Foreword.
This diary is half baked. It’s made up of f ifty percent sincerity and fifty percent secrets, which were deleted during editing. This diary is half real, nothing here is fictitious, but not everything is told.
14/10/09 I think about him constantly constantly.. I’m writing him an email. It depresses me. I must be very desperate if I’ve fallen this low. To be honest, I didn’t feel too bad about it until I wrote the first sentence. Andrew left the apartment today. We recorded the text he will read out for the performance at the poetry reading. When he first read it out loud it sounded so pretentious I asked him to stop. After we saved it, we joked about the two of us being the most pretentious thing at the poetry reading. Now he’s left for London. I’ll leave in two days. Being the most pretentious thing at a poetry reading is a serious warning sign. I have
to watch myself – a healthy mind in a clear body.. I’m smoking a joint. I cleaned the body t he aquarium – it was relaxing. I haven’t cleaned the aquarium since April or March. The water was brown - I was thinking that for the fish it must be like living in India, because of the air pollution. I bet he he won’t won’t answer my email. But that’s not how you start a diar y. I started writing it in Vienna, a month ago, in the airport: 19/09/09
Dear diary, Austria A ustria was a nightmare. I imagine myself talking to people and captivating them with a hypnotizing sincerity.
I look like a man.
Things to do: Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.
aAustria is a racist state. I don’t have to experience it to know. Maybe I have experienced it. I was part of a panel discussion. They spoke German and I sat with them at the table on the left side and waited for them to switch to English. They switched to English once – asked me a few questions and carried on in German.
I wouldn’t do that to my greatest enemies. I knew Austria was going to be an enduring sufferance – an evening of a German panel discussion in front of twenty people. Five of them came over later and said that during the discussion they just sat there and felt sorry for me. “They were so mean to you,” one of them said. I told her “It isn’t that bad” and it wasn’t that bad because it was over and I drank white wine and wanted to get the hell out of there.
I am sitting in an airport in Vienna, drinking a disgusting cappuccino.
I’m in a competition that forces me to want to win. It confuses me. I lecture people on how wrong it is to turn art into a competition. I’m a hypocrite because I love competitions and I’m probably afraid of loosing. I want to be right beyond any doubt. I want to be beyond any doubt. God, I’m a downfall, a downfall in the making. There is no god. I am still in Austria.
I haven’t finished my coffee and the plane is far from taking off.
Yester Y esterday day someone played heavy meta l music in the museum where the discussion was held. The music (the choice of a too intelligent artist) was played
in a room with realistic or maybe classical statues by a fascist artist. I thought the statues were wonderful, the music amplified their faces (Wagner, Nietzsche, Stephan Zweig). Their eyes were hollow, pierced with a pencil. It scared me. They gave out flashlights so we could walk around the museum at night and light up their faces. The shadows dropping from the flashlights turned the statues into masks in a Greek theater, they were horrifying. The music entered their ears and turned them into metal. I didn’t think about it at all while I walked around, pointing my flashlight at them out of boredom. It was a nice game.
I dreamt I made a pass at Rennen M. The whole lesbian community followed us. I told jokes and apologized for every move I made. When I woke up we hadn’t even kissed. I think the last stop in the dream was Cesarea – we sat on beach chairs by the sea and then I woke up. I’m going to smoke some weed soon. I got back from Japan two days ago and flew to Vienna a day later. My eyes are open in a scary way. I think I’m writing this because I lost a dim force that moved me in the past – passion.
Austria is Europe’s Bat-yam (an Israeli city famous for an especially high crime rate and vio-
- lent, noisy inhabitants), the people here are so vulgar.. Japan seems like the product of continuous vulgar repression and brainwashing. A monotonous music is played everywhere, almost making me want to kick my own head in. But the inhabitants quietly bare it.
I need love and sex. I think I’m writing this diary because I stopped maintaining a personal relationship with myself.
The more a nation is castrated, the greater its dependence upon aesthetics becomes. I think I mean freedom of speech. I’m wrong.
Yesterday Y esterday there was a man on the panel called Christoph G. I ran into him earlier as I checked in at the hotel. His name appeared next to mine along side a slash with Manuel G’s name. I gazed at their family names as they both started with a G and I thought it was a typo. Then we sat and drank beer with Eva – the woman who invited me and a few others. When Christoph arrived he seemed very familiar. I couldn’t remember where from. He disappeared for a few minutes and then I realised – I’d seen him a few years ago sitting in Bar 3 completely drunk. After he’d left, the barman told me how he owed him a lot of money and had never paid it back. He said
he was very successful with women, although he couldn’t see why why.. It’s funny he said that, because I was already attracted to him when I saw him at the bar. bar. Christoph sat next to me and said I looked familiar,, but he couldn’t remember from where. I familiar told him about Bar 3 and he said he stopped going there, he thought they had to change something. After the conversation I followed him (speaking to him), but a blond girl sent from the prize hooked up with him pretty quickly and they hung out together all evening.
Then we ate at a good Austrian restaurant. But I chose all the wrong dishes. When I got back to the hotel it was already past midnight and I went to sleep. I woke up in the middle of the night (exactly in the middle – 3 a.m.) and heard people talking – a man and a woman in an intimate conversation. I thought it was Christoph and the blond and went to the window because that’s where the noise came from.
