Beim Graben im Keller fiel mir jüngst ein Heft mit Pubertätslyrik in die schmutzigen Hände. Der Inhalt war gleichzeitig schlimmer als erhofft und besser als befürchtet. Ich poste mal ein paar, tbc.

Schlaraffenland
Wildgänse am Himmel
fallen eine nach der anderen
vergiftet herab
werden von der gleichgültigen Sonne
krebsrot gegrillt
und landen im siedenden Öl
appetitlicher Küstengewässer.
Plastikmesser und -gabel liegen
im Gebüsch bereit,
nur mit den Getränken
wird es schwierig.

Rotation
Die Welt dreht sich pro Tag im Kreise
und um und um und um im Nu
und bringt auf diese stille Weise
ihr ganzes langes Leben zu.

Gedanke zur Form
Der Tintenklecks erzählt Geschichten
das Tintenfass kann das mitnichten.

Aphorism, Deutsch, Miniaturen, Poetry | No Comments »

If you are looking down the barrel at treatment of a latent TB infection, and are supposed to choose now between nine months of INH versus four of Rifampin, there is no helping you, just pick one evil. But hopefully this information will end up in search engines and help someone else trying to find the information I couldn’t when I was looking for it. Good luck.

Rifampin upregulates liver enzymes, and via this path interacts with other drugs. I was on Lipitor (for cholesterol reduction) when I started the Rifampin, and I acquired debilitating insomnia that got at least manageable once I stopped the Lipitor. I do not know whether the insomnia would be caused by the Rifampin alone, as I still take Cozaar along with it.

The same thing happened with Trazodone, an antidepressant I was given as an off-label prescription for the insomnia. Instead of putting me to sleep, it catapulted me into a near psychotic state of intense nervousness and racing thoughts that lasted for quite a while. No sleep that night at all. This was prescribed to me in spite of my mentioning the side effects of the Lipitor/Rifampin interaction and the liver activity of the Rifampin. Point being: second and third guess your physician.

The TB clinic did not prescribe anything against the insomnia. Instead they recommended I buy Benadryl, once again an off-label use, as Benadryl is normally taken for allergies. This, too, was a bad idea. Benadryl does make you drowsy, but that’s quite a bit different from actual sleep, and more importantly, continues through the next day. I was actually more awake the day after the Trazodone incident than I was after sleeping with the help of Benadryl, by a wide margin. Benadryl made me utterly useless the day after.

Finally, if you do have trouble sleeping with your anti-TB poison of choice, try Valerian. It’s not really a sleep inducer, but its relaxant powers might help counter whatever the Rifampin is making your liver churn out enough to let you doze off.

And once again, good luck.

English, Gesundheit | No Comments »

My body is a supine landscape of thoughts, racing in tight circles around a center empty of spectators. Along the course little cards are placed, always vertical to the line of sight of the unnamed observer, like images in Google earth. Each of these cards is a sleep, is a state of rest and relaxation, and the observer sees all those states and counts them, over and over, circling the splayed out useless lump of flesh to a backdrop of tight humming, like something of high voltage charging but never quite reaching the level of release, the lightning bolt, the thunder that will clear the air. A stinging bolt of acid forces me upright and unable to stop the motion I tumble away.

There are sounds at the kitchen window, but none of them fit any of the theories about the sociographic composition of our neighborhood or the structure of the night that I think I have. Somewhere metal rattles against metal, a sharp noise, a yell in the distance. A twig snaps, leaves rustle in the wind, a piece of fabric on the fire escape above me howls quietly, as though in pain. Gibberish of the night, a rapidly stammering silence.

The pleiades are overhead, visible only when ignored, ghosts winking out of existence with each attempt to find them. Much lower, planes run through the belt of Orion in five minute intervals, close to Mintaka at first, then lower, until one almost hits Alnilam and I lose interest. Alnilam is four million years old and a supergiant.

The backyard has been purged. An unshaven man on his knees had ripped out all life while talking on the phone in the afternoon, maybe describing his progress as he went, Now I’m ripping out some low growing spread out dark green things, now I’m pulling some taller things with flowers on top, then had collected the dying plants in a bag and made off deep into the basement, and now in the oblique light of the nearby gas station’s lamps there is no structure left but the alternating texture of the trampled dirt and washed out earth from the neighbors slightly elevated, but incontinent garden, and the cracked layers of concrete, asphalt and brick, accumulated over lifetimes of misguided backyard management by people like the kneeling unshaven man, whose ghost lingers, too, visible from a corner of my eye. I expect an animal to pass through the zone of death, but none comes.

