27.5.20

Morning Digestion


Trying my best Charles B. imitation

Read Bukowski for breakfast,
including that one with the radio
he threw out the window every
time he got drunk, always breaking
the window. Then he added
something about watching a
scantily clad neighbor digging
in her garden patch just below.
I wondered if she happened to
show up, scantily clad, every
time Charles B. got drunk and
threw the radio out the window.

– Johannes Beilharz (© 2005)

Originally published at Poem Hunter.

24.5.20

Arrhythmie – ein Mikrogedicht von Ajo


Arrhythmie

Ich hasse die Liebe 
und hasse sie außerdem 
mit deinem Herzen.

✼ ❖ ✼ ❖ ✼ ❖ ✼ ❖ ✼ ❖ ✼ ❖ ✼ ❖ ✼ ❖ 

Aritmia

Odio el amor 
y además lo odio 
con tu corazón.

– Ajo (© 2004)

Übertragung ins Deutsche von Johannes Beilharz (© 2020)

22.5.20

The Wedding Guest (2018)

Radhika Apte in The Wedding Guest

The British-American thriller The Wedding Guest (2018, directed by Michael Winterbottom) became available on Sky a few weeks ago and turned out to be one of the best films they added in a while in my humble opinion.

Playing in Pakistan and India, it tells the story of the abduction of a bride (Samira, played by Indian actress Radhika Apte) shortly before her imminent wedding and various stages of flight through Amritsar, New Delhi and Goa. Jay, the kidnapper, a British national of South Asian origin, is competently played by Dev Patel.

While not an action movie, the film keeps up the suspense, revealing details of the characters as the story moves on along the roads of Pakistan and India.

20.5.20

Big data Q&A

“Spent about 43 minutes confusing big data.”

Q: Hey, what’s that supposed to mean?

A: As we all know, every click we make, every breath we take, is being watched over by information-hungry entities, such as Google, Facebook, Amazon that proceed to save the data collected and subsequently send their salivating algorithm dogs after them to analyze the hell out of these zillions of discrete items of information in order to obtain something that is useful, i.e. that can be monetized. We’ve all seen how it works! You search for mierda on Giggle and notice that commercial advertisements attempting to sell the same shit appear soon thereafter. You go on YouTube and play some music by artist XYZ. Next time you visit, YouTube wants you to play the same again, supplemented by other suggestions some algorithm has come up with. Why, when you look at a peeler on Amazon, some algorithm they use is quick to let you know just a few inches below that people who bought peelers also bought peeler pouches, peeler sharpeners, peeler glue and peeler storage shelves! This is called enhancing the user experience.

Q: Enough ranting about some of my favorite corporations and sites! I still don’t see where this is going.

A: To try and confuse big data, I will, for example, give likes, hearts or whatever is offered to widely diverse items in the consumer and social networks world. Hopefully this will confuse the sniffing big data dogs to some extent. If enough people do that, the companies buying big data results might eventually realize that these results are not the ultimate wisdom out there. Perhaps they’ll sink their misguided dollars into something more worthwhile eventually.

Q: Not gonna happen. Big data is mighty! The algorithms are smart and get smarter every fraction of a second.

A: That may be true. But there’ll always be a David for every Goliath. Sooner or later.

18.5.20

Alonzo Aglio and Bella Cipolla, First Cousins

Alonzo Aglio and Bella Cipolla, First Cousins
Polaroid photo by Johannes Beilharz
(scanned Fuji instax SQ20 print)

Available as print and for licensing from PicFair

15.5.20

William Carlos Williams: Komm schon!

Komm schon!

Eine andere Art von Gedanke
fader
und verzweifelter
wie jener von
Sergeant Soundso
an der Straße
in Belleau Wood:
Komm schon!
Willst du ewig
leben? –
Das
ist das Wesen
der Dichtung.
Aber sie nimmt nicht
immer
dieselbe Form an.
Größtenteils
besteht sie
daraus,
der Nachtigall
zuzuhören
oder Narren.

William Carlos Williams, Come on!, aus Pictures from Brueghel and other poems, New Directions, 1962.

Aus dem Amerikanischen von Johannes Beilharz (Copyright © 2020).

11.5.20

El Fendero – Paper Boat (2020) bei Bandcamp




Chris Fender, Paper Boat (2020)

From the lyrics:

Hey, I saw a Paper Boat
Tattooed on my girlfriend's leg ...

