bay of kotor. [travels]

“traveling is a brutality. it forces you to trust strangers and to lose sight of all that familiar comfort of home and friends. you are constantly off balance. nothing is yours except the essential things – air, sleep, dreams, the sea, the sky – all things tending towards the eternal or what we imagine of it.” 

cesare pavese

belgrade. [travels]

“your true traveler finds boredom rather agreeable than painful. it is the symbol of his liberty - his excessive freedom. he accepts his boredom, when it comes, not merely philosophically, but almost with pleasure.” 

aldous huxley

cherished melodies. [songs]

XV daughter. youth. 

XVI the lumineers. stubborn love.

XVII sóley. i'll drown. 

XVIII half moon run. full circle.

XIX cinematic orchestra. to build a home.

XX wallis bird. the circle.

XXI boy & bear. rabbit song.

XXII sigur rós. heima.

XXIII xavier rudd. messages.

aabig-sunne II. [good things]

taking walks. enjoying the sun. spending time outdoors. [good things]

this spring term at uni feels a bit like our profs expect us to read everything ever written but with the wonderful weather we've been having recently i just do not want to spend all of my time at the library, at uni, or at home. so i spend the time between lectures, seminars and work taking walks to beautiful places all over züri, becoming an expert on where the prettiest park benches and the most ideal reading spots are. this park bench is one of my favourites. i read most of dickens' great expectations there, much of m. nourbese philip's zong!, linguistics papers on world englishes and next up is hawthorne's the scarlet letter.

hey rosetta! there's an arc. [songs]

biking. everywhere. [good things]

it's faster. you get to know so much more of where you live. it's fun. it's workout included in your everyday life. it's faster. no squeezing yourself in overcrowded buses or trains. 

it's really faster. way faster.

wear a helmet. please.

oh and, who needs gloves when one can have multi-purpose socks?

i do realize it's not the most stylish option but i only ever get cold hand when i'm on my bike and i just don't care. i can buy me so many cups of coffee with the amount of money i save that way.

student life.

m. nourbese philip. anonymous. [poems]

this week i absolutely fell in love with a book. to everyone who has an open mind, likes poetry, loves language and is interested in the many ways it can be used to convey meaning: pick up a copy of the book Zong! by m. nourbese philip. it is worth it. it is beautiful, it is in a way disturbing and it makes you think. hard. for a long time. it stays with you. and it makes you want to read more of her writing. i have to say, i am deeply moved by it. 
since it is impossible to share the wonder that is Zong! here, just a little poem out of one of her earliest collection of poems Salmon Courage. it's just a tiny one.

ANONYMOUS

If no one listens and cries
is it still poetry
if no one sings the note between the silences
if the voice doesn't founder on the edge of the air
is it still music
if there is no one to hear
is it love
or does the sea always roar
in the shell at the ear?

Philip, M. NourbeSe. Salmon Courage. Toronto: Williams-Wallace, 1983.

parents. [dihei]

hüt isch en uu schöne tag gsi. mängisch brucht mer eifach es paar stunde zäme mit de lüüt, wo eim am meischte bedüüted. eltere zum biischpiil. wänn dänn au na d sunne schiint und s wätter so unglaublich isch: umso besser. chunt au na dezue, dass de wald vo mim dihei grad so es paar minute wiit wäg isch zfuess und ich so immer meh z schätze weiss, wasi dra han, da z wohne. sunne uftanke, tanzendi bäum entdecke, freud ha an de schatte uf em chieswäg und mondföteli mache: so söttis immer si.

margaret atwood. up. [poems]

You wake up filled with dread.
There seems no reason for it.
Morning light sifts through the window,
there is birdsong,
you can’t get out of bed.

It’s something about the crumpled sheets
hanging over the edge like jungle
foliage, the terry slippers gaping
their dark pink mouths for your feet,
the unseen breakfast—some of it
in the refrigerator you do not dare
to open—you will not dare to eat.

What prevents you? The future. The future tense,
immense as outer space.
You could get lost there.
No. Nothing so simple. The past, its density
and drowned events pressing you down,
like sea water, like gelatin
filling your lungs instead of air.

Forget all that and let’s get up.
Try moving your arm.
Try moving your head.
Pretend the house is on fire
and you must run or burn.
No, that one’s useless.
It’s never worked before.

Where is it coming from, this echo,
this huge No that surrounds you,
silent as the folds of the yellow
curtains, mute as the cheerful

Mexican bowl with its cargo
of mummified flowers?
(You chose the colours of the sun,
not the dried neutrals of shadow.
God knows you’ve tried.)

Now here’s a good one:
you’re lying on your deathbed.
You have one hour to live.
Who is it, exactly, you have needed
all these years to forgive?

Atwood, Margaret. "Up". The Norton Anthology of Poetry. 5th ed. Eds. Margaret Ferguson, Mary Jo Salter and Jon Stallworthy. New York, London : W.W. Norton & Company, 2005.

buck 65. blood of a young wolf. [songs]

random obsession #1: rich terfry's voice. an obsession that started - like many others - in newfoundland during the rare moments when there was no hitchhiker or some other grand being to keep me company, when radio to drive saved me from boredom. 

oh, and when paired with jenn grant...:

ted hughes. wind. [poems]

This house has been far out at sea all night,

The woods crashing through darkness, the booming hills,

Winds stampeding the fields under the window

Floundering black astride and blinding wet

Till day rose; then under an orange sky

The hills had new places, and wind wielded

Blade-light, luminous black and emerald,

Flexing like the lens of a mad eye.

At noon I scaled along the house-side as far as

The coal-house door. I dared once to look up- 

Through the brunt wind that dented the balls of my eyes

The tent of the hills drummed and strained its guyrope,

The fields quivering, the skyline a grimace,

At any second to bang and vanish with a flap;

The wind flung a magpie away and a black-

Back gull bent like an iron bar slowly. The house

Rang like some fine green goblet in the note

That any second would shatter it. Now deep

In chairs, in front of the great fire, we grip

Our hearts and cannot entertain book, thought,

Or each other. We watch the fire blazing,

And feel the roots of the house move, but sit on,

Seeing the window tremble to come in,

Hearing the stones cry out under the horizons

Hughes, Ted. "Wind". The Norton Anthology of Poetry. 5th ed. Eds. Margaret Ferguson, Mary Jo Salter and Jon Stallworthy. New York, London : W.W. Norton & Company, 2005.