Fire Island

A friend takes me out to Fire Island, which is 1,5 hrs from NYC. As soon as we get off the highway there is a nice breeze from the sea which feels so very different from the heat and humidity you get in the city. The Island stretches out in the Atlantic Ocean over 30 miles and lies in front of Long Island. The water is still quite cold, nevertheless I have a good swim.
Lying idly in the sand I see little airplanes pass by with banners (ads) on their tails. I think, of course there is no place to escape advertising. After a while I discover 5 airplanes in the sky which do skywriting. They emit bits of gas which make up letters. It reads as follows:

Wes Anderson

I see Wes Anderson (director of Royal Tennenbaums, Life Aquatic etc.) at an exhibition opening in the East Village. After getting advice from a friend of mine i go to talk to him. He is a very nice and quite a shy person. He looks like a 28 years old student. I really like his films, they are very funny and smart.

Fish in the window

This is Fred. Fred looks at you when you look at him. If you enter the Chinese restaurant where he is forced to live his short life, you could point at him and they will cook him for you. But you don't wanna do that, do you? Instead you just watch this little monster in the shop window.

Modeselektor rock the Apt

Went to a club called the Apt in the Meat Packing District yesterday. The evening is hosted by the New York record shop Other Music. There is a live gig of the Berlin based electro-techno outfit Modeselektor which is on Ellen Allien's BPitch Control label.
I have a great evening with friends dancing and drinking both intensely. Modeselektor rock the Apt's basement hard! Everybody is dancing. I am dancing and sometimes screaming. As we leave the club it's dawn. It is a nice feeling to be up at dawn after partying hard...

The Ramones Look

is back in town. It’s tight black jeans (especially at the lower legs), a t-shirt and long black hair. Larry Clark uses the same look for his new film "Wassup Rockers", too.

American Blackout

is a new documentary about the disfranchisement (Aberkennung des Wahlrechts) of black voters in Florida in 2000 and about the remarkable politician Cynthia McKinney (black female Democrat) of Georgia. The Republicans drove her out in past elections with a trick. They sent their voters to vote for a black Democratic candidate different from Cynthia McKinney instead for a Republican. But in the last elections she fought her way back. She speaks out about issues no-one else dares to and leaves Rumsfeld speechless in Congress.

Philip Seymour Hoffmann

walks by under my window. I see him go around the corner on the other side of the street. He has a black bag on his shoulder which makes his walking look clumsy. He looks almost like a business guy.
I really like him as an actor. He played in good movies (Todd Solondz’s Happiness, in both P.T. Anderson’s great films Boogie Nights and Punch, Drunk, Love). He also played Capote (for which he won an Oscar) and he makes a good mark in MI3, too.

Four films in four days

1. Art School Confidential by Terry Zwigoff: Set in an art college, meant to be fun but it’s just piling up stupid clichés. This is very annoying, given that Mr. Zwigoff used to be a good director who made the great comic book adaptation „Ghost World“ in 2001 with Thora Birtch, Scarlet Johansson and Steve Buscemi.
2. Mission Impossible (MI:3) by ... – I don’t remember. Well, it’s an action flic. After the opening scene where Mr. Cruise gets married there is a lot of action going on, the camera is moving constantly, a lot of explosions, shooting and fighting. It’s ok as an action movie.
3. Hard Candy: Quite a horrible film about a 14 years old girl who takes revenge on a pedophile who she deems responsible for the suicide of her friend.
4. The Preposition, after a screenplay by Nick Cave. The movie stars Guy Pearce as one of four brothers who form up a gang. It is set in late 19th century Australia. The scenes are populated with dirty and fucked up people which makes the movie a little different from its American counterparts. The music which was written by Nick Cave is very good. The film is good, too.

Transcontinental Damage

List of items which broke down so far:
1. Portable CD-Player: breaks down due to a faulty CD.
2. My knees, but they are ok again.
3. My watch gets destroyed as I unintentionally expose it to water having a shower.
4. First pair of blue jeans: get a hole on the backside as I bow down. There is only a small hole at first which widens fast every time I do a similar move.
5. Second pair of jeans, due to a similar event.
6. Cell phone: my Motorola cannot charge the battery anymore.
6. Third pair of jeans, break as I get on my bike.

Trip around Manhattan

On Sunday evening I take a bike trip at sunset. I ride on the west side along the Hudson to the southern tip of Manhattan. I have a look at the orange disc of the sun slowly going down behind skyscrapers. I head north on the other side of the peninsula along the East River. I pass quite a few ball parks with men playing baseball or other sports. I have a look at Williamsburg at sunset. I feel free and very happy on my bike, i don’t need a car, a bike does it.
I go all the way to the UN-Headquartes on 40th Street. The building looks beautiful in the dark. From the UN I continue West. I come through a little area of Victorian houses. One is a residential building which is called the Cloister. It was a real cloister which they turned into an appartment building. Close to that area superslim skyskrapers rise...

HiFi

This is my new Hi-fi which looks like a bicycle. Well, it is a bicycle, but it’s a Panasonic. Until i found it, i did not know that Panasonic made bikes. Now i know. You know, too.