Über das Stolpern

Ein guter Stolperer fällt nicht.
(deutsches Sprichwort)

Soeben stolperte ich über die englische Version:
A stumble may prevent a fall.
Große Geister denken einfach gleich, egal in welcher Sprache.

Great minds think alike, no matter the language.

8.5.20

Minimale Philosophie

Filosofia minimale

Io butto
tutto

– Iself (© 2020)

Dies ist in diesem schönen sonnenverwöhnten Lande (wie auch anderswo) leider Gottes eine Philosophie, die viele Anhänger hat.

Zur Verdeutlichung für die der italienischen Sprache nicht mächtige Leserschaft hier auch gleich eine deutsche Version:

Minimale Philosophie

Auch ohne Sinn und Zweck:
ich schmeiße einfach alles weg

– Iself (© 2020)

Dancing


Ben Miller (DI Richard Poole) and Sara Martins (Camille Bordey) dancing in a scene from Death in Paradise (series 1, 2011)

7.5.20

Ezra Pound - Alba


Alba

Kühl wie die bleichen nassen Blätter
                                              des Maiglöckchens
Lag sie in der Morgendämmerung an meiner Seite

Translated by Johannes Beilharz (© 2020)

Note on this translation
There is a previous translation by Eva Hesse that is quoted on the Internet. She translated the word leaves as Blüten (blossoms, flowers). It seems unlikely that Ezra Pound did not know the difference between leaves and flowers, i.e. he did not require correction in German. Granted, white (the color of the flowers of lily of the valley) is paler than green (the color of the leaves), but the shape of the leaves (longish and flared) is more like the body of a woman than the flowers, which are bell-shaped (hence the German name Maiglöckchen) and round. Unless Pound really found a whitish, bell-shaped round woman by his side on that poetic morning...

– Johannes Beilharz

14.11.19

Peggy Guggenheim about Dorothea Tanning

Max Ernst and Dorothea Tanning (1948, photo by Robert Bruce Inverarity)

Based on what she writes in her memoir, Out of This Century (1979), Peggy Guggenheim did not appreciate Dorothea Tanning very much. This might be partially due to the fact that Tanning and Guggenheim’s husband at the time, German artist Max Ernst, were having an affair.

Guggenheim writes: “I made Max work hard for this show. He had to go around to all the women, choose their paintings and carry them in the car to the gallery. He adored this, as he loved women, and some of them were very attractive. He was always interested in women who painted. There was one called Dorothea Tanning, a pretty girl from the Middle West. She was pretentious, boring, stupid, vulgar and dressed in the worst possible taste, but was quite talented and imitated Max’s painting, which flattered him immensely. She was so much on the make and pushed so hard that it was embarrassing.”

Guggenheim and Ernst eventually divorced, and he and Tanning got married in 1946 in a double ceremony with Man Ray and Juliet Browner.

The above quote is from page 233f. of Out of this Century (Anchor Books, 1980).

30.8.19

Spätsommer in Rom

Weiterhin schwere
drückende heiße Luft auf
den Schultern der Stadt

– Iself (© 2019)

Ein Haiku, das die aktualle Wettersituation in Rom akkurat beschreibt.

2.7.19

Haiku

Hallo, hier kommt ein 
sinnentbehrendes Gedicht 
japanischer Art.

– Iself (© 2019)

Anmerkung
Damit unterscheidet es sich nicht groß von zahlreichen anderen Gedichten.

29.3.19

W. S. Merwin – Es ist März

Es ist März

Es ist März und schwarzer Staub fällt aus den Büchern
Bald werde ich weg sein
Der große Geist der hier gelebt hat
Ist schon gegangen
Auf den Alleen liegt der farblose Faden unter
Alten Preisen

Wenn du zurückschaust ist da immer die Vergangenheit
Selbst wenn sie verschwunden ist
Aber wenn du nach vorne schaust
Mit deinen schmutzigen Knöcheln und dem flügellosen
Vogel auf der Schulter
Was kannst du da schreiben?

Die Bitterkeit steigt in den alten Minen immer noch hoch
Die Faust kommt aus dem Ei
Die Thermometer aus den Mündern der Leichen

In einer bestimmten Höhe
Sind die Schwänze der Drachen einen Augenblick lang
Von Fußschritten bedeckt

Was immer ich zu tun habe hat noch nicht begonnen

(It Is March, 1964)

Deutsche Übertragung von Johannes Beilharz zu Ehren des amerikanischen Dichters W. S. Merwin, am 15.3.2019 im Alter von 91 Jahren verstorben.