The windows across the garages promise stories, but after the black man kills the lights in his kitchen, switching on those in his bedroom and then stands staring in my direction for several seconds and then gets those lights, as well, there are none left to be told. Maybe I’m now being watched from the completely dark frame of his window, where his face vanished in the black a moment ago, but more likely he saw my posture, the chin rested too high on the pulled down window’s frame, arms held awkwardly at an angle, and deciphered me as unlikely to do anything worth reporting to invisible third parties, and went to sleep.

There is a lamp I can just see over the garage’s top the position of which is designed to illuminate the yard on the other side, switched on by a motion sensor, turned off by a timer, that goes on and off a few times. I barely hear car motors, which surprises me, since they’re only a few meters away. Maybe sound does rise, and I could hear them better on the roof. I consider going there, imagine what the sky will look like, the Pleiades maybe finally provably there, something to point a shaking finger at, but there is a slight chill in the air and I stay where I am.

The planes are barely grazing Alnitak now, a triple star, three close friends perhaps, closed off against intrusions by others, these starlets, chatting amiably among themselves, but sending only coolness and light down to meet the slowly drifting planes and me. Soon Newark’s landing corridor will be out of Orion’s belt entirely, floating freely in the sky, no longer bound to human considerations and folly. I imagine living people on these planes, their pasts and hopes confined for a moment, and held in stasis in my head, preparing to exit their fragile vessel and to resume their lives, and I hear all their voices at once, and I can make out not a single word that might make sense to me.

English, Gesundheit, Miniaturen | No Comments »

Today, pondering the very odd choice of the word Spass in the title of the recently released German translation of Infinite Jest, I googled the background, and found several disconcerting things. The first being a review in a German liberal newspaper, the Frankfurter Rundschau, that was almost as cluelessly stumbling through the cultural and philosophical themes of the book as it was blatantly ruining the reader’s experience by providing most of the major plot points. This, I imagine, was meant to reassure the paper’s audience that the reviewer indeed has read the work under discussion, but considering that the interplay of narrative, suspense and resolution, or lack thereof, is a defining feature and an integral part of what the book is about, this is more knuckleheadedness than I would expect from a national paper. Though I realize that this may be only because I’ve been away from the country for such a long time.

I also found that indeed Unendlicher Spass is not the classical German translation of Hamlet’s lament. That would have been “unendlicher Humor” from August Wilhelm Schlegel’s translation, which to my ear is infinitely more pleasing. Spass corresponds roughly to Fun in english, and carries completely inappropriate connotations of recent pop culture. To my surprise, and slight shock, I also came upon a post by the translator himself explaining his choice of Spass over Humor, pointing to the evocation of Spassgesellschaft as a positive. The word Spassgesellschaft to me represents a critique of entertainment’s pervasiveness on the level of a book by Neil Postman dumbed down to a soundbite and a headline phrase, and the whole complex of ideas represented by it is diametrically opposed to what Wallace was after in Infinite Jest. The book is brimming with reflective discourse and encyclopedic distractions that want to avoid easy questions or answers, and the word Spass with all its connotations to me undermines the whole enterprise.

Of course I’m also riled up because this touches on my pet peeve, the German obsession with dubbing every bit of foreign entertainment, and the devastation it wreaks on the art it mangles – just try watching a dubbed episode of the Sopranos without putting your own feet in concrete and jumping off the Palisades, I dare you. This has always infuriated me, from the moment when I saw Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and realized with a jolt I was watching a movie very different from Ritter der Kokosnuss (Knights of the Coconut), and not simply because there was no Eukalyptusbonbon am Stiel in Arthurian legend.

Also, of course, this tangles quite a bit with the very mixed nuts kind of feelings I have about contemplating leaving the US to return to this Germany place. Macadamia or low grade peanut? You tell me.

