Sparse reality

Tired, stomach's my most active part

Had 2 much 4 lunch
Followed by ice cream
That's 2 times 2 much

– Leonard Blumfeld

Dazed spring day

It's a dazed kind of spring day.
The sky out there is a noncommittal grey.
The birds in their trees deliver muted chirps.
Everyone's in the office,
staring at their screen,
nodding along with key clicks (that's Pete),
head in hand (that's Daniella),
hand to nose (that's Andrea),
traipsing back from canteen loaded with coffee and snacks (that's Sasha),
exited to do things more amusing (that's Rita).
And I'm the dazed and proud observer of all this.

– Leonard "Once Again Razor Edge" Blumfeld

Notes
Today's the 1st anniversary of my relationship with S. – it all started a year ago with the first e-mail exchange – and would have been my father's 99th birthday. The horoscope told me today was good for meditation. Feels like it. Except that now conversation in the office has picked up. Andrea put a crown and cloak on her owl. This had to be reported.

Tepid day, late April

Work and the world are going by –
Rita makes a paper butterfly.


– Leonard "Keen Observer" Blumfeld (© 2011)

Razor edge of time poetic reporting from the workplace.

A what's around haiku

Keyboard, mouse, empty
coffee cup with spoon, spiral
agenda. Time stagnant.

– Leonard "Once Again Japan" Blumfeld (© 2012)

Genesis notes
You sit and look at what's around you, make a selection and a haiku out of it. That simple.

Snowdrops / A. D. Miller

(Warning: This is a more or less polemic blurb without any claim to thoroughness or completeness.)

Finished reading Snowdrops this weekend, a novel about a British lawyer who becomes involved in fraud in his work for an investment bank, and, in private, in a case of apartment fraud as a consequence of falling in love with a mysterious Russian woman.

So what's true about the hype?
'Totally gripping' – more ho-hum than gripping. Took me numerous sessions to read and is certainly not one of the potboilers you cannot put down.
'Disturbing and dazzling' – draws a disturbing picture of Russia and Moscow. Greatly reduced my readiness to ever go there.
'Electrifying ... Leaves you stunned and addicted' – That opinion, pardon my bluntness, is a striking example of pure bullshit. Seems more appropriate to LSD, heroin or some other drug than anything written.

As it says on the back cover, there is some similarity to the writing of Graham Greene, but more along the lines of imitation. Neither the writing itself nor the plot are that good. There is that Greene-like feeling of guilt, but there's so much insistence on building it that it becomes annoying. The confessionality (the story is told as a confession to the hero's fiancée) is also reminiscent of Greene, except that it never comes alive, so to speak, because the person the story is told to remains nondescript, making the whole device seem irrelevant.

Then there's that constant puerile harping about how awful it is to be older than thirty. (I believe a lot of people have successfully moved on even into their forties or fifties.) And the annoying premonition building (along the lines of 'I should have known better then that ...', 'Had I not ...') that seems to come straight out of a fiction writing workshop manual. And then there are all the attempts to humanize inanimate objects with adjectives that mostly didn't do much for me. That's the literary touch, I suppose.

A third plot line – pretty much unrelated to the other two – is about the body of an old man found in a rusty orange Zhiguli (mentioned umpteen times in the course of the novel to make it absolutely clear that it has to have some significance).

You may rest in peace, Graham. This ain't no serious competition for The Third Man or The Quiet American.

– Leonard "Won't Write Reviews" Blumfeld

China's Wonderland Turned Horrorland

The Disneyland copy planned outside the gates of Beijing never materialized because the owners of the land asked for more money. All the amusement park has to offer are a few ruins and skeletons of buildings quietly decaying in a barren landscape. Good news for the farmers who used to farm here and were to make space for China's move into the world of Amusotopia. They're coming back.

Red & blue no. 1

For S., who actually said it

Light turned red
out of the blue.

– Leonard Blumfeld

From the office

Occasional mouse
clicks and the roll of traffic
outside. Steps going by.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2011)

A slightly overstuffed haiku. Oops! Somebody might die from that. But the truth and nothing but the truth.

From the work front

Oh my, it's one of those days of doubt.
Is what I'm doing worth anything?
Apart from fogging up my brain.
Rubbish comes in, I process rubbish,
rubbish comes back, I deliver rubbish.
It's the life of a junkie.*

– Leonard "Exasperated" Blumfeld

*In the sense of one dealing with junk, i.e. a garbage man, with the difference that this garbage doesn't stink in the literal sense.

Proverbs from the Chinese III

To drag a mumble out of a rock
is to penetrate great depths.

Whoever has ever tried and achieved this will know that great depths are reached that way. Conveniently, this translation from the Chinese again includes three words from 3WW: drag, mumble and penetrate.