It was an enclosed court where a noise coming from a window would echo between the walls like a pigeon in a chimney. chimney. It couldn’t couldn’ t have been Christoph because they didn’t speak German. The con versation was very intimate and they spoke in a deep voice coming from their throats. I heard the
noise coming from the left window on my level. I glanced to the left and turned my head back right away. I saw someone lying on a bed covered to the nose with a white duvet and speaking with a woman. She did not lay next to him. I wanted t o know where she was so I peeked again. I saw the man again and as I retrieved my gaze I found the woman reflected in the window. She was bent over him smoking a cigarette. The ashtray was probably on the bed. I think they were post sex. Her hair was pulled back after a shower, it was short or up in a pony tail. I went w ent back to bed. I liked them and felt part of their conversation – they were the words and I was the silence.
I am now sitting on the plane back to Berlin writing this nonsense. The woman next to me is reading a German tabloid, there’s a picture of George C. with a new girlfriend in it. Mr. C. is immersed in a conversation with the camera and his girlfriend is looking at him with a wide open smile. Everything seems stupid. The woman beside me is engrossed in the paper, paper, examining before and after wrinkle photos for a few long moments. She even shows a page or two to her husband and they compare. I think she either doesn’t know or doesn’t understand that they are all photoshopped. Austrians have no taste. I am eating the softest
pretzel in the world, filled with butter. At least it’s free. It tastes like a salty cream puff.
I love the sun ever since I was given sunglasses.
I always loose patience twenty minutes before landing.
I am very manipulative because I don’t separate the way from the goal.
I’m sitting at home in Berlin and go on writing. I’m wearing a pink Hello Kitty t-shirt I bought in Japan with white sunglasses. Even when I just write to myself it’s clear to me that I want someone to read it, and I want him to laugh or cry cry.. No one has ever cried from something I wrote except for some nut I met ten years ago in art school. She told me she cried from some poems I wrote, it was the first time I thought she was mad.
I think I’ll pass t he coming days unconscious.
I’m smoking a joint. I started the diary at 6 a.m. and now it’s 10:30.
Japan seems like a country that is three sleeping pills away from me.
I really want to read some witty parts from the diary to Andrew Andrew,, but I hold myself.
I recently had some meaningful dreams. One for example – I was sitting in a plane that started diving down mid-flight. I saw the earth coming closer through the right hand window (I was sitting on the left side of the plane). I wanted to scream or r un away away (Andrew is a blessing, he just brought me a coffee), but the man sitting next to me was not impressed or did not realize that we were going to crash. I glanced at the faces of the the other passengers and they too didn’t look back, but carried on reading a book or a newspaper. I looked out the window again (which was far from me, but very clear, as if no one sat next to it, and as if it wasn’t that small) and the ear th rushed towards me – I wanted to see how the plane would crash and my heart stomped in my sleep, just like it would if the plane really was going to crash, but it didn’t, it just kept diving downwards and pulled up just when I thought it was too late. The plane f lew across the cliffs of the Grand Canyon, so close, as if it had no wings. I saw the wrinkles on the yellow stones. It was breathtaking – metaphorically and literally. literally. Sometimes I simpl simply y could not breathe. The view from my window amazed me. The plane started tilting to one side….
This, by the way, reminds me that on the flight back from Japan (I was really drugged with sleeping pills, but managed to wake up every time the stewardess walked down the aisle with food), close to landing time the plane tilted side ways wa ys brutally like a combat plane and then tilted back to its normal position and after a few seconds gently tilted sideways again. The pilot was probably tutoring a novice pilot and let him touch the steering. The novice had done it insensitively insensitively,, so the tutor had grabbed the steering and tilted the plane back.
I am exhausted my dear diary, I’ll watch a Simpsons episode and come come back right after after.. I haven’t haven’t read what I’ve written up until now and I think my style has changed since I started writing. It’s 11:14.
The Simpsons are genial. I took my sunglasses off.
Back to the dream (second joint):
So the plane tilts to the side and although I know all the provocations, this tilt is very ext reme and it’s only getting worse. I lean on my seat belt. All the people on the plane
are leaning to one side but I’m the only one who’s scared. The plane flips over. I fall onto the ceiling. The plane is on its back. Everything falls out of my pockets – cell phone, coins, a pen – everything drops onto the ceiling and I think I’m going to die. But then I look under my belly and notice that the seat belt sign is not on and the plane lands on its bottom as if nothing had happened. All the coins, the phone and the pen drop on the seat and I’m lying naked on the plane seats. People are beginning to exit slowly and I collect my stuff from the gaps between betw een the cushions. I tr y to understand what it is exactly that I’m doing on the plane and where I’m supposed to get to and recall that I’m there because I want to sleep with the pilot. I turn back and from the cockpit (why back?) comes out a 40 year old man with white hair. hair. He looks like Benito. He moves towards one of the windows and looks outside. The window is very large and the pilot turns his leg, since he’s very flexible, until it is totally disfigured and it disgusts me. I decide not to sl eep with him, or deduce that he is not the pilot.
I recall two things about the flight:
tilt, as if it wasn’t a passenger pl ane but a car car.. Because airplanes hardly move or jolt, every trem ble frightens the passengers. When Wh en I lost my fear of f lying I got closer to death.
The second thing – on the way to Japan I took a sleeping pill but it hadn’t kicked in by the time the plane entered the storm. It bounced so badly I thought my eyes were shaking. Someone tapped my shoulder and as I turned he said my phone dropped. I picked up the phone and relaxed. It reminded me of the dream I just told – when all the stuff fell out of my pockets onto the ceiling and back bac k into the cushions. I almost whispered to myself “Everything is going to be alright”. Because the conclusion of the dream was that no matter what fears I might face and which situations I may encounter, everything will be alright. I am lucky.