All of which is of course, completely incidental to the translation under discussion and quite unfair. For what it’s worth, here’s my reply sent to the German translation’s website:

Oje. Ich befinde mich in der Sonderposition, Infinite Jest parallel zum Erscheinen seiner Übersetzung in Deutschland gelesen zu haben, und deren Rezeption parallel zu meinem eigenen Entdecken des Werks zu verfolgen, die Übersetzung selbst aber leider gar nicht zu kennen. Von Anfang an habe ich mich über die Titelwahl gewundert, und dieser Kommentar macht es mir leider auch nicht verständlicher. Infinite Jest hat doch im Englischen auch einen altertümlichen und biederen Klang und ist zudem ein Verweis auf einen literarischen Klassiker. Das Übersetzerproblem, den verwendeten Ausdruck kontextualisieren können zu müssen, ist zwar nachvollziehbar, aber Unendlicher Humorist wäre gegangen, wenn auch zugegeben ganz nicht so schön wie der Spassmacher, und am Unendlichen Jim führt ja ohnehin kein Weg vorbei.

Das Hauptargument gegen den Spass ist für mich aber nicht, dass es eine bessere Wahl gegeben hätte, sondern eben just der Anklang an die Nullvokabel Spassgesellschaft, den Sie mir unverständlicherweise loben. “Spassgesellschaft” ist, was misanthropische Kulturkritiker aus dem Sack holen, wenn ihnen sonst nichts einfallen mag, und dieser Anklang holt meines Erachtens den komplexen Zielpunkt des Romans auf ein Reflektionsniveau, das Wallace selbst sorgfältig vermieden hatte, und nicht nur aus stilistischen, sondern vor allem aus werkimmanenten Gründen.

Ausserdem, um mit einem anderen Klassiker zu reden: Jeder Versuch, die Biederkeit zu vermeiden, indem ihr Anschein vermieden wird, führt nur um so tiefer in die Biederkeit. Will sagen, dass mir der Spass unendlich viel biederer klingt als Schlegels Humor, oder, wenn schon weg von Schlegel, warum nicht “Unendliche Komik”, mit einem endlosen Komiker?

Jetzt hab ich ein bisschen ein schlechtes Gewissen, weil ich von der Übersetzung buchstäblich nur den Titel kenne, und hier rummaule, ich hoffe, Sie nehmens mir nicht krumm. Die Übersetzung ist in jedem Fall ein unfasslicher Verdienst. My hat’s off to you.

Deutsch, English, Infinite Jest, Language | No Comments »

Oh, come on, for the love of something that you scriptwriting people actually love, your gnawed pencils, perhaps, or your iPhones with the witty applications. Not that I have any hope that writing this stuff down will do any good externally, meaning as it concerns you scriptwriting folk, but venting does help the entity that is letting go of steam, thus in this case, me. It’s self-medication, really, right up your alley. Pompeji likely might be less of an attraction of death and doom today if Mount Vesuvius had vented just a little more and exploded in fire and brimstone and rivers of ash a little less.

So I saw the double hour season premiere of House last night, and was, by and large, not very much amused. To frame the impending venting, House has always been a glorified soap opera. The medical profession that the show supposedly was about was never portrayed in anything resembling realism, the acerbic wit and deep insights were ever only shallow facade to elevate Laurie’s unshaven jerk, and greater responsibilities are on the mind of hardly anybody on TV, it would seem, no matter how multimillioned the audience. Sure, walk into MR rooms to have a secret chat without checking your pockets, it’s only TV after all, and if you do it in real life and kill a patient, it’s your own bloody fault.

And that’s not even the venting, yet. So the season opening shows House dealing with his depression and darkness, except it doesn’t. The message of these two hours is that all it takes to emerge from an existential crisis is a stretched out hand and a few pills, and the shallowness and sheer stupidity of such an assertion in the face of a civilization choking on epidemic numbers of the clinically depressed is astounding. I say this, of course, assuming that following episodes will not put the lie to this soppy, infuriating opener.

Which isn’t the main beef necessitating venting, at all. They also missed a very obvious pun for Mr Smartass to make, when he referred to the new treatment method of blackmail, it should have been blackmail by a black male, much more acerbically witty this way, and unsubtly active-agressive, indicating this and that, though, in fairness, that might have been implied in his saying blackmail the way he did, though again on the other hand, this would be uncharacteristically subtle in an episode where everything gets named and thus nothing gets pointed out at all.

