LiteraturRaum

vorübergehende Pause für das Projekt LiteraturRaum

Julia Tismer — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 12:08:19 +0000

Das Projekt LiteraturRaum beherbergte seit September 2009 19 internationale Autoren, die im Bleibtreu wohnten und schrieben. Zu Beginn diesen Jahres wurden sehr unerwartet und für die Projektverantwortlichen sehr plötzlich die Gelder, die das LiteraturRaum Projekt finanzieren, eingefroren.

Letzte Autorin war im Dezember und Januar Janne Teller aus Dänemark. Zur Zeit ist kein Autor zu Gast im Bleibtreu. Das Projekt legt ab Ende März 2012 eine Pause ein. Wir hoffen, das Projekt spätestens im nächsten Jahr fortsetzen zu können.

Interessierte können sich weiterhin in den Lesungsverteiler aufnehmen lassen und werden dann über neue Autoren und Lesungen informiert.

Aktuelle Informationen erhalten Sie auf unserem blog www.literaturraum.de.

Janne Teller photographed by Thomas Kierok!

Julia Tismer — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 10:45:33 +0000

Janne Teller – blog 8 and Farewell Janne Teller!

Julia Tismer — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 12:50:04 +0000

It’s 2.15 in the morning again, and I’m not sleeping. I look out of the window at the night overcome by a strange sensation that the night is looking at me as well. Two lighted windows in Bleibtreustrasse, but the looking doesn’t stem from them. No it’s BiBi, my leash-animal blog who looks for himself to be seen, and this month of walking wondering him, BiBi has shown me his true face: brother to Narcissus, sister of Agape. Black as endlessness, white as nothingness. Violet as dawn, orange as dusk. BiBi follows no stars, because you’re his star, the back of your head his sun and moon. Is he a good companion, I’m not so sure. He’s loyal no doubt, faithful, doesn’t argue and has no bad habits of his, except his very being seems in nature to be one of a bad habit, like drinking alone, flashing to the night. There is no compass to BiBi, because BiBi is indeed a window, his geometric form a continuous, fluid shape of selective transparency. Marble. Marble is what I wish to touch, to hold on to, forgetting, letting go of BiBi, thick solid soft and hard marble like the statue of Aphrodite and the Tortoise I saw the other day in Altes Museum: Aphrodite’s bare foot supported by the shell of the turtle, leaving no doubt that they walk together. Walking that rounded touchable lasting strength of seasoned slightly chipped marble, so far from BiBi whose virtual momentaneous whisper depends on which curtains are drawn or open at the time BiBi walks the street with me, or where he has his eyes when mine are taken in by Brandenburger Tor, numbered trees or marble for example. BiBi is a window that looks in, not out. That might be good for amorphous whispering through sleepless nights, but it isn’t for novel writing. So now I turn off the light, and wish you all a good night.

Janne Teller – blog 7:

Julia Tismer — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 08:17:25 +0000

While writing and wandering about Berlin, I’ve also taken the time to go to several operas, die Philharmonie, as well as to dive into some of all the arts at display in the city. It’s the eternal choice for a writer: the one between living and writing about living. Or somehow manage to turn the writing into living. Sometimes I’m better at it than at other times. Here in Berlin, all three have worked rather well together, and I’ve enjoyed spending the afternoons getting to know German painters I didn’t know, see works unbeknownst to me of painters I did know – with the good conscience of a morning spent working on my new novel that’s slowly growing into being. And when it comes together the way it has, every part of life seems to have its own place in the process: the art seen feeds the art being produced. Not directly, I don’t write about any of what I see; but indirectly, the energy that artists of many centuries have divulged is right there in Altes Museum, Alte Nationalgalerie, Gemälde and so on, for me to absorb, carry with me and slowly transform into the energy I myself can divulge through my literature. I eat art. that’s what’s become evident to me while being here. When I’m upset, the Italian Renaissance calms me, when I’m sad, the French impressionists lift my spirits, if I should be too happy a walk through the Dutch 17-18th century gloom will no doubt temper my exuberance … But it’s also more subtle, the transfer of something I don’t know of and which I’m unaware of happening before I suddenly notice myself walking around smiling, as if having been offered a gift of neither binds nor boundaries. The same happiness that can come over me during an opera aria, even one I might not take to particularly, yet that sensation of being granted something more, something beyond myself, something feeding my spirits – and giving me the energy to write even when I thought I was depleted. More prosaically: the ability to feed off of paintings can come in particularly handy in Berlin galleries: nowhere else in the world have I been so unsuccessful looking for edible offerings in museums, as in this city. From the Metropolitan and Moma in New York, over Louisiana and Glyptoteket in Copenhagen, to Pompidou and the Louvre in Paris, as well as even the Pinakothek in Munich, there are cafe’s or restaurants you’d have reasons to visit also without visiting the museum. Why not in Berlin? Did I overlook something when in my search around the magnificent Museumsinsel on a Thursday late opening-night, I ended giving up and retire to Gendarmenmarkt? Is it not part of the Berlin city culture? Or is new Berlin, the unified Berlin, still so much a place under construction that its artistic dining offers are yet to come? In the latter case, may I make the argument for a topclass eating place, with an ad-joint cafe and bar right at Museumsinsel …. Till then, I’m glad I have a full board stipend here at the Bleibtreu Hotel – and then that I’m able to eat art …