I haven’t cleaned my aquarium for at least three months. My fish are four and five years old. My head is empty. I’m looking at a sweater cascading down a chair in my room. The forms of soft materials, when they’re not kept in boxes or folded, cause me pleasure. Solid-rectangular materials symbolize order.. Textiles and liquids symbolize chaos. order
I read about the differences between France and Germany in a book about modern music: The author explained that in Germany the young and energetic is worshipped along side compositions. Brahms for example. Where as in France the experienced old man is worshipped along side free form (they educate about free form in schools – it’s an unbound and unlimited form, and therefore devoid of any visible composition). Satie for example.
Solid materials (Germany) symbolize order and liquid materials (France) symbolize freedom and chaos. I like order and support chaos.
Every page will correspond with the page following it and the page preceding it. The paragraphs and the sentences in it will correspond with the following and preceding sentences and single words which might or might not be written in the following lines.
Is this enough? No It isn’t – The diary will correspond with the past and the future and changing moods and comparing one situation with another and the irony of it all – a surprise I hadn’t expected and nothing is new under the sun and nothing has changed. And who who would’ve believed I’d meet someone I see every day on another day in the same place. Enough? - Almost A bit more. It will correspond with the element of surprise, who is the character who will reappear and repeat them self in every chapter and how will the hook-up happen which will obviously take place in the last chapter to keep the suspense, and how is everything told so real and shameless and what is so shameful? Nothing has been said and only a part will be told. You didn’t expect it to be any different.
The weed is doing its job and I didn’t sleep well last night. I couldn’t sleep when I got to Japan. It started on my first night over there. They arranged a nice big apartment for me and af ter dinner I went to sleep around midnight.
I woke up from a nightmare at 2 a.m. (a synagogue, anti-Semitism, Nora, Bananarama, I saved a child, I woke up). I saw light coming from the hall (outside my house
there’s a big apartment building building with
a constantly lit hall) and I thought it was already morning so I sprang out of bed and as I sat in front of the computer in the living room I realized the day hadn’t yet dawned and I looked at the clock. Now in Berlin, the sun shines. I told Andrew that the pilot on the way back from Austria said the temperature in Berlin was 30 degrees. The ink in my pen is about to run out. I feel that I’ve done something significant today today..
The dream is not over: due to thinking about the pilot and the coins, I miss disembarking and the plane starts moving on its wheels (do you know how such a big plane can balance on such small wheels?) to another part of the airport. It taxis on a wide road and I realize I’m not the only one sitting and waiting, and the plane becomes wider and the other passengers sit more comfortably on their seats…
Andrew told me that Rainer Maria Rilke wrote at the age of 28 he hadn’t found his destiny in life. I haven’t found my destiny either, although I’m not doing too bad. The opening sequence of the Simpsons is so moving.
Andrew is dancing in the room, he says he’s translating his indecisiveness into movement. Not bad. Not Not bad. He says that in f ifty years time when people read this diary they’ll think we’re bohemians. bohem ians. He tries to catch my attention.
14:12 I’m covered in bed. My hand caresses my belly bell y and my crotch. I have erotic fantasies every time I go to sleep. I try not to get carried away by the fantasies. My eyes hurt and the light from the window is dazzling. My sunglasses lay on the mattress. I’ll go wash up. Andrew goes into the toilet. I want to receive an email. My sex life these days is made up of 100 percent fantasy.
It’s 18:12 Andrew went for a coffee with Marcus, his other friend. Benjamin is the first. I don’t like going out of the house. I recall how I spoke to the blond girl from Vienna, and filled up with shame, I said such banal things it’s embarrassing. I can hear Andrew returning. His bicycle squeaks when he parks it in the back yard of the building. There’s a couple in the building that have sex loudly.. When I hear them I’m not jealous, I have a loudly feeling they’re doing it on purpose for the whole building to hear. It wasn’t Andrew – the bicycle squeaks weren’t his.
16/11/09 I can hardly breathe. I’m smoking too much. My lungs probably decided to stop cooperating. What a pity. pity. I love smoking so much. I opened the window just now and smoked next to it. I couldn’t finish the cigarette. I breathed heavily and threw it out to the street. I am in New York. A month and a half have passed since the first chapter. I hung out with my parents today and we went into a comic book store. I bought a black sweater with a superman logo. I’m wearing it in bed r ight now. I’m in the hotel. My diary entry from Austria isn’t finished yet. I continued writing in a notebook in small handwriting until the pen ran out and I switched to a silver pen. The text of the
first chapter was written with a blue pen. This text is typed bold straight into the computer. I have no time to waste. It’s 2:52 a.m. in New York now. I probably still have sleeping problems. I spoke with Christoph on Messenger and he fell asleep in the middle of the conversation. It’s the second time it’s happened. He does it with no warning. I’ll get back to the original diary after Austria and when the time is right, I will explain what exactly is going on and what happened between the first chapter and these words. 20/9/09
Marcus left a few minutes ago. I still have sleeping problems. I fell asleep only at 6 a.m. I heard him step into the bathroom (my bedroom is on the second floor to the right, the bathroom is to the left in a separate room). Yesterday he came home with Andrew an hour after I wrote Andrew hadn’t come back. back. We watched an episode of Dexter together.
