Mon Repos
I wish I could get a refund for this week, but I’ve wasted too much time here to allow for that. Here in Munich since Monday, working on a television production for two concerts of Bach's Christmas Oratorio the Akademie is performing this weekend with the Choir of the Bavarian Radio (the first part of the oratorio, or cantatas 1-3, will be aired on Christmas Day on BRTV at 11 a.m.). The work itself has been amusing, as each day we get to watch how the television crew and lighting team, who are struggling to get the hall ready for this weekend, squabble with the sound technicians , who are trying to record every sound we make so that they can present a perfect live broadcast. We are performing in the Heculessaal of the Munich Residenz, which is sort of like a Bavarian Versailles in its grandeur, except that most of it was destroyed during the Second World War and had to be rebuilt in the 1950s. The hall itself is a grey marble monstrosity in which twelve huge tapestries present the labors of Hercules. It’s all vaguely fascist in style, but fortunately the mood lighting helps greatly, even if the hall in the third cantata seems a bit like the red light district of Amsterdam.
Come 4 p.m., when we finish for the day, I'm at a bit of a loss with what to do with myself. If I were still studying, I'd be quite content to find a quiet corner in a Starbucks and work on assignments on my laptop. In fact, I wish that I had had such vasts amounts of free time while I was studying and on the road. But now that I'm done with this program I wander aimlessly through this city, watching rich Bavarian women in long fur coats and men in green Loden jackets practice the yearly Christian ritual of "Shop until you drop for Jesus“ in fine boutique stores while the snow falls in perfect stillness all around Then, when I've tired of seeing that, I grab a hamburger before returning back to my cramped hotel room and surf the Internet, hoping to find something that might inspire me to write.
Of course there are a lot of things to write about, but breaking into writing just seems hard right now, well neigh impossible. I know I’m trying too hard. I want so desperately to begin with a bang, to announce the 'new me' with a tense dissonant chord that evokes the genius and erotic glamour that I saw in the trailer to Coco Chanel and Igor Stravinsky. But the words that I produce now just seem too vanilla, too deliberately prefabricated, as if I spent these two years studying the elements of writing without taking care to let my inner creative self speak out. In my head, I hear the words of my teachers to write short sentences that "Get to the point! Your reader doesn't have time for your purple prose." And yet, I reprimand myself constantly for not having written anything these past three months, for just being so afraid to screw up and disappoint everyone. After all, now that I have this degree- an expensive seal of approval- I should be qualified for just about any task, be it large or small. And you are expecting to see the results now.
Actually, I was going to write to you about Finnish tango.
Actually, I was going to write about the choreography to The Rite of Spring.
Actually, I was going to write to you about my great designs for a book loosely based on Bach's 24 Preludes and Fugues.
My mind is swimming with ideas, but as each day passes, the pressure to begin on something increases. Perhaps I'm just trying too hard to force the words out, rather than accepting the greatest maxim of modern times, written by Samuel Beckett: "Fail. Fail again. Fail better," and using that as a starting point.
So until further notice. I'll finish this with an excerpt from Aki Kaurusmäki's film The Man Without a Past. It definitely seems fitting for the mood I’m in right now.
Come 4 p.m., when we finish for the day, I'm at a bit of a loss with what to do with myself. If I were still studying, I'd be quite content to find a quiet corner in a Starbucks and work on assignments on my laptop. In fact, I wish that I had had such vasts amounts of free time while I was studying and on the road. But now that I'm done with this program I wander aimlessly through this city, watching rich Bavarian women in long fur coats and men in green Loden jackets practice the yearly Christian ritual of "Shop until you drop for Jesus“ in fine boutique stores while the snow falls in perfect stillness all around Then, when I've tired of seeing that, I grab a hamburger before returning back to my cramped hotel room and surf the Internet, hoping to find something that might inspire me to write.
Of course there are a lot of things to write about, but breaking into writing just seems hard right now, well neigh impossible. I know I’m trying too hard. I want so desperately to begin with a bang, to announce the 'new me' with a tense dissonant chord that evokes the genius and erotic glamour that I saw in the trailer to Coco Chanel and Igor Stravinsky. But the words that I produce now just seem too vanilla, too deliberately prefabricated, as if I spent these two years studying the elements of writing without taking care to let my inner creative self speak out. In my head, I hear the words of my teachers to write short sentences that "Get to the point! Your reader doesn't have time for your purple prose." And yet, I reprimand myself constantly for not having written anything these past three months, for just being so afraid to screw up and disappoint everyone. After all, now that I have this degree- an expensive seal of approval- I should be qualified for just about any task, be it large or small. And you are expecting to see the results now.
Actually, I was going to write to you about Finnish tango.
Actually, I was going to write about the choreography to The Rite of Spring.
Actually, I was going to write to you about my great designs for a book loosely based on Bach's 24 Preludes and Fugues.
My mind is swimming with ideas, but as each day passes, the pressure to begin on something increases. Perhaps I'm just trying too hard to force the words out, rather than accepting the greatest maxim of modern times, written by Samuel Beckett: "Fail. Fail again. Fail better," and using that as a starting point.
So until further notice. I'll finish this with an excerpt from Aki Kaurusmäki's film The Man Without a Past. It definitely seems fitting for the mood I’m in right now.
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