Wednesday, April 30, 2008

the flute is like a piano

  oh, music.
since many a year i've happily had marital sex with the piano, all autodidactic, to which now i've added desktop sex with my brand new flute. while i must lay emphasis on the flute being traverse since recorders i've played quite enough in my life now. those three darlings decorate my wall since about two months. these days, my lips only touch silver [fake silver, that is].

when i first picked up the flute, that time at a friend's, it was magical. generally, i'm mad about instruments and could very well spend fortunes on them, but then there are some which are even more special, and the flute, i've come to realise, certainly is. when my own instrument arrived, shortly after, and i unpacked it with trembling hands, the sheer joy of touching the instruments, laying my fingers down onto the taps was so immense, it reminded me of the joy i get from doing the same thing with a piano.
since then, i'm in love with all the simple and charming melodies i extract from the piano songs i've been playing for such a long time now, and every tone seems to get an own new world of meaning with an instrument that is not polyphonic and yet perfectly lovable.

how amazing music is, ever and ever and ever again. listening, it takes me through time and space, emotions and memories. playing it seems better than breathing, sometimes [a rather queer association when playing the flute, yes] and just doesn't seem to loose its fascination.
my dream is, to live in a house [yes, already a dream] in whose every room there shall be at least one instrument, all of which i will at least have command over to an amount of producing music with fun. naturally, my plans on the distribution of instruments to those imaginary rooms varies from day to day; not to mention the realisation of the actual house.

anyhow, what does music do for you? of some i know, of others not. which part does it take in your life, active or passive, both or none? for how long have you been conscious about it, selective about it, explorative about it?


on an important sidenote: i've realised commenting wasn't available for anonymous persons which, i guess, might have scared many of you kitties off. so now anonymous posting is open, but please at least take the effort of signing with an inventive alias, if not your name.

now clickyclickyclicky on comments; the doctor has asked you a question...

Tuesday, April 29, 2008

this would be a wonderful day

   let me get one thing straight from the beginning: i love videogames. they've been part of my life since many years, and while i play them with the regular enthusiasm and many of the widely popular ones, i've already been interested in those that have that special something.

today marks and important day all around the world, for the gaming community. internationally sychronised [a recent blessing in the market], the massively anticipated grand theft auto IV launched. magazines and portals united, untypically, to shower a seemingly endless amount of laurels on this game in their lenghty and juicy previews and reviews.

it seems as if all the gaming world were happily rejoicing the arrival of one of those milestones far too rarely seen nowadays, but alas, that is not completely accurate. all the world is happily rejoicing except me, proud owner of a ps3 system, who is these days getting screwed by father sony.

about a month ago, on the last day of march, my playstation 3 broke, causing it to become unable of reading any optical media and thus incapable of playing games, music, dvds, etc.
the next day, i marched to the electro store next door where i had bought it back in the end of november, and sent it off to repair. since then, i'm waiting. and today, i just got a little more painful.

Monday, April 28, 2008

the city's black heart

    vienna - this city filled with baroque, palaces, tourists, posh and savoir vivre - has a heart of black velvet.

just before i moved here in 2006, people told me i'm moving to europe's capitol of suicides. after an absolutely impressive first autumn, rather reminding me of summers in my hometown, i wasn't much in contact with the viennese morbid mentality until very recently getting an interesting update on this topic.

a visit to the vienna funeral museum led by the professor of an ethnology lecture i'm listening in to this semestre [promisingly titled 'funeral art']. while said lecture aims at the subject of funeral rite and art in other cultures, said professor seems perfectly taken by vienna's black heart, being the leader of that peculiar museum.

in the course of our tour, ranging from the beginnings of pomp funebre in vienna until the grand funerals of empress zita and, who could or would [or would want to] forget, falco, our charming guide mentioned an interesting rule of thumb for living in vienna:
for artistic people, it takes about 6 months of living in vienna to have the vast subject of death filling their creations.
he himself, as he said, being born at the border to switzerland and having come to vienna to study art, knew every graveyard and funeral after about two semesters of studying. go figure.

with funeral trams, corpse alarms [rescue me from apparent death!], endless funeral processions and europe's second largest graveyard one thing is clear: the viennese loves not only self-dramatisation when alive, but so much more when dead.

as for me, i think i'm still rather on the side of the living. but who knows for how long. certainly, this provides me a charming new insight into this remarkable city's ways and oddities - these are the things that make living here a daily nasch.

as for business, guess which urn-model is the most popular in vienna? obviously and unfailingly the charming porcelain made model sisi. this year's european football championship inspired the clever minds of the design department to finally throw piety out of the window and outdo themselves by creating the fitting, perfectly lifelike football-urn. on a sidenote, the model still awaits its first purchaser...

enjoy your days while they last.

Sunday, April 27, 2008

the opening

   together with redesigning my homepage, i decided to switch my so far rather modest blogging to a proper blog, probably absolutely certainly inspiring me to post vastly more often.

on the right of this remarkably handsome post you find a remarkably handsome and welldesigned [i.e. non designed] navigation that takes you to the other parts of my homepage. nevermind everything being a completely different design now; the new version will come when it's ready.

apart from that, i don't have that much to say for now. just one thing to give you an excuse for commenting: what is your take on pornography? how do you make it fit into the pattern of your spiritual and moral design? i might elaborate more [i.e. aimlessly write] about this later on. cheers.