouncers haven't allowed anyone in yet; furthermore, Johnny, a good friend from unforgettable summerbreeze-days arrived long before me and saved me a space in front on the queue. So, all in all, the enervation and stress weren't justified, since I had no trouble to get there and in. When will I ever learn?

Now, to the show: It was the last show of Emilies "asylum"-tour and it was set at a beautiful location: The Neuland is really a cool club; very dark, nice light effects and lots of black leather couches everywhere. One beer later the (seemingly just found) supporting band "sieben" (sorry, can't find an appropiate link), which consists only of one guy who sings and fakes a little fiddling and an ipod doing the rest, made the next two beers go down easier by supporting us with some friendly and placid electronic folk before the real show started.
The theme "asylum" was obvious in the decorations of the stage and also the outfits of Emilie and the four supporting dancers and created a very adept basic mood for the following songs - which just blew my mind.
Below all that "gothic lolita"-stuff and the in a goofy way funny show lay lots of talent and real emotion. You get sometimes the feeling that you're not able to appreciate her violin-virtuosity enough. And a sudden seemingly forced smile fortifies that impression: It felt like watching a high class ballet dancer working at a strip bar to make a living.
That said, the music was really really good. I especially enjoyed "I want my innocence back" and "opheliac" (which you most probably can listen to at your tube *hinthint*). The audio quality was also quite good - which, of course, is also a result of the fact that only the cembalo, violin and singing were actually live. Emilie Autumn seems to be one of the few artists who sound live even better than the studio recordings. Also, she might be the only musician with the ability to captivate a crowd of mostly industrial friends only with a long violin-solo. You know, how the violin sounds like a tormented cat in the wrong hands? She can make sounds with hers that are similar and completely different at the same time and weaves them into beautiful carpets of sweet notes like land mines in summer meadows. ... Ok, these last sentences sound pathetic and cheesy to me, too. I just don't know, how to describe it any better.

Conclusion:
This was an extraordinary evening and I recommend going to an Emilie Autumn concert to everyone who has the slightest understanding of gothic music. Too bad, it may take years before she comes back to Germany.

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2008-04-24

... turns out, I can execute this algorithm in my brain. So, with the right strategy, these riddles are quite easy and fast solved.

Now, this game is to me just like sudoku: Once you figured out an algorithm to solve it, it's no fun anymore.

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2008-04-24

Are you sometimes wondering, too, if your brain still performs the way it used to do? Give this 3D puzzle a try and you might come to the same conclusion I did: "No, it doesn't".
This stuff can't be so hard?

Spoiler:

The funny part is, I have already an algorithm in my head, which could solve these riddles instantly ... If only my brain could execute my algorithms directly ... then on the other hand - my algorithms tend to have bugs and I really don't want my brain to crash. "Blue screen of death" anyone?

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2008-04-18

The WTF of the day:

WTF "my anus is bleeding"

... how do people come up with this kind of stuff?

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2008-04-11

Back in good old Germany.

What you really bring back from travels is something you don't discover before you come back home: No, not a STD, but a new set of eyes.

For the first time since a long time, I'm able to see Munich and the people here with some context. And there really are lots of differences: The way people look at you, the kind of history that hides behind virtually everything, the fact that there are lots of spots where not a single hobo is lying around, ...
Also, I enjoy water with absolutely no taste, prices that already include taxes, food and drinks in real china and pedestrian-only-zones. Europe has its upsides, too!

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