Lake and Graveyard

Point of no return!

"Dark spruce forest frowned on either side the frozen waterway. The trees had been stripped by a recent wind of their white covering of frost, and they seemed to lean toward each other, black and omnious, in the fading light. A vast silence reigned over the land. The land itself was a desolation, lifeless, without movement, so lone and cold that the spirit of it was not even that of sadness. There was a hint in it of laughter, but of a laughter more terrible than any sadness - a laughter that was mirthless as the smile of the Sphinx, a laughter cold as the frost and partaking of the grimness of infallibility. It was the masterful and incommunicable wisdom of eternity laughing at the futility of life and the effort of life. It was the Wild, the savage, frozen-hearted Northland Wild." - by Jack London

Tickets are booked! Greenland, I can't wait for you.

The call of the wild

Just finished Jack London's "Call of the wild". It's the first book I read from him and what can I say? I'm a fan! Really inspireing... Here are again some of my favourite quotes:

"Mercy did not exist in the promordial life. It was misunderstood for fear, and such misunderstandings made for death. Kill or be killed, eat or be eaten, was the law; and this mandate, down out of the depths of time, he obeyed."

"But especially he love to run in the dim twilight of the summer midnights, listening to the subdued and sleepy murmurs of the forest, reading signs and sound as man may read a book, and seeking for the mysterious something that called - called, waking or sleeping, at all times, for him to come."

"He was a killer, a thing that preyed, living on the things that lived, unaided, alone, by virtue of his own strength and prowess, surviving triumphantly in a hostile environment where only the strong survived."

The law of club and fang

"He had been suddenly jerked from the heart of civilization and flung into the heart of things primordial. No lazy, sun-kissed life was this, with nothing to do but loaf and be bored. Here was neither peace, nor rest, nor a moment's safety. All was confusion and action, and every moment life and limb were in peril. There was imperative need to be constantly alert; for these dogs and men were not town dogs and men. They were savages, all of them, who knew no law but the law of club and fang."

Greenland, here i come...

Desolation Angels

Last night I finally finished "Desolation Angels" from one of my favourite authors: Jack Kerouac. It's the 8th book I read from him, and as always it wasn't a bit of a let down. Here are some of my favourite quotes:

"But I will be the Void, moving without having moved."

"Desolation Adventure finds me finding at the bottom of myself abysmal nothingness, worse than that no illusion even."

"Rucksack Revoluton! Going up to the hills to meditate and ignore society."

"The Vision of freedom of eternity which I saw and which all wilderness mermitage sainds have seen, is of little use in cities and warring societies such as we have. [...] Time enough to die in ignorance, but now that we live what shall we celebrate, what shall we say? What to do?"

"I see the big sad invisible wings on all the shoulders and I feel bad they'Re invisible and of no earthly use and never were and all we're doing is fighting to our deaths."

"'I don't know, I don't care and it doesn't matter' will be the final human prayer."

"You learn pure things on the mountain, don't you? Don't you feel that you appreciate life more?"

"If you can't have fun, turn to religion."

"Desolation is desolation everywhere and desolation is all we got and desolation ain't so bad."

"Being thrown to the crocodiles of life - in the river of life - which is what birth is."

"Now I was alone again. And the same feeling came to me: Avoid the world, it's just a lot of dust and drag and means noting in the end. But what to do instead?"

"Souls in Heaven said: "We want to try mortal existance, O God, Lucifer said it's great!" - Bang, down we fall, to this, to concentration camps, gas ovens, barbed wire, atom bombs."

"Why travel if not like a child?"

"When you're young you work because you think you need the money. When you're old you already know you don't need anything but death, so why work?"

"You gotta have fun, good food, good beds, nothing more. [...] Make yourself a haven in this world and heaven comes after."

Fire and Ice

I was just browsing through the pictures I have on my computer and found the ones from my trip to Iceland last summer again. Such an amazing country. Here are some expressions. I'm super-siked right now, cause next year I'll go to Greenland for two weeks and I think it'll be at least just as beautiful.

Birds

Don't ask me why, but I love to take pictures of birds while they're flying. Especially doves.

Athens, Greece. August 2009.

Prague, Czech Republic. October 2008.

Berlin, Germany. April 2009.

Vienna, Austria. January 2009.

Focus on the light!

This is a picture of the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtniskirche in Berlin, that got bombed down in the night of the 23rd of November 1943. It's still a very impressive building and also the new church, that was build nearby, is pretty interesting. What I really like about this picture is the light cone! Looks like magic.