It’s 10 10 a.m. and I will now present a chilling story which whi ch sprouts out of everyday life and makes me think that maybe there was a reason for men-
- tioning Marcus already in the first chapter, as if I knew what story would grow out of his visit. After Dexter, Marcus said that his gallery had asked him to check on one of their employees. An American girl who had lived five months in Berlin, went w ent back to the States and returned to Berlin eight days ago, but no one had heard from her since. Her boyfriend bo yfriend called from the States and asked them to check what was up with her, because he was worried (then he became the primary suspect, not because there was any chance he’d done anything, but since he was a suspicious kind of guy, he was forbidden to leave the States). Marcus is American and he sympathized, and he was in the area (in my house) already, so he volunteered to pop over and see how she was doing. Andrew and I told him good bye, then put on some perfume, got dressed and went to an opening in an unknown gallery, to say bye to Daphna (this was her last day in Berlin. She said she’d be in the galler y whose name I forget).
We W e laughed a lot during the opening. I saw everyone was smiling and happy but it didn’t stress me out because I really like Daphna so I joined the party. We kept playing with words – Andrew has an STD – where did he get it from? His bicycle. What’s the name of the disease? BMX. I told Daphna about my diary.
She wanted to be mentioned in it and said she dreamt we’d shared the same bed. In Daphna’s dream we broke into someone’s room and fought over a lollipop. Andrew instantly recalled he had dreamt about me once. And I recalled him telling me about it two years ago – we sat on the same bed and I had two genitals. Daphna said I was a spiritual BMX. We kept laughing from every joke and pun, but I didn’t feel comfortable because I wasn’t drunk enough. A pimpled guy called Tom stood with us. He had thin and bouncy blond hair and he was sl im. We We kept on laughing.
Then we went home and ordered some take-away. Andrew received a text message from Marcus – ‘the girl is dead’. Andrew said “Shit” and was very dramatic. I was nonchalant. Then Marcus called Andrew and asked if he could sleep at my place and spend the night with him.
I watched another Dexter episode when Marcus arrived. He went to the toilet and on the way back sat on my bed and told me what had happened. He was very natural and his voice was crispy. crispy. He and Sabine – I have no idea who Sabine is – rang the girl’s doorbell and nobody answered. They managed to get into the building after ringing the neighbour’s doorbell and found the keys to the
house in the mailbox. They went up to the apartment. Marcus said that when he could hear the TV was on, his heart froze. They opened the door and the apartment was dark. They turned on the lights straight away because the darkness was scary and the place reeked. He said “The corridor was so long” and went down to the bedroom which also served as a living room. A television set stood there, colorfully lighting the dead girl who lay on the bed, with a twisted arm over her head. Marcus came back immediately and said – “The corridor was so long”. She lay there and rotted for eight days. Marcus remem bered the noise from the television that lit up the body like a discotheque. She died of a heroin overdose. Marcus pushed Sabine out and they call ed the police. I asked how fast the police arrived, because I wanted to bitch about the authorities, but he said the police came quite quickly. quickly. The cops interrogated Marcus next to the corpse in the living room-bedroom. The detective who spoke to Marcus suddenly lit the dead girl’s face with his flashlight. Marcus said “Her eyes”. She lay in bed with one arm twisted over her head – Marcus demonstrated on my bed. The cops suspected that someone had been with her at least in the beginning, because the syringe lay on the nightstand next to a dose of heroin, which means someone put it there after she shot up. Marcus said the heroin was a big chunk of more than
ten euros and formed a circle with his fingers. Then he repeated this sentence a few times, but the circle changed.
Andrew is spinning next to me – spatial movements again. Working on his performance. My dad called from Colombia. The call was disconnected in the middle of talking.
I’m googling my name because I like seeing it written in all sorts of places although most of the time the text around it doesn’t really change, but is recycled from one ar ticle to the other other.. This text will also recycle itself as it gets written. My eyes hurt from staying open for so long. The last word will be ‘again’. I’m considering taking sleeping pills with me on the way back to Japan in four days. I’m in Berlin now. I came to Berlin to participate in a panel in Vienna and to attend a ceremony where they’ll announce the winner in a horrible competition I’m in and I don’t feel like writing writin g its name.
My head is empty from all the weed. Life is watery. I’ve porn films running through my head. From the moment I wake up I’m daydreaming about outrageous sex. I wish I could stop. It happens because I’m writing in bed.
I like the view seen from my window when I lie in bed. The cross supporting the window frame di vides the view into four parts. I ignore the two top parts. The roofs and walls seen through it look like the Alps in a Bauhaus style. One of the dominant features is a tiled roof slanting to the left, with its upper edge reaching the left corner where it turns into a chimney, which rises upwards in a straight line parallel to the left side of the window. Sorry. Sorry. Behind it runs a horizontal diagonal line, it’s left side higher than its right side and in the background, a church triangle peeks with a cross on its tip. All of the lines, except for the slanted roof in the middle layer, are situated on the left side of the window. The previous tenants put a bird-silhouette sticker on the glass. I took the sticker off six months after moving in.
The light I just turned on is yellow. I think that is what’s ruining my eyes. My right hand is numb because I’m leaning my head on it right now. I think I’ve got tears in my eyes. I find it hard to breathe because I’m smoking too many cigarettes. My lungs are nearly blocked. I breathe like an old woman even when I don’t move – sitting or lying in bed. Too bad I’m not the one who found Marcus’s grey blue carcass. I need a good s hakeup.
News:
Leonard Cohen collapsed during a show in Valencia. He’s 75. I saw the clip on YouTube – he sang ‘Bird on a Wire’ sitting on the g round – shoe on one side, knee on the other. When he finished singing he got up to change guitars, fell on his knees and collapsed. The musicians stopped playing and helped him up. The viewer responses on YouTube called for the clip to be removed out of respect for the singer. singer. There are a lot of on-stage falls and collapse clips on YouTube: Aerosmith’s lead vocalist, Guns n’ Roses, Michael Jackson’s burning hair, etc., but the viewers only asked for the Leonard Cohen clip to be removed. I wonder if it has to do with his age or with his style.
