close your eyes. this is the rhythm of a winter day, if you just close your eyes
Showing posts with label winter. Show all posts
Showing posts with label winter. Show all posts
Monday, 28 February 2011
Wednesday, 29 December 2010
Erleuchtete Fenster
Today I was at the dentist's and I ran into this column. I loved it. So I got it copied from the secretaries and translated it.
Taken from the German magazine Brigitte, the author is Julia Karnick, freely translated by me:
The most beautiful aspect of the dark season is that the cities are transformed into giant aquaria: you go through dark streets and can stare through the glass into the windows of lit kitchens and living rooms and watch the people as they swim back and forth surrounded by their furniture. It always seems like you are doing something, which is a little bit prohibited. I love that.
The most beautiful of all aquarium-streets of Hamburg is the Isestraße. Left and right of the Isestraße are wall to wall multistory apartment houses in Wilhelminian style, in the houses are rich old historic apartments, in the apartments live well-earning people. In the middle of the Isestraße runs an iron bridge, on the bridge runs every five minutes the elevated railway. If on a November or January dark late afternoon you travel with the elevated train through the Isestraße at supper time, while traveling past you can look in the dinner plate of the inhabitants of the Isestrasse - which from a distance are as big as dollhouses: in the kitchens or dining rooms couples and families sit at massive tables under stucco ceilings; above them hang candelabra or other lamps which were so expensive that they are called not simply lights, but 'luminous objects'. The luminous objects emit a warm golden glow. The warm golden glow has the strange effect that of the people which are illuminated by this glow one cannot even imagine that they cheat on their partners, abuse their children, blaspheme their colleagues, drink too much , or get intestinal flu.
The inhabitants of the Isestrasse have so little against the fact that one looks into their homes as the Calvinism-oriented inhabitants of the Netherlands, where large at-ground-level street-facing curtain-free windows deliver the message: 'We have nothing to hide'. Only that the inhabitants of the Isestrasse maybe go one step further: 'We have something to show'. Luminous objects, for example.
I grew up in a suburb where in front of each window were hanging curtains and quite many neighborhood residents were living in the cold glow of white neon tubes or, if they were very very hard on it, in the almost-frosty glow of purple translucent neon lights. In this light appeared, reasonably veiled by curtains, all sort of things: murder, intrigue, depravity. My parents had a kitchen curtain, however in the living room behind it many small cozy lamps lit my happy childhood. Still, every time I traveled through the Isestraße as a teenager, I thought: "When I grow up, I also want to live behind such a curtain-less window, where you enjoy to look and to let look."
Later I moved out and I lived in my own apartments. After each move, I have made the street test. I switched on the lights in the rooms which faced the street. I went outside. I stood on the street; the higher we lived the farther away from our house I had to stand in order to be able to see what I wanted to see. I imagined that I was not I and my apartment was not mine. Then I watched myself in the window, verifying.
Yes, I probably have a screw loose. What I saw never reached the approximate standard of the Isestrasse, but mostly I was reasonably satisfied, sometimes even quite happy. Then I went back inside.
Just to have an idea of what we are talking about: the elevated railway, the houses in Wilhelminian style, and one of these windows...
I expereinced something similar on the elevated railway in Sydney, though there it was summer, full daylight and I could see people in their offices...
Taken from the German magazine Brigitte, the author is Julia Karnick, freely translated by me:
The most beautiful aspect of the dark season is that the cities are transformed into giant aquaria: you go through dark streets and can stare through the glass into the windows of lit kitchens and living rooms and watch the people as they swim back and forth surrounded by their furniture. It always seems like you are doing something, which is a little bit prohibited. I love that.
