Sam Nike/Ode to Sam Pt. 1

"Life is a matter of a miracle that is collected over time by moments, flabbergasted to be in each other's presence. The world is an exam to see if we can rise into direct experience. Our eyesight is here as a test to see if we can see beyond it. Matter is here as a test for our curiosity. Doubt is here as an exam for our vitality. Thomas Mann wrote that he would rather participate in life than write 100 stories. Giacometti was once run down by a car, and he recalled falling into a lucid faint, a sudden exhilaration, as he realized that at last something was happening to him. An assumption develops that you cannot understand life and live life simultaneously. I do not agree entirely. Which is to say I do not exactly disagree. I would say that life understood is life lived. But the paradoxes bug me, and I can learn to love and make love to the paradoxes that bug me. And on really romantic evenings of self, I go salsa dancing with my confusion. Before you drift off, don't forget. Which is to say, remember. Because remembering is so much more a psychotic activity than forgetting. Lorca said that the iguana will bite those who do not dream. And as one realizes that one is a dream figure in another person's dream, that is self awareness."

Timothy Levitch on Waking Life (2001), as recommended by Sam Jam and because nobody in the entire universe dignifies a gigantic paper Nike shoe like she does.

All pictures taken on 3rd September 2016 in Sant Andreu de la Barca, Barcelona, Spain. Special thanks to Sam for being the most amazing human being in the Northern Hemisphere, as well as for her unrelenting refusal of such fact.

Sahar und Nader und der Sommer

I was born in Liverpool, but I grew up in Hamburg. Oh well, actually I might have been born somewhere else, but I surely, without a shadow of a doubt, grew up in Hamburg. It took me a trip to Teutonic lands to find the Spanish woman who would make one out of me. It's hard to call a summer in Hamburg a summer, but I bet it must be the easiest thing in the world to call the coldest winter in Alaska with Sahar and Nader a summer. They say home is where the heart is, but I say the heart is where they are, so home must be Germany. Summer is in their infallible Danish style, Iranian perfect teeth and spirit as warm, high, proud and maternal como la puta Península Ibérica que nos parió. Summer is them, today so far but tomorrow right here.

All pictures taken on 22nd July 2016 around the Reeperbahn, Hamburg, Germany. Special thanks to Sahar and Nader for being my favourite summer ever.

GuardarGuardar
GuardarGuardarGuardarGuardarGuardarGuardar

It's okay to be desperate and alone at the Café Lehmitz

It was the next-to-last night in Hamburg for at least a long while. I was being punctual for the love of God and just when I reached bingöl Döner Kebab Backshop, Sahar texts to say she needs 40 to 45 extra minutes. It was the place I had a muffin for dinner at on the first night I saw the red blue green yellow lights of the Reeperbahn. No good deed goes unpunished.

These days I am wise enough to know that I'd rather let myself be found at Café Lehmitz every single night than all Wednesdays at Thomas Read or anywhere else, but up to that particular day, I was way too afraid of all things that looked like I belonged to. The blues and the bass and the abyss had been luring me since that early March evening but, see: life is easier when you pretend you're into tekkno in Northern Germany 2016. That time around was different, though, because I had 40 to 45 extra minutes and this leaving-town-tomorrow sadness somewhere around the upper body that allows folks to finally be fucking free.

I am not racist, but I would have struggled to see the black gentleman playing guitar hadn't been for his star-spangled banner, boss of the Plains cowboy hat. He was rocking some red facial hair and Jimi Hendrix jacket as well, and flirted with the darkest, most under-aged ladies in the room. He goes by the name of Lord Bishop and leads a band called Lord Bishop Rocks and that's all I want to know for today. I sat right in front of him on the bar and he avoided my camera as much as he could. Guess the admiration is always stronger when never reciprocated.  

On the right side I had a shirtless hero playing air crucifixion and painting portraits of career-dead idols, oil on wood. He was truthful and savage and I was between his wide-open legs. I was grateful and he didn't seem to mind. I could have stayed down there forever but 40 to 45 extra minutes went by and Sahar is never unpunctual twice a day, so I left for the billiard at Silbersackstraße with her and her brother Nader. It's okay to be in love for a short while.

All pictures taken on 22nd July 2016 at Reeperbahn's Café Lehmitz, Hamburg, Germany.

Someone had to take some pictues: ov-silence Summer Opening, Elbpark Entenwerder

The plastic bag in the photo above, with a 60s/retro-style-illustration of a football player, was the most inspiring thing I found in this ov-silence Summer Opening party. Because of that, I wanted to dedicate a song from my country, the Kingdom of Spain, written and performed by Almodóvar & McNamara and called Satan, S.A., from their fabulous and only 1983 debut album ¡Cómo está el servicio... de señoras!,  to the 3 euros I freely and voluntarily flushed down the toilet last Saturday evening. And, why not, also to my """so-called friends""", who shamelessly refused to tell me where the fuck they were in that fucking goddamn Elbpark Entenwerder. Say good bye to the invitations for the baby shower of my first-born child, """friends""". This one goes for you:

            
                                     Satanasa, Satanasa,                              She-Satan, She-Satan,

                                     Yo te invoco, yo te invoco,                      I invoke you, I invoke you.

                                     Desde casa, desde casa,                       From home, from home,

                                     Con un moco, con un moco.                  With a booger, with a booger.

            
       

Six of these people were very cool, laid-back looking and had lots of ice-cream and I bumped into one and took pictures of him twice in three days. To the latter, I'd like to say this: would you like to come have some coffee and pie with me?

All pictures taken on 7th May 2016 in ov-silence Summer Opening 2016 in Elbpark Entenwerder, Hamburg, Germany.