Below Sea Level

Today I went to the cinema to see "Below Sea Level", the newest movie from Gianfranco Rosi. The screening was part of the viennese film festival Viennale. The were a coule of other flicks I wanted to see, like "Moon", "Antichrist" or "Fish Tank", but most of them were sold out within hours.

"Below Sea Level" drew my attention cause in the summarisation it said, that it told the story of a commune made up by some dropouts in the middle of the californian desert. Well, that's exactly what the film is all about. Rosi spent like 2 years in the commune and the result were the 115 minutes that flickered over the screen today. Within these almost 2 hours Rosi presents the fates of a few selected charakters.

For me, who has a very romanticising view on droping out of society, was it really easy to connect to some of the characters, mainly those, who chose this way of life. The life in the desert seemed to be hard, but also very rewarding in the sense of personal freedom. I could imagine very well to live in this comune too for a while. Must be a very interesting experience.

Fans of Thoreau, "Into The Wild" and Beatnick-Culture (Kerouac) should defenitely check this movie out!

Man of Tao

"...to see the world from the viewpoint of solitude and to meditate upon the world without being imbroglio'd in its actions, which have by now become famous for their horror & abomination - I wanted to be a Man of Tao, who watches the clouds and lets history rage beneath."

New toys!

Yesterday my boy Lucca made me a present: A Konica C35 EF, that he bought at the flea market. He didn't need it anymore since he got himself a Yashica T4. He knew that I like to go back to analog fotography and so he gave his old camera to me. Thank you Lucca.

When I came home today, I told my mum about the present, and to my surprise she said: "We too got a few old cameras down in the cellar!". What I found there were the following babies:

A Rollei XF35:

A Canon AV-1:

And a Minolta AF35:

I still have to figure out if and how those function, but I have a good feeling all of them still do. If so, you can expect a lot more picture updates in the near future...

Simplify

"That meant simplify the outward circumstances of your life, simplify your needs and your ambitions; learn to delight in the simple pleasures which the world of Nature affords. It meant also, scorn public opinion, refuse to accept the common definitions of success, refuse to be moved by the judgment of others."

Ephemeral

means "kurzlebig" or "vergänglich" in german! That's what i learnt today. I think this is going to be my new favourite word.

Submarine

So I got this superawesome new tool for my lomo from my boy Michi! Here are the firs few pics I took with it...

...and everything is going to the beat.

"It's the beat generation. it's béat, it's the beat to keep, it's the beat of the heart, it's being beat and down in the world."

One fast move, or I'm gone!

Finally! Can't wait for that one. Jack Kerouac = best writer EVER!

Leaves of autumn

"And for the first time i realize it's really Autumn and another year is dead. And that faint not-painful nostalgia of Autumn hangs like smoke in the evening air."

Dharma Bums

"Küche und Schlafzimmer auf dem Rücken und irgendwohin abhauen und vollkommene Einsamkeit finden und in die vollkommene Leere meines Geistes schauen und mich von allem Denken völlig freihalten."

80 fucking years! Hell Yeah!

I spent the last two days at my grandparents house in Tyrol. The reason to be there was, that we celebrated my grandmas 80th birthday! She's a great woman and can tell the best stories you've ever heard! It was great to be in the mountains (my grandparents actually really life on a mountain!) again, as everything runs a bit slower there and is more chill. Less city life. And it's always nice when the family comes together.
I also went hiking with my cousin Flo. We climbed on the top of a 2553m high mountain. It was pretty cold up there, but the view was breathtaking.

Earlier this week I've started my preparatory course to become a tourist guide. Classes will last till January 2010! And I'll have a lot less free time with excursions every fucking weekend. But if all goes well, I'll be a freelancer soon, which makes me my own boss! Ha!

Growing up...

"You'll burn yourself out like a moth jumping in a locomotive boiler looking for light."

The town and the city

"Auf eindringliche Weise war ihm mittlerweile die tragische Einsamkeit des daseins ebenso bewußt geworden wie die Notwendigkeit, sie mit Liebe und Hingabe abzuwehren, anstatt sich ihr mit jener perverse, grausamen, unnötigen Selbstquälerei zu überlassen, die er überall um sich her sah und die er selbst so lange betrieben hatte."

Parade my trouble in front of you guys?

"Make you realize that my heart ist broken...that as long as I live, I'll have chains dragging me down to the oceans of sad tears, that my feet are wet in allready."

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TO THE DRIFTERS!
IN HOPES THAT OUR PATHS CROSS AGAIN.
TO THE HOMESICK!
HOME'S WHEN WE DO MEET AGAIN.