But that’s a bit beside the point and not raising the gas pressure very much at all, either, of course. So then House steals a car, abducts a delusional patient and endangers the guy’s life, all to prove a point. And but what should happen next but him getting absolution from a cringe inducing German, Franka Potente of all people, for his improvised manslaughter attempt, because, get this: he meant well. Says the German, in her German accent. Hugs all around. Aww.

Which still isn’t the truly upsetting part and not what I would want to vent superheated acidic gases from a rocky orifice for under normal circumstances. But now if I am somehow connecting this to politics, in a country recently obsessed with Nazis and socialists and its bloody misguided war in the Middle East, parsing Bush as the leader type with issues who took Iraq out for a ride to make a point, and, oops, Iraq jumped off a crumbling wall, if I make this connection and then hear an American written German absolve the whole mess because, hey, at least he meant well, then the sheer level of lack of reflection, emotional or intellectual depth, and moral bancrupcy becomes a tad much to bear. It’s OK to ruin someone, as long as you MOVE ON ALREADY, like the Deutschländer did. Uh huh. Thanks, daddy-o, feeling much better already, moving on, nothing to see here.

So that finally this now is the actual lava-deferring and eruption-avoiding hot air bubbling to the surface here in the middle of this wasteland of a post: why on the face of this abominably hurling rock of dirt and shit and seas full of plastic waste, all stuck together by quark and glue am I even watching this mindless drivel, still, and will very likely tune in again next Monday, see if I don’t? Just what kind of a passively watching mindless superdrone am I?

Do not answer this, please. Ha, see? I control your mind now. All through the power of venting.

Crap, English, Psychology, TV | No Comments »

“If you root yourself to the ground, you can afford to be stupid.”
(P. Churchland, Neurophilosophy)

Abb. ähnlich.

Die kleine Lache an der Ampel, die grade auf rot sprang, enthält nicht genug Wasser, um den Himmel vollständig einzufangen, stattdessen sehe ich der graublauen Wolkenspiegelung überlagert die kleinen Steine des Asphalts und die Zweige der früh von den Bäumen gefallenen Blätter. Die Sichtbarkeit der Steine innerhalb und ausserhalb der Pfütze verhält sich invers zu ihrer Leuchtdichte, im feuchten Dunkel stechen die hellen Steine, in der Trockenheit die dunklen Krumen und die Schatten hervor. Die Blattfragmente und Stiele wurden aus der Mitte getrieben von Wind und den gelegentlich durch die Lache pflügenden Reifen, und haben sich am Rand der Lache angefunden, grade noch innerhalb des Ringes, in dem das Wasser nicht mehr steht, sondern nur noch das Material benetzt, ein zufällig entstandenes, filigranes Ornament an der ansonsten nicht sehr interessanten Wasserfläche. Alles, Steine und Stiele und Fragmente, schrumpft sichtbar zusammen ohne seine jeweilige Position zu verändern, Strasse und Lache entfernen sich von mir und verharren zugleich trotzig, Zentimeter vor dem Vorderreifen. Dann rollt der Reifen durchs Wasser, grüne Tupfen springen auf den kleinen Wellen, die Lache bleibt zurück, und der optische Fluss vor meinen Augen kehrt sich erneut um. Hinter mir bis zum Wasser erstreckt sich eine komplexe Folge von kurzen dunklen Strichen, die in der Herbstsonne schnell verblasst.

Deutsch, Jersey, Miniaturen | No Comments »

More evidence is accumulating, and so to dispose some of the anxiety of soon having to leave the dear world of tennis, addiction and myths of feral babies, I take some time off the story and its footnoted branches, and instead review some new occurrences of numeral confusion, and a possible explanation, to boot.

In the odd insert of Himself’s fond look back upon his younger years, the event of a sheared off doorknob leads him into his future work in annulation, or at least is presented as a foundation for this future work. The description of the rotation of the circle on a stalk on the hard floor is faultless, and the mathematical discussion of the cycloid that ensues, is quite flawless until this bit of information intrudes: “But since here, on the bedroom’s floor, a circle was rolling around what was itself the circumference of a circle, the cycloid’s standard parametric equations were no longer apposite, those equations’ trigonometric expressions here becoming themselves first-order differential equations.”