Lesung in der Königlich Dänischen Botschaft:

Julia Tismer — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 13:01:01 +0000

Heute morgen las Janne Teller im voll bestetzten Felles Hus in der Königlich Dänischen Botschaft. Nach einleitenden Worten durch den Dänischen Botschafter moderierte Thomas Böhm eine gelungene Morgenlesung vor Publikum und Schülern.

Janne Teller – blog 6:

Julia Tismer — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 09:54:22 +0000

Listening to the American composer Terry Vosbein’s big band composition ‘Jumping Monkey’ while getting ready to sit down at my desk. Normally I listen to Vosbein’s classical compositions when starting to write, particularly ‘A Prayer for Peace’. Somehow it brings my brains into the right frame of mind: to focus in the extreme and run wild at one and the same time. For a continuous stream of steadiness later, to keep me going without distraction, I often hear Mozart’s symphony no. 40 and 41. That these symphonies are used in the treatment of hyper active, or even psychotic, children, just confirms to me their power to harmonize and balance human brain waves. I don’t know if I’m particularly suceptible to sound, but just like I hate noise and ugly sounds or the blasting of disco rhythms, to the point of tears and an irresistible need to run away, I can move my own mind into the atmosphere I need for a certain part of a manuscript by choosing music of the characteristic tonality I’m after. It’s not always classics or jazz, but can be anything, as long as it takes my mind along the right path. These days, I listen a lot to Marianne Faithful. Not only does her later desperate, rasped voice walk the path of anger, sorrow and regret of the male protagonist of my new novel (I almost always write from the point of view of men, maybe because men fascinate me endlessly), but also the unique mixture of open, almost surprised, innocense and jaded, equally surprised, hopefullness in her early recordings, like ‘Come Stay With Me‘ hits my undercurrent of heart.

Perhaps all this can one day be measured and explained – for now, I hold on to the mystery of just knowing that it works – and I write …

Janne Teller – blog 5:

Julia Tismer — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 10:17:08 +0000

I’ve been talking to the trees. It was a good conversation, no argument, we spoke about numbers. They have their numbers and I have mine. I’d been wondering why they all, big or small, carried this a little blue plaque with a figure on. And that was their answer: In Berlin trees have numbers, and they are quite proud of their numbers, make them feel special compared to trees anywhere else in the world. They each know their place in the social order, no tree jumping up in the middle of nowhere, or dancing around switching place, creating confusion and havoc in the well planned Geborgenheit. Made me wonder a little bit about the purpose of my own social security number … Somehow I’ve always wanted to give it up, exchange it for another one, or have several, something to change between depending on my mood. It’s not all days one can like the same digits! Then again, if I were a tree I know I’d be a Baobab, one of those oddly winded, unruly African trees, the roots of which grow down into the earth, and not the other way around.

There are 436.000 trees in Berlin, that’s more than the pre-war number of 411.000 in 1939, and it’s a true achievement considering only 161.000 trees were left in 1946. And it makes for a wonderfully green city (even if these days being cold January, I’m left to conjure up the green – but being endowed with a rather generous imagination, I have no problem seeing all shades of green foliage while wandering among the naked stems). Maybe it couldn’t have been achieved without the numbering: As is, no one can steal or cut down or burn or in any way kill tree let’s say no. 63 on Kurfürstendamm without the authorities and all the neighbors noticing. So if worst comes to worst, a new no 63 can immediately be planted. Numbers are in fact very safe, a tree, even the best and strongest of them, may wither and die, disappear on a windy night, but the no. 63 remains. Always. Think about it: always really meaning always. And also always holding the same place in the order: before 64 and after 62. No matter how many stormy nights may pass. So maybe that’s why we like to give human beings numbers, the sense of eternity it for a brief moment offfers us. Immortality made tangible. No wonder those trees are happy with their numbers!