I imagine myself speaking to people, giving intelligent and modest answers to innocent questions. My voice is throaty and soft.
Martin is coming to my house tomorrow. I see him as a mere accountant and don’t think of him sexually any more. I’m still not sure whether he’s hitting on me or not. It’s clear he invited himself to my place. My hand is getting numb. It hurts. I wonder what will happen when he gets here. Will he think Andrew is an illegal alien? Maybe
that’s why he invited himself over? My house is as messy as a refugee camp. I’m afraid to sleep with him because he’s very conservative – he seems so normal. I can’t imagine him going down on anyone. He likes beer and football. I like the way he dresses. I’m taken by a quiet g loom which is occasionally interrupted by megalomania. I wanted to write lightning flashes. I imagined megalomania as Neptune or Zeus with a pitchfork, sitting on a rock in the middle of the ocean.
Here’s an option for for a beginning: Dear diary, diary, My name is Keren – a meter and seventy centimeters tall. Heavy bones. Very white skin. Beauty spots and redness on the face. With a belly five days a week. Redness on the upper part of the arms. Disproportionately large hands and feet. Destroyed or blocked lungs. Smoking a pack per day on average and eating between one and three hot meals per day. Drinking alcohol mostly on social occasions. Smoking one joint per two days on average. Love to lie in bed when I write or edit. Consider sushi to be a hot meal.
Nothing is new under the sun. The world is run by lunatics.
20:00 - Andrew went to get g rilled chicken. We’ll We’ll eat
it with peas. Marcus left long ago. I forgot about his story already. It’s important to say that Andrew and Marcus are not having sex even though they are both gay. Marcus wanted to spend the night with Andrew because he was afraid of nightmares. They slept in the same bed in Andrew’s room. When Marcus left I asked Andrew how he’d slept and he said “O.K.”
Back to the dream – the airplane taxied from one side of the airport to the other and I was inside because I didn’t disembark when it was time. As the plane started moving and made its way to another place, I understood what the people who hadn’t rushed down the aisle to leave and collect their luggage were doing – they were waiting for the plane to travel from one side of the airport to the other. They read their papers and opened their tables. One of them even set a table in the middle of the aisle, which had widened into a hall way and he sat in its center – on the table there was a small cup of Turkish coffee, a cigarette and a newspaper. The man crossed one leg over the other and read the paper paper.. Through the front window (the front window?) I saw a couple of motorcyclists - a woman sat behind a man – riding towards the airplane which was driving in their direction. I feared we would crash. The plane was
almost at the tunnel and the motorcyclists kept coming out from the tunnel, getting closer and closer. The passengers who hadn’t uttered a word all this time and sat calmly even when the plane tumbled and rolled sideways, started getting into a scare, mumbling and screaming. I closed my eyes and screamed three times with a nervous and careful voice. I waited with my eyes closed and heard the passengers sighing with relief. I opened my eyes and the plane widened in front of my eyes and a man who looked like a technician, wearing the orange overalls of some phone company, approached me and asked what I thought about the l ighting and whether I liked the idea. I didn’t recognize the technician and didn’t know what he was talking about, but I didn’t want to insult him so I tried to understand what he was offering me. The plane was dark and four quaint squares, created by the light of a passing car through the window, were thrown onto the right wall of the plane. I used these lights once for an installation, so I told the technician that I preferred different lighting. He said “O.K.” and cl imbed the scaffolding in order to reach the big light bulbs on the right side of the plane and asked me, as he was climbing, to move the scaffolding backwards.
22/9/09
Dear diary, many days – two – have passed since the last time I’ve written you and tomorrow I’m f lying back to Japan. Today Today they’ll announce who won the competition and people have been sending me good luck text messages since last night. It sickens and encourages me. I’m going to meet all the galleries tonight and I don’t have the patience for it. My head aches because I overslept. I’ll meet Susie today and she’ll give me two more sleeping pills for the flight tomorrow. Yesterday I saw the new Tarantino movie. Someone told me Roger Federer looks like Tarantino, only more handsome. Guy said so too. The student who told me about it lives in Japan. Akiko told me not to call them students but participants. I am lying in bed trying to figure out why I’m mentioning the background for this information. I’ve been needing to pee for two hours now, but Andrew is in the bathroom shaving, and probably more. The thought of the prize tonight makes me sick. I read about Carl Jung today. I’m beginning to realize that I’m not going to have sex tonight. Tomorrow I’m flying to Japan. It’s no punishment. It’s reality. I wish I could write all day without making videos.
24/9/09
Dear Diary, Diary, I’m in Japan again. I just recalled what happened after the opening at the Nationalgalerie. After hopping to two boring parties we arrived, Andrew and I, at a party with drugs in drinks. To our surprise there were only five people in the f lat. They put make up on their faces and l istened to music. We drank a drink called ‘empathy drink’. Rita M. was also there. She had blond hair and put on long colored eye lashes in green yellow and black – this isn’t a dream. The slim and pimpled Tom from the opening last week was there too. Af ter drinking the empathy drink I sat next to him and we spoke to two woolen circles.
Omer wrote me, saying he felt like a piece of meat and asked how I was doing.