So we have a parametric description of the curve a point on a ring will go through as the ring rolls in a straight line. This is the cycloid. And since here a ring is really rolling in a circle itself, being restricted by the attached stalk, something is different. All of this is true. But why would the same parametric equations not be applicable along the circular path of the doorknob? As far as I can see, they would, and Himself telling us this story should be well aware of that.

The second new piece of evidence comes from one of the end notes, where Pemulis briefs Hal on how to obtain derivatives. x to the power of n derives to, he claims, nx+x^(n-1), which is finally absurd enough to turn suspicion into certainty: this is not noise, it is signal. This signal, however, not carrying simple narrative, because once again the person speaking both clearly knows the correct answer and also has no reason to deceive, or to expect a deception to be undetected, derivation of a polynomial being your pretty basic analytical bread and butter for high school kids.

And then, a few notes down, we witness Pemulis say this to a snivelling Possalthwaite: “Todd, trust math. As in Matics. Math E. First order predicate logic. Never fail you. […] The vital statistics of God or equivalent. When all else fails […] You can fall back and regroup around math.” This is followed by some lemma on line integrals that is indeed (and somewhat confusingly) true.

So if math is considered the one unwavering basal truth, yet is bent out of shape almost every time it comes up in the fabric of the novel, along with the laws of optics in the case of the shadows in the desert, which please recall is also a field of expertise of Himself, as is annulation, the weirdly absurd process of waste negating waste, it all seems to point to the fact that James Incandenza maybe found a way to infect everything he touched with some sort of existential rot, eroding the foundations of truth itself, just like any good father will.

Books, English, Infinite Jest, Science, Science Fiction | No Comments »

Accretion is the better part of vapor.

Wie man sich betet, so lügt man.

Aphorism, English, Language, Nature, Science | No Comments »

I
Ihr Mann, sagt die Krankenschwester, wolle seit Jahren ein Klappfahrrad kaufen. Er wolle sich gerne mehr bewegen, radeln sei da perfekt, nur seien normale Räder so sperrig, aber dieses Fahrrad, das sehe ja perfekt aus. Ob sie es mal hochheben dürfe. Sie darf. Fantastisch, sagt sie noch einmal, zum dritten Mal, dann erlischt das Lächeln, sie nimmt ihr professionelles Gesicht aus dem Etui. Von solchen Nebenwirkungen habe sie noch nicht gehört, das klinge ja schlimm, sie könne da weiter nicht viel zu sagen. Dann gibt sie mir einen Termin bei der Ärztin der Klinik, eine Woche später. Ob sie mit rauskommen dürfe, mir beim Zusammenbau des Rades zuzusehen. Sie darf.

II
That’s cool, sagt eine Woche später die junge Rezeptionistin und deutet durch die Glaspanele neben ihrer Bürotür aufs zusammengkelappte Rad. You ride around here? Vom und zum Bahnhof, sage ich. That’s cool, sagt sie nochmal und trägt meine Krankenakte doktorwärts. Die Schwester komme gleich und gebe Bescheid, sagt sie nach der Rückkehr, dreissig Minuten zu spät sei ich ja. Und dass das toll sei, das Fahrrad.

Das findet auch die Schwester, die die Akte einige Minuten später wiederbringt und bleibt kurz davor stehen, um ihrer Bewunderung Ausdruck zu geben. Man könne mich nicht mehr dazwischenschieben, drei andere warteten noch, und die Ärztin möchte schliesslich pünktlich in ihre Mittagspause. Die Rezeptionistin gibt mir einen Termin für nächste Woche, pünktlich sein, mahnt sie, die Ärztin sei da pingelig. Ich quittiere die Fahrradkomplimente der Schwester mit einem Nicken und gehe nach draussen, wo ich ein paar Minuten reglos stehe, im Kopf das helle Rauschen der Schlaflosigkeit. Dann radle ich davon.