The most beautiful of all aquarium-streets of Hamburg is the Isestraße. Left and right of the Isestraße are wall to wall multistory apartment houses in Wilhelminian style, in the houses are rich old historic apartments, in the apartments live well-earning people. In the middle of the Isestraße runs an iron bridge, on the bridge runs every five minutes the elevated railway. If on a November or January dark late afternoon you travel with the elevated train through the Isestraße at supper time, while traveling past you can look in the dinner plate of the inhabitants of the Isestrasse - which from a distance are as big as dollhouses: in the kitchens or dining rooms couples and families sit at massive tables under stucco ceilings; above them hang candelabra or other lamps which were so expensive that they are called not simply lights, but 'luminous objects'. The luminous objects emit a warm golden glow. The warm golden glow has the strange effect that of the people which are illuminated by this glow one cannot even imagine that they cheat on their partners, abuse their children, blaspheme their colleagues, drink too much , or get intestinal flu.
The inhabitants of the Isestrasse have so little against the fact that one looks into their homes as the Calvinism-oriented inhabitants of the Netherlands, where large at-ground-level street-facing curtain-free windows deliver the message: 'We have nothing to hide'. Only that the inhabitants of the Isestrasse maybe go one step further: 'We have something to show'. Luminous objects, for example.
I grew up in a suburb where in front of each window were hanging curtains and quite many neighborhood residents were living in the cold glow of white neon tubes or, if they were very very hard on it, in the almost-frosty glow of purple translucent neon lights. In this light appeared, reasonably veiled by curtains, all sort of things: murder, intrigue, depravity. My parents had a kitchen curtain, however in the living room behind it many small cozy lamps lit my happy childhood. Still, every time I traveled through the Isestraße as a teenager, I thought: "When I grow up, I also want to live behind such a curtain-less window, where you enjoy to look and to let look."
Later I moved out and I lived in my own apartments. After each move, I have made the street test. I switched on the lights in the rooms which faced the street. I went outside. I stood on the street; the higher we lived the farther away from our house I had to stand in order to be able to see what I wanted to see. I imagined that I was not I and my apartment was not mine. Then I watched myself in the window, verifying.
Yes, I probably have a screw loose. What I saw never reached the approximate standard of the Isestrasse, but mostly I was reasonably satisfied, sometimes even quite happy. Then I went back inside.
Just to have an idea of what we are talking about: the elevated railway, the houses in Wilhelminian style, and one of these windows...
I expereinced something similar on the elevated railway in Sydney, though there it was summer, full daylight and I could see people in their offices...
Friday, 12 March 2010
Wednesday, 10 February 2010
Thursday, 10 December 2009
snow
this morning I left my apartment and I started my adventure in the snow, 30 to 50 centimetres of snow. Till my knees (I'm not very tall!). But the sun is shining, though one can hardly feel the warmth. It's -23°C. I probably was never in suc ha cold place. Apart from the frozen stuff department in Italian supermarkets.
When I breathe I produce some warmth in my scarf and then it freezes!
When I finally got to the offce...my adapter for laptop was not working anymore! Damn! But a good excuse to leave work and go to the bookstore at the Union. Where a blue-eyed guy sent me an amazing adapter..
And of course also today I saw a guy in shorts....
When I breathe I produce some warmth in my scarf and then it freezes!
When I finally got to the offce...my adapter for laptop was not working anymore! Damn! But a good excuse to leave work and go to the bookstore at the Union. Where a blue-eyed guy sent me an amazing adapter..
And of course also today I saw a guy in shorts....
Friday, 4 December 2009
up-date
soooooooo... also here in the American mid-west I already found a couple of nice people. Some Italians, some international, no American. Here the weather is freezing, always below zero, and since yesterday it's snowing a little. At the weekend I'll hopefully go and watch an ice hockey game. I wanted to watch baseball or football, but they're not playing in this season. And I finally found the bug in my program....at least one bug :) and I'm falling...
Wednesday, 25 November 2009
...it may snow :)
Oh the weather outside is frightful,
But the fire is so delightful,
And since we've no place to go,
Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!
It doesn't show signs of Pauseping,
And I've bought some corn for popping,
The lights are turned way down low,
Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!
When we finally kiss goodnight,
How I'll hate going out in the storm!
But if you'll really hold me tight,
All the way home I'll be warm.
The fire is slowly dying,
And, my dear, we're still good-bying,
But as long as you love me so,
Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!
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