16/11/09
The next line repeats the line before it but keeps a distance from it in a spiralling motion. The next line can’t be of the same length as the one preceding it, it must either be shorter or longer. I am still in New York. This line is going to be very long and I feel weak already. I felt better half an hour ago when I woke up. My parents visited me in the hotel for the last time. They’re leaving tomorrow (early this morning) back to Bogotá. The time in New York is – 1:42. In Germa Germany ny – 7:44. 7:44. I wonder if he woke up.. up
He woke up. We spoke for four hours. Then I fell asleep. When I woke up it was already morning. I went out to eat some granola. I went back to the hotel. After two hours of emailing, I went to another restaurant and had a burger. I smoked two cigarettes. Let’s hope these are my last cigarettes of the day.. I forgot about that email. Only when I read the day diary I remembered it. I’m happy to hear the aquarium’s clean. The fish are alive.
I wrote the first paragraph in the evening in Berlin. I sat in the living room and waited for an email. From that moment on everything repeats itself, not because I have nothing original to say, but because
everything seems the same to me. The smell of the airport in Vienna is very strong. It reminds me of my Grandmother.
Things to do: Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. The big bang will start in January.
Austria is not my cup of tea. Except for the Alps there’s nothing good in it. I’m as fl at as a rug.
Art as competition seems like absolute nonsense, especially when I get second place. Omer F got first place. After t he two parties and the empathy drug I returned to Japan.
25/10/09
An arrogant guy is sitting next to me. Now he’s telling me that he thinks “Omer F is a good artist, don’t you think?”…
- Now they’re talking about spiders. The guy went to the toilet. He came back from the toilet and started telling me about his plan to go to North Korea. Ayako agrees with my ideas about the quality of art (I’ll write about them later). Ayako and I talk about people not speaking their minds in public. They
either don’t think, or they’re just afraid to talk. The guy tells me now that drawing is not “My thing”, video is. It infuriates me. People like him are locked in words and social situations to the point where they ignore the burning human soul. Their hearts are made of water. This guy is a photographer. He goes to places like Congo or Afghanistan. He never really assimilates over there, because he only stays between two weeks and two months in each place. He just said that I’m arr ogant.
I think people don’t know what they’re saying when they’re talking about art. I find it hard to focus, Akiko and the guy are arguing. It depresses me because I can’t be bothered with bureaucratic con versations v ersations over semantics and def initions. The guy said the group is very important to him. There’s tension in the air. He annoys me and I guess he annoys Akiko as well because she starts singing.
It’s 11:58 a.m. That night was nice. I drank a lot of vodka tonics and danced, but when I got home I couldn’t fall asleep so I read Chekhov again. I felt my muscles stretching. It was close to suffering.
It’s 2 a.m. now. Days and nights have flipped over for me. I have to write the script for Japan and I’ll get to it in a second. Tonight I prepared dinner with
the participants. It was nice. Jackie – an American – and I bought the ingredients. When we reached the till, I wanted to pay for everything, but the cashier didn’t understand and asked if we were paying together or separately. I put my hand over Jackie’s shoulder and said “Together”. I cut the vegetables and seasoned the sal ad. Other participants prepared meat and fish. Then we sat outside, talked and smoked. Since I became an artist, people pay more attention to me. It’s nice and stressful, because I have a feeling they’re expecting me to be someone else. It’s hard to be calm and pleasant all the time. All the participants were very nice to me. Christian was also very v ery nice. I think he was mad at me last night and I think he noticed he annoyed me, so when we sat outside smoking a cigarette he tried to probe and I tried to be nice and candid without insulting.
I dreamt about Rennen again. We didn’t kiss this time either but smoked weed. I thought I’d slept for hours and hours, but in fact I had only slept for two hours. I make cof fee and I feel like getting up early in the morning at around six to write the script. I have to copy out parts of the diary for the script. No problem. I bought a sophisticated turquoise razor with a blade surrounded by slime and it upgrades my legs. What ruins them are the
the mosquitoes. I have red dots all along the leg, the ass, the elbow and under the chin. I’ve now learnt that I should shut the netted terrace door door..
I couldn’t fall asleep last night, so I watched Mad Men until 8 a.m., Then I composed music for the video. Akiko Akiko told me it didn’t sound like typical music for my videos. I’m addicted to the internet.
I erased a line from my diary. It’s the first time I’ve done this. I’d written that this diary isn’t personal and erased it because it didn’t feel ethical.
I wonder what will happen when I arrive in Israel. I wonder if I will meet Rennen and what will happen when I meet Tal. I hope he isn’t angry and hope I won’t make him mad. The cricket’s chirps sound like trumpets without an amplifier. amplifier. I saw Tal’s new video clip and was a little jealous. I comforted myself with having had the opportunity to create the clip for his most beautiful song. It’s evening now in Europe and noon in New York. It doesn’t mean anything to me. I don’t care what people are doing in the world right now. There’s a ninety percent chance that seventy percent of them are in a sitting position, if they’re not sleeping or standing in line. I spend the g reater part of my life in a lying position. I wonder if s omeone is being executed right now now..
I don’t feel like having sex at the moment but I do feel like falling in love, although it would probably paralyze me completely. The movie I’ll make has to be minimalistic. minimalistic. I’m looking at the schedule and it’s the only option. ---I finished writing the script and it’s 3 or 4 a.m. right now. now. I can’t sleep. The last time I fell asleep was 12 hours ago. I continue reading Chekov. When I’m finished I’ll get back to writing the diary. ----
9/10/09
I’m in Berlin. Oh my god, as I climbed into the bath today and saw that the water was draining and the sewage wasn’t clogged, I realized that finally I’ve reached the sanest period of my life. I am now lying in bed because I developed a fever two hours ago. I am trying to write poetry. My sentences are too short for a poem. It’s possible I’m not writing poetr y. I’m writing r ap. I think my eyes are dull. They can’t contain the light coming through the window. Why is the day so beautiful? I have so much to tell and so little energy energy.. I got up at 6 a.m. and it’s only the beginning. Martin was at my place today. We worked on some invoices. I
want to die. I’ll close my eyes and then I’ll go out and party.
4/12/09 The moment I returned from Japan I had to transform into a poet for London. I was happy to go out because that was the plan. I started in bed after the bath and got a fever. I went out for a drink and met Christoph G. in Bar 3. I don’t like poetry, but I’m sure there’s a logic or a spine to its history. I got drunk immediately – I drank a vodka tonic, smoked a joint, drank another three or four vodka tonics and met Christoph. I arrived at Bar 3 t he day I came back to Berlin from Japan. I went to London the week after for a poetry evening. I worked on it with Andrew – I wrote the words and he said them. We added a Lady Gaga track in the background. Andrew was going to perform on stage and lip-synch his own voice, dressed in black, like a poet.
That same evening I met Daniel B who told me I’d won a prize (Absolut Vodka award). Andrew and I were the highlight of the evening. I slept in a very expensive hotel. My room wasn’tt interesting. wasn’ interest ing. The calm voice of the couple talking in the room to my left and the reflection of the woman in the window at the hotel in Vienna penetrated my dream and when I opened my eyes I thought they were Christoph and the blond. On the way from New York to Berlin, I am now in Paris, a blond couple sat next to me, they fell asleep and prevented me from going to the toilet the whole flight. On the way back from South Africa to Paris, a young couple sat next to me – the guy played computer games and the girl slept. I think they were French. Eight hours before landing I lost my patience. I couldn’t sleep. I’m in Paris. I’m wearing a black shirt. Christoph said he’d never seen me wearing black. Strange. I knew him from my first day as a poet. Actually, Actually, I met him in Vienna and saw him long before at Bar 3. I slept with him on the day I became a poet. It is December first now.
9:48 a.m. - I am lying in bed. The window is open and the sun dazzles me. I am writing this text, smoking a joint and writing the end of the dream. I moved the scaffolding backwards, away from the left side of the plane. A young Indian boy volunteered to help and I joked with him while we pushed the structure, but then something hap pened – I think the boy wasn’t careful or steady enough – and the scaffolding folded and collapsed. I heard someone screaming behind me “Shit – Keren!” and felt insulted because it wasn’t my fault. I wanted to turn around when a bright white light flooded me. Someone had opened the plane door and there were airline workers carrying two silhouettes. I can’t remember if they said “Look what we found”, but I remember them carrying two women who couldn’t walk because their limbs were taped together with cellotape, like girl suitcases, with only their heads peeking out. One was Indian and the other was a western blond. The Indian seemed quite comfortable in that position but the blond suffered. Her gaze was helpless and then her head got chopped off .
I stopped fearing planes f inally inally,, or at least tur bulence and storms, not because of the dream, but because Andrew told me that his friend - a flight attendant – told him “No plane has ever crashed because of a storm or turbulence – ever”. I told Andrew - “A plane in turbulence is just a car on gravel” and he said “Exactly”. I’m still in Paris. My white sunglasses are in my bag, but I’m not wearing them because it’s raining. I recently dreamt that I was on an Air-France flight and the plane crashed like a Japanese airplane I saw on YouTube. It landed on the runway, took off again and went up in flames. My plane landed on the Brooklyn Bridge. I disembarked and saw it taking off for a bit and then go up in flames together with all its passengers. I was sorry because my laptop was on it, as well as my phone and credit card, but I was happy to be alive and the day was a pretty one, so I took a walk along the bridge hoping to find a good man. I found a Turkish family in the suburbs. The husband asked me inside, into their cellar, where we sat down and drank tea. I think the husband wanted to sleep with me – his wife didn’t seem too happy about this. They pointed at a computer at the far end of the
room that had ‘Internet’ written above it, but they kept on talking to me so I couldn’t type a word. Finally, Finally, I wrote an email to my parents, so they wouldn’t panic about the burning plane and they’d know that everything was alright and as soon as I pressed send, I was sitting with them in the living room of our home in Ariel, talking with them about Air France – how awful that company was. They agreed with every word and my father said he heard another one of their planes recently crashed in Brazil. I remember two things that are related to the Brooklyn Bridge – I crossed it twice about two weeks ago on the way to and from a talk I gave at the Pratt Institute. I met Itamar over there on the way to the cafeteria. I told him how my entire family had come to my opening in Tel-A Tel-Aviv viv.. I told him they surrounded me making comments and how I replied politely and later on they told my parents that I was very nice and polite. Itamar seemed impressed and said “Very nice” and I said “Yes, I was educated in Europe”. The second thing – in the hotel room in New York York there’s a photo of the Brooklyn Bridge in black and white. People with suitcases march towards the camera. They’re dressed in black with black
hats. I just read Jonathan Littell’s book and felt sorry for the Jews who emigrated to America. I haven’t been in Berlin for a month now. I haven’t cleaned my aquarium for such a long time – far from the eye, far from the heart. I’m still in Paris. After this I’ll return home. Yesterday I did the laundry and as I spoke to Christoph on Messenger I saw one of the shirts I’d hung to dry pouring with water, because of the heating. I must have smoked a lot of weed. France is more sensual than Germany, but today the analytic world is more developed than the sensual one. That’s why I like Germany better. The French relied on sensuality or intuition until it became mannerism. Then the downfall started. They found themselves formless, like an unfolded shirt. I couldn’t fall asleep on the flight from Johannesburg to Paris. I arrived at the airport at 6 a.m. At 10 10 I had to collect the keys. The French had arranged a beautiful large apartment for me, with bright light through the blinds in the morning. During the first night I dreamt that I needed to solve a murder case. The victim was
my Grandmother. Grandmother. The room was full of blood and signs that I tried t o interpret. Towards the end of the dream I discovered a second floor with more signs. It wasn’t as terrible as it sounds. I love the mornings in my Paris apartment. I’m happy that I found some weed. Susie gave me the phone number of a friend who didn’t return my calls. So I went to the street where she said they sold weed. I went there three times, but nobody offered me anything. The fourth time I went to a bar. I drank a double vodka and asked the barman how to get weed. He said he doesn’t smoke and doesn’t know. I asked a young guy who smoked a cigarette outside the bar bar.. He told me he wasn’t from here and apologized deeply. I went out to the street and picked on a short Moroccan guy who really understood me and asked “Get high?” I replied “Yes” and he said “Follow me”. The guy thought i t was ver y funny. We We discussed the price. I followed him up a steep street – my feet hurt. He told me to wait, ran up to his house and came back ten minutes later with some weed. He sold me a large quantity for forty euro. I said “You saved my life” and he said “I love you”. I gave him a high five and we split. I stopped dreaming because I’m smoking weed.
I bought Rainer Maria Rilke’s book when I was in Israel. I haven’t opened it yet. Andrew wrote that in addition to The Simpsons he started watching Family Guy. I am now working on a publication and I wrote a foolish manifesto. I told Charles that Andrew is my right and my left, so he has to be a part of the editorial board. Andrew came up with the name Q&Q and corrected the text. I’m covered in bed. I’m too passive to send a text message. The window is open, although the wind isn’t t oo chilly. 00:25 – The air is pleasant. My sunglasses are resting on the table. I tried to go out with t hem on, but it rained. 03:05 - I haven’t spoken to Christoph yet. Why did I write this? I remember how I spoke to the blond girl in Vienna and filled up with shame. I said such American things it’s embarrassing. It’s the first time I leave the window open all night. I live on the ground floor. I think I hear someone outside. There is no one outside. Leaves in the wind scrape the pavement.
5/12/09 I can hardly breathe. I’m smoking too much. My lungs stopped cooperating. I’m back to one pack a day. day. My window is s till open. I’m i n Paris. Feeling sorry for myself. I feel like a poet when I cough crossing the river on my way to the museum. Maelle – one of the girls over there – has an influence on my smoking rate. She takes a cigarette break every minute and smokes everywhere. Christoph didn’t answer my text message. I started my first chapter with a report from Berlin and continued after a paragraph to an airport in Vienna. I started the second chapter with a report from New
York and continued to Berlin. The next line re peats the one before it but keeps a distance. I’m in Paris now, the window is open and the line extends. I came to Paris from Johannesburg. I visited Christoph over there for four days. I arrived there from New York. I stayed there for two weeks. I got there from London, I stayed there with the dance company for five days. I got there from Stockholm after two days of parties. I dragged the prize around with me – a half meter framed certificate – to every place I went. Now I’m moving to Japan: 30/09/09 …shooting day. I do what I should do. I sleep on the sofa most of the time. I shouldn’t be telling this, Akiko thinks it’s weird, yesterday the party ended at 3 or 4 a.m. We drank a lot of sake. I shot the participants when they’d drunk their first glasses. I based the video on a part of this diary. They were nervous – especially Christian. I shot his hand when he gets the text message ‘she’s dead’. I think it trembled. A nice surprise came from Sarah. She was hilarious. Akiko helped me choose the sake. Jackie played the American girl and Aline played the dead girl, they weren’t the same girl in the video. Christian didn’t need to
get into the house and search for the body because he played Andrew. The video started with a Dexter episode. Then the landscape from the window opposite the sofa in Japan. Then I shot Christian’s face when he received the text message. He looked sad because he really acted. It was nice but unnecessary. Andrew wasn’t sad when he got the sms – he was shocked. After the Dexter episode the bar shot starts. I have to shoot it this morning. After I shot Christian receiving the sms I shot the participants talking. They sounded very unnatural. I shot each one from two angles – I started with Jackie – from Christian’s point of view – Jackie: Andrew’s got an STD. Then I shot Alex from Jackie’s point of view – what did he get it from? And from Sarah’s point of view though she sat too far apart. Then Christian – I got the angles mixed up, when his line came my camera was always pointing at someone else. When Sarah said “It’s called BMX” she looked sur prised because she was sitting too far away and had to shout. We ate edamame, I bought four bags. The video is distracted. I have to work on it during Christmas. Nobu tells everything from Marcus’s point of view, but the images are Aline’s
as a junkie looking at the landscape out the window and shooting up heroin. I bought 500 grams of white pepper. I thought it was flour or baking powder before I opened it. We made a heroin bag out of it. She warmed it using a Hello Kitty spoon that I found in the apartment and used a syringe Akiko bought for me, without a needle. I don’t know what the significance of Dexter in the video is, it’s used for ambiance. Akiko picked up Aline and me to shoot in the bar. We W e arranged to meet at the Red Cabbage. I call ed it Red Garbage last night, Aline and Sarah heard me and laughed. I also laughed. Akiko asked how the party went and we told her we danced all night. She was afraid we made a lot of noise, and we calmed her down saying we did moonwalks and my computer has no speakers so no one heard. No one can call me in Japan. I have no phone. I enjoy the isolation. I google my name