III
Oh, it’s you again with your bike, sagt die Krankenschwester mit dem Mann und lächelt, und ich nicke stumm und schaue in die andere Richtung. Seit fünfundvierzig Minuten sitze ich jetzt hier, eineinhalb Stunden werden es insgesamt sein, ehe man mich ins Behandlungszimmer rufen wird. Vor zehn Tagen habe ich selbst entdeckt, dass das Absetzen meiner Bluthochdruck- und Cholesterinmedikamente die Nebenwirkungen erträglich macht, die Hölle zum Fegefeuer mildert, ich weiss gar nicht, weshalb ich eigentlich heute noch gekommen bin, warum ich denen die Gelegenheit gebe, mich warten zu lassen. Insult to injury.

One fourty over one hundred, Kai, sagt die Schwester. Sie sagt jetzt dauernd meinen Vornamen, weil ich mich unzweideutig übers Weggeschicktwerden beschwert habe. Ich durchschaue die quietschende Mechanik, aber es wirkt trotzdem. Hier gelte ich was, als Person. Hier darf ich sein. You need to talk to your primary doctor, we don’t want you having a stroke. Ja, nein, ich doch auch nicht.

Die Ärztin hat dem nichts hinzuzufügen. Mit meinem Hausarzt solle ich sprechen. Es tue ihr leid, dass man mich weggeschickt habe. Wieviel ich denn so Rad führe. Sieben Kilometer täglich! Das sei ja ganz schön viel.

Als die Tür hinter mir zufällt, sage ich halblaut Son of a Bitch. Ich fluche jetzt nämlich auf Englisch.

Deutsch, Jersey | No Comments »

Die Schlange an der Bäckertheke ist ungeordnet und ähnelt mehr einem Insektenschwarm als einem Reptil, wartende Menschen blicken auf wartende Waren. Ich stelle mich am Schwarmrand auf, hinter jemandem, der Lester Freamon aus The Wire ähnelt, hager ist und gross, dunkel, mit graumeliertem Dreitagebart. Nice Bike, sagt Lester, dann etwas Unverständliches und wie ein Automat erwidere ich Fahrradphrasen. I’m not in line, sagt er schliesslich und er macht eine Geste mit dem Arm. Ich bin zu ausgelaugt, mich zu wundern und trete einen Schritt weiter ins Schwarminnere, an ihm vorbei.

Nach ein paar Sekunden dann ein menschliches Geräusch von hinten. Can I ask you something? Hilfe will er. Sorry, sage ich. Kein Geld, sagt er, wolle er, ein Getränk vielleicht, oder etwas zu essen. Mal jemandem helfen, Aufstehen für ein besseres Morgen, ja warum denn eigentlich nicht?

Which kind of soda, frage ich, und er zögert mit Blick auf den Kühlschrank. Hungrigen Menschen Zuckerwasser geben, gluckert es in meinem leeren Kopf, ein feiner Wohltäter bist Du. What would you want to eat, frage ich in die limofeindliche Stille. Don’t matter, sagt er. Slice of pizza, sandwich, anything. Ich bin jetzt dran.

Die Frau hinterm Tresen ist unhöflich, eine Säule im Weg, der Verpassenstanz links und rechts ums Hindernis wäre womöglich lustig, wär mir nicht vor Müdigkeit alles gleich. Dieses Brot, jene Brötchen und eine von den kleinen Pizzas, sage ich endlich, ohne noch recht zu begreifen, wie es eigentlich vom No zur Kleinpizza kam. I’d rather not, don’t know what that is, sagt er. A turkey sandwich, maybe? und geht ein Stück die Theke rauf, ich folge ihm, ein fallender, leerer Sack.

Er bittet um eine Extratüte für sein Sandwich, das teurer war als der Lunch gewesen wäre, an dem ich heute sparte. I’m not giving you a shopping bag, sagt die Kassiererin feindselig zu ihm, und steckt es in eine Papiertüte, und ist gespalten in ihrer Verachtung für ihn und für mich. Ein vertrautes Gefühl stellt sich ein, letzte Energien verpuffen; ein Ruf, der sich tonlos in der Wüste verliert, ein Tropfen Tinte fällt in nachtschwarze See; es welkt Metaphernsalat auf Hasenbrot.

Thanks man, sagt Lester, I appreciate it. Er streckt mir die freie Hand hin, und ich will sie nicht ergreifen und ergreife sie doch.

Deutsch, Jersey, Miniaturen | No Comments »