You probably realised that “a vision for a new world” is an important theme for me. When I have a look at the problems humankind faces and see the ways the still powerful use to (or not to) solve them I feel the urge to bring in something new. Luckily for me there are others who have the same idea and there are already existing groups who work on it.
Posted in Everyday stuff/Alltags Zeug
(some links in this entry are in German)
In the 19th century there has been a kind of party game which meant that guests had to answer a list of questions in the host’s guestbook. Marcel Proust answered it twice in his life and after a while it got accredited to him.
A similar questionnaire is regularly seen on the back of Vanity Fair answered by celebrities.
Posted in Everyday stuff/Alltags Zeug
There is proper Winter in Europe! -26 C in Poland and even -3 here, Russia got the world-cup (not that I really care) and Santa gets Cornflakes instead of a cooky. Where does all this end? And I pledge to read the printed word – no kindle in my house!
Es gibt einen richtigen Winter in Europa! -26 C in Polen und sogar -3 hier, Russland hat den World-Cup (geht mir eigentlich am A….
Posted in Everyday stuff/Alltags Zeug
Originating at Its Tiger Time, You Tube Tuesday is a day set aside for sharing your favorite video. Feel free to join in and let’s have fun seeing how creative us bloggers can be! Each month Josh will highlight a selected video and present the “You Tube Tuesday” Award. If you participate, please remember to leave your link in the Linky Tool that is available at his page.
Posted in Everyday stuff/Alltags Zeug
Have been reading a lot about copyright lately. The big discussions seem to be in the United States and in Germany. Not so much here in Britain but well maybe I am just not reading the right tweets for that 
.
I find it all a bit confusing as so many different organisations, governments, authors and private people add their opinion in often a very heated way. What I can see so far are governments who want to prevent people to think for themselves and share it with others and therefore cause trouble if they realise the global political elite is not as much on our side as they make it look like. There are multinational organisations and businesses who make a lot of money with what creative people produce. There are people who like art in all its forms and want to share it with their friends without paying for every single bit. And there are creative people who want an audience and who want to earn a living with their creativity.
I admit I have no idea what laws like ACTA exactly say. And maybe I should hold my tongue because of that but bear with me ~ sometimes you have to say something uneducated.
As far as I can see the intent of these kind of laws are to give those who create creative and other intellectual content the right to earn money with it. But when I have a look around Twitter and Facebook and WordPress it does not look like a lot of the creative folks do. Of course you could say that that is exactly the reason why they fight about those laws but for me it looks more like our human rights will be constrained more and more. Many dictatorships in the last century have shown where this leads to: Definitely not creative folks earning money with their art.
When I got confused about all this a question came into my mind: What would it mean to earn money with my writing? Either I have to deal with a publisher and editor who change my creations to make them sale-able or to work as a journalist which might become a terribly stressful “day-job” as well. Both I am not exactly keen on. The third way which is more possible now is to self-publish but as far as I can see that means working via companies like Amazon and they seem to get more out of it than those who created the content.
My conclusion? I would rather stay with my day job to pay the bills and have creative freedom to do what I want and to share it with whom I want to. Is it really so bad to have both? Does it not ground your art in life ~ in everybody’s life ~ to work like everyone and then make something creative out of it?
Habe in letzter Zeit viel uebers Urheberrecht gelesen. Die grossen Diskussionen scheinen mehr in den Vereinigten Staaten und Deutschland zu sein, als in Grossbritannien. Naja, vielleicht lese ich einfach die falschen Tweets dafuer ;-).
Ich finde das alles ein wenig verwirrend, da so viele Organisationen, Regierungen, Autoren und private Leute ihren Senf dazu geben und das manchmal in sehr hitziger Weise. Was ich bis jetzt sehen kann, sind Regierungen, die verhindern wollen, dass Leute anfangen selber zu denken und ihre Gedanken mitteilen. Das koennte naemlich dann zu Konflikten fuehren, wenn sie herausfinden, dass die Regierungen nicht so voll und ganz auf unsere Seite sind, wie sie das zu meist versuchen darzustellen. Da gibt es mulitnationale Organisationen und Firmen, die eine Menge Geld damit verdienen, was kreative Leute produzieren. Da sind die, die Kunst in jeder Form lieben und diese teilen wollen, ohne andauernd fuer jedes bischen bezahlen zu muessen. Und da sind die kreativen Leute, die gerne ein Publikum haben moechten und mit ihrer Kunst Geld verdienen wollen.
Ich gebe zu ich habe kaum eine Ahnung was Gesetze wie z.B. ACTA exakt bedeuten. Und vielleicht sollte ich deshalb lieber meinen Mund halten. Bitte habt jedoch Geduld mit mir ~ manchmal muss man einfach was ungebildetes sagen.
So wie ich das sehe sollen diese Gesetze dafuer sorgen, dass die die kreatives oder intelektuelles produzieren dafuer auch Geld bekommen. Aber wenn ich mich so auf Twitter, Facebook und WordPress umsehe, sehe ich nicht viele, die das wirklich koennen. Natuerlich koennte man jetzt sagen, dass das genau der Grund ist, warum um diese Gesetze gestritten wird aber fuer mich sieht es mehr so aus als ob mehr und mehr unsere Menschenrechte eingeschraenkt werden. Viele Diktaturen im letzten Jahrhundert haben gezeigt wohin das fuehrt: Definitiv nicht dazu, dass Kuenstler mehr Geld verdienen koennen.
Als mich das Ganze dann voellig verwirrte kam mir eine Frage: Was wuerde es bedeuten, wenn ich mit meinem Schreiben Geld verdienen wuerde? Entweder muesste ich mich mit Verlegern und Editoren auseinandersetzen, die meine Werke veraendern um sie “verkaufbar” zu machen oder als Journalist arbeiten, was auch zu einem nervenaufreibenden “Tagesjob” werden koennte. Auf beides bin ich nicht wirklich scharf. Der dritte Weg “selber verlegen” ist heutzutage natuerlich eher moeglich aber was ich dabei so sehe ist, dass Firmen wie Amazon mehr dabei rausschinden als die, die die das Werk produziert haben.
Mein Schluss daraus? Ich bleibe lieber bei meinen “Tagesjob”, um die Rechnungen zu bezahlen und behalte meine kreative Freiheit zu produzieren, was ich will und es mit denjenigen zu teilen, mit denen ich es teilen moechte.
Ist es wirklich so schlimm, beides zu haben? Macht das unsere Kunst nicht bodenstaendig im Leben ~ in jedermann’s Leben ~ zu arbeiten wie jeder andere und dann etwas kreatives daraus zu machen?
Posted in Everyday stuff/Alltags Zeug
Tagged Twitter, Facebook, Copyright, United States, Germany, ACTA
This is the first entry of my “Proust-Questionnaire-series”!
In the 19th century there has been a kind of party game which meant that guests had to answer a list of questions in the hosts guestbook. Marcel Proust answered it twice in his life and after a while it got accredited to him.
A similar questionnaire is regularly seen on the back of Vanity Fair answered by celebrities.
Posted in Everyday stuff/Alltags Zeug
Sunday: Silly blogger-lady! “Accidentally” pushed me off my favourite rock when she sat down to write a Smiley Sociology Study about rare animals. Put my spur at my hind foot to good use and incapacitated her. Shame my venom is not lethal to humans! Monday: The wife left for her baby burrow. Never understood her fussing about the eggs. I am bored.
Posted in Everyday stuff/Alltags Zeug
This is a long one and so I have decided to post the English and the German version in different posts:
I feared I would be late searching my way through Norwich’s Lanes to the acclaimed independent book shop “The Book Hive” which was hosting a reading and book signing evening with Diego Marani an Italian novelist and a Policy Officer for the Directorate-General for Interpretation of the European Commission.
As I entered the quirky looking corner shop I felt thrilled: I made it and beautiful books everywhere! What a setting for an author reading. About 20 people were chatting away while waiting for the publisher to introduce the author.
He outlined in a few words what a surprise success “New Finnish Grammar” (a book about how language impacts our identity) was in the last year. It is shortlisted for the The Oxford Weidenfeld Translation Prize, The Independent Foreign Fiction Prize here in Britain and The Best Translated Book Award in the United States. But more important for the publisher many readers letters show that the book has a very personal impact on their lives which I can only affirm: It has made me think about my identity and how it has changed since I moved from Germany to Great Britain mainly using English as my language. As he pointed out what a natural comedy talent Diego Marani has he gave the word over to the author.
Diego Marani’s opening words proofed the publisher right: “Welcome to the Diego Marani flying circus!” 
The audience laughed and enjoyed the introduction of “The Last of the Vostyachs” which has just been published in Great Britain by Dedalus Books: Ivan survivor of a Russian work camp comes back to his home to find out that he is the last of his people and the last to speak their language. Diego Marani read a passage of the book to give an idea about the atmosphere in it. He said he explored in this book the idea of the death of a language.
According to him it is a question of point of view: You could say that Latin is a dead language as no one speaks it any more. But you could also say it is very alive as it has split in many languages like Italian, Spanish, French….as well as there are many rules of Latin language in English for example. Change has always been part of language. He encourages his readers and audiences of public appearances not to fear the death of their language but to embrace the change and make it their own.
After giving an example of Europanto the language he has invented while working for the European Union he asked for the audiences questions:
How much impact does he have on the translating process of his novels?
Diego Marani said he tries not to interfere too much as a translation is work of art in itself. When he reads the translation of those languages he knows he knows if the translator has grasped the idea of his book or not.
Is he sad to be the only speaker of Europanto?
He laughs and points out that he can say what ever he wants and no one else can really be sure what he has said but that it also makes people feel excluded which the audience has just found out .
How was the writing process of “New Finnish Grammar”?
Diego Marani answered that it was a challenge but it was on his mind for many years. He was asked to learn Finish while working for the European Union when Finland joined and the policy still was to accommodate all European Languages. As Finnish is such a different language he had to develop new methods of learning a language. For example there is no active in Finnish. You can not say: “Peter eats an apple!” You would say: “There is an apple. There is Peter. The apple is eaten” As Finnish people are so exposed to nature’s forces (6 month night, loads of snow…) it is understandable that there is no strong sense of “I” but a strong sense of “we”. You have to stick together to survive. He also feels that you have to abandon yourself to learn a language. You have to develop an idea of the culture of the language and give up the words you have learned to grasp the new ones which gave him the idea of a man without identity and how language helps him to get it back.
He then went on to introduce his coming book which will be published in Italy on June 6th. It will be published in Great Britain as well but a title is not yet found. Either “The Hound of God” or “God’s Dog”. When the publisher asked which one the audience prefers they mainly voted for “Gods dog”.
Diego Marani explained that he explores in this book the growing impact of religion on states as well as the power of organisations which try to tell people how to live their life: In the near future Italy has become a theocratic state and the pope is head of it. He sends out his secret agent to investigate a case of euthanasia.
The publisher said about it that it is a thriller with black humour which does not really fit in any category. I can not wait to read it .
I enjoyed this evening enormously. It was important to me to see how an established author advertises for his books and to find out more about his other titles. Will definitely get “The Last of the Voystachs” (have to wait for pay-day though )
My advice: If you have the chance ~ go and see him (e.g. tonight 17/5/2012 in Oxford on at 7pm at Blackwell’s Bookshop 48-51 Broad Street, Oxford, OX1 3BQ. Tickets are £2) and definitely read his books ! (Best you buy them in The Book Hive or similar independent book shops )
And to all my German Readers: Sorry there do not seem to be any German translations yet. German Publishers where are you? You miss some brilliant books!
PS.: Diego Marani is very friendly and approachable and so I got all my courage together and asked if I could take a photo of him for this blog entry. And what shall I say? He agreed:
Thank you very much Mr Marani!
Diego Marani’s Books are published at Dedalus Books Ltd:
Las Adventures des Inspector Cabillot
….blogging I mean!
A few weeks ago I said I need more time for the novel to grow (which it has a little bit since then) but life is just boring with only two blogs to write .
Have been reading a lot about writing exercises and what you can do to get your creative juices flowing. Seems to me my blogs are my writing exercises (Ok it is disputeable if I am doing a good job with it) but at least it gives me that feeling: “I am doing the right thing at last!” and it makes me want to go on writing.
There is a job I applied for: 3 days work (double shifts) 6 days off. That would be just perfect! Need to wait for four weeks though until I find out if they consider me. I hope they do ~ I am such a creative employee !
….das Bloggen meine ich!
Vor einigen Wochen habe ich ja geschrieben, dass ich mehr Zeit fuers Roman schreiben brauche (was auch bis zu einem gewissen Grad funktioniert hat) aber Leben ist einfach langweilig, wenn Frau nur zwei Blogs schreibt .
Ich habe eine Menge ueber Schreibuebungen in letzter Zeit gelesen und was man tun kann, um seine kreativen Saefte in Bewegung zu bringen. Sieht so aus, als ob die Blogs meine Schreibuebungen sind (wobei fraglich ist, wie gut ich dabei bin) aber zumindest gibt es mir das Gefuehl:”Endlich tue ich das Richtige”. Und es foerdert meine Schreiblust.
Und dann habe ich mich noch auf einen anderen Job beworben: 3 Tage arbeiten (Doppelschichten) 6 Tag frei. Das waere einfach perfekt! Muss allerdings vier Woche warten bis ich herausfinde, ob sie mich in Betracht ziehen. Ich hoffe sie tun das ~ ich bin doch so eine kreative Mitarbeiterin !
Durch Zufall bin ich gestern ueber @FrauPaulchens Blog “sophie paulchen.bloggt” gestolpert und ihr Projekt #frapalymo.
#frapalymo ist “Frau Paulchens Lyrik Monat: 30 Tage, 30 Gedichte (+1), no excuses” wie sie selber auf ihrem Blog schreibt. Die Idee ist brilliant: Sie regt uns an, an jedem Tag im Mai ein Gedicht zu schreiben und dies mit ihrem Blog entweder via…
Posted in Everyday stuff/Alltags Zeug