– Leonard “Cookie of Fortune” Blumfeld

Proverbs from the Chinese I

A glance without banter

speaks no fumble.

Reading the words banter, fumble and glance on 3WW reminded me of this English translation of an old Chinese proverb I may have come across in a fortune cookie.

As is the case with many other Chinese proverbs, the meaning of this one is rather enigmatic.

– Leonard "Proverbial" Blumfeld

Niente

Nothing in a long time. 

Only living. No writing.

– Leonard “Has Been Living” Blumfeld

A truthful report. Hadn't written a thing since going on a trip to Italy on June 24. Got back on July 10, but still did not feel like writing.

For those who don't know: niente is Italian for nothing.

Still life in big building

I'm nearly alone in this big building
which houses more than a thousand.
I ran into a few when I made my way in this morning.
Nobody's come by my despacho since then.
The phone's been silent.
It is a still life except for my fingers typing.

– Leonard Blumfeld

Written upon inspiration by Sunday Scribblings' Nearly.

Note
Things ain't as bad as the above makes them sound. I suppressed a few people encounters for enhanced effect. This is what you call poetic license.
My daily e-mail horoscope told me that romantic change is impending today. Can't wait.
Does that horoscope apply to all capricorns?

Mera Cy Twombly

Talked to my daughter today, who told me she went to the Museum Brandhorst in Munich, where she saw paintings by Andy Warhol and Cy Twombly, to name the two that came to her mind first.

I proceeded to look at some of Twombly's art on the Internet and immediately started my own Twombly. My daughter told me that he worked with layers a lot, so I put down the first layer, in a mixture of Indian yellow and chrome yellow.

The plan for the next layer is still a bit fuzzy, but it could be something in a rusty red, perhaps some scribble-like structure.

Or some writing: मेरा साईं त्वोम्ब्ली 

Last weekend I drew a card that said 'purpose' and got the message. There has not been a lot of that in my life, and it's sorely needed.

One outcome of my purpose-finding mission is that I decided to write a novel, loosely based on Der im Irr-Garten der Liebe herum taumelnde Cavalier (1738) by Johann Gottfried Schnabel*, except that I would be staggering through the labyrinth of the later 20th and early 21st centuries instead of Schnabel's 18th.

Wish me good luck with Twombly and the maze novel.

Yours,

Leonard Cy Gottfried Blumfeld

*Schnabel is best known for his utopian robinsonade Die Insel Felsenburg of 1731.

Word sham

It’s plossible
even though ‘t ain’t
willingly

– Leonard “Contorter of Words” Blumfeld (© 2011)

Written using plausible, taint and willingly from 3WW ... well, using some form of two of them.

Parasitic ditty

Well, I’m sure glad today’s words are
dabble, lean and utter
instead of
babble, unclean and stutter.

– Leonard “Paraphraser” Blumfeld (© 2010)

Played around with the three words from 3WW CCXIX, and this was the outcome.

77 entries

2010 – 77 blog entries so far ...

That's more productive than 2009 already, even though a lot less productive than during the first two years of this blog.

I must have really reported on just about anything back then, participated regularly in just about any writing meme I came across.

Whereas this year I frequently suffered from an "I've got nothing to say" syndrome.

But then again there were those fruitful moments when just about anything, any word, any inspiration triggered an outburst, usually resulting in a poem or ultrashort piece of fiction.

Not so bad, after all, then, this year?

– Leonard "I've Got Nothing to Say" Blumfeld

Still life haiku

Work is still for the
duration of this still act,
disturbed by key clicks.

– Leonard “Sunday Morning” Blumfeld (© 2010)

Believe it or not, it's Sunday morning, and I'm working away on gainful work (freelancer's fate).
Oh, and it's grey and drab out there, with drizzle in the air.

Today's horoscope said ...

You could be interested in psychology right now, Leonard. Perhaps you are trying to unlock the secrets of a complex relationship. You could be romantically involved with someone who is a bit of a puzzle.

Wow! Hardly ever has a horoscope been more spot-on than this. I've been working on unlocking the secrets of this complex relationship with this big bit of a puzzle for years.

I'd like to thank ...

... everyone involved in urgently proposing my overall work to the illustrious jury of Pedestrian Writing At Best, which includes such celebrated authors as Morman Nailer, Menry Hiller, Nais Ananin, Kephen Sting, Kean Doontz and Ban Drown.

My lifetime achievement won third prize in the Experimental Pedestrian Writing category.

The Pedestrian Writing At Best Prizes are on par with the coveted Cooker Prize, Phoolitzer Prize and Mobile Prize for Literature.

I am extremely proud and honored to have been awarded this prestigious prize, and it's all due to your efforts, my buddies, colleagues, cronies, acolytes and sycophants!

Thank you so eternally much!

– Leonard “Clod” Blumfeld

Published for Sunday Scribblings and I'd like to thank...