Janne Teller: exklusiv aus dem neuen Buch “Komm”

Julia Tismer — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 10:09:10 +0000

Anlässlich der Lesung am 23. Januar stellt Janne Teller kurz ihr neues Buch vor, an dem sie in Berlin zur Zeit schreibt:

“Komm”, Erscheinungstermin: 27.2.2012

Ein Verleger im Zwiespalt: Gerade hat er ein neues Manuskript seines Bestsellerautors zum Satz gegeben, da taucht eine Bekannte, Petra Vinter, auf. Sie behauptet, der Autor habe ihre Geschichte gestohlen. Eine Rede über Literatur und Moral, an der der Verleger schreibt, soll seine Gedanken ordnen. Dabei sieht er sein eigenes Leben an sich vorüberziehen, er hört geradezu: “Komm, folge mir. Du musst dein Leben ändern.” Janne Teller, berühmt geworden mit ihren brisanten Jugendbüchern, schreibt ein philosophisches Nachtstück für Erwachsene. Es stellt existentielle Fragen der Ethik: Kann die Kunst die Welt besser machen? Was bedeutet Verantwortung? Wie wollen wir leben?

Janne Teller – blog 4:

Julia Tismer — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 12:28:24 +0000

One lion, many lions, a weekend of lions – on the photo one of them. The others were in Mozart’s die Zauberflöte which I saw yesterday; a wonderful staging of the opera in the Schiller Theater. The photographed lion is the Isted Lion (In Danish: Istedløven), which has had a long and volatile history since it was first erected by the Danes in 1862 in Flensburg, symbolizing the Danish victory over Schleswig-Holstein in the Battle of Isted in 1850. Both Schleswig-Holstein and lion were lost again to Germany already in 1864 … , thus initiating what one might call the ‘Endless Strife of the Isted Lion’, the gist of which can be read here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isted_Lion . What interested me about this lion – and why it’s of relevance here – is that the return of the Lion from Denmark to the military cemetary in Flensburg in September 2011 was argued for by some Danish nationalists – including the former strategist and Member of Parliament for the Danish People’s Party, Pastor Krarup (the party that recently tried to reintroduce unilateral danish border control) - as being an important national support for the Danes in Schleswig-Holstein. I wondered what Krarup would say if he saw the zink copy of the lion that I photographed at Wannsee … Let’s hold on to EUROPE and let the nationalists battle over their monuments … So instead of looking at the lion as ’support to the Danes in Berlin’, I myself hold strongly to the lion’s peaceful and snuggly intentions: its face looks like that of a smiling flat-faced fat persian cat … And no doubt that this one lives happily as a mixed-race mongrel, proud to be guarding German multi-culturalism not far from the House of the Wannsee Conference – so as one of those hybrids myself, I scratch him behind his ears and hear the purring, see the very notion of nation state identity evaporate, and I feel very much at home …

Janne Teller – blog 3:

Julia Tismer — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 12:34:14 +0000

I went for a walk with my blog yesterday. No leash needed since it’s a very faithful animal, that I’ve understood now: it clings to the hair at the back of my head so that anyone walking behind can see straight into my head, or at least have the illusion of doing so, since what exactly they see is determined on the mood and shine of my little animal that I’ve now named BiBi, short for Benjamin&Belinda, which I shall revert to later. What determines BiBi’s mood and shine, I’m still working on finding out. Anyhow it feels very cosy walking BiBi around in the city, and he didn’t mind at all the rain we came across on Monday nor appeared to have any preference for the slight sun we caught for a second or two yesterday. I say he, but BiBi actually has the advantage of being androgynous. You can discern no definitive difference between male and female blogs, only their coloring and decoration will change depending on whose head they’ve attached themselves to. This I realised after a lengthy night study of the two windows that were lit in Bleibtreustrasse at 3 am last night. I’m not yet sure where the coloring origins from, if it arises from a secret source within or if it’s real Goethe defined spectral light, but I’m sure that I am envious. Or envious isn’t the right word cause that’s not really my nature: I do consider it’s great and good for them that the blogs have androgynous abilities and chameleonic hues. I could just wish to possess a little of the same. Or at least the first: Imagine the freedom of being he and she in one: of lacking no one?! Instead I sit here missing someone, who has too much work. Instead I walk around Berlin alone with a blog!!

PS: And with this, I learned that the exact color of a particular blog, stems from his daily chewing on small bites of its subject. Perhaps, I better leave BiBi at home when I go out later today … Perhaps, I better get back to novel writing, where I’m the one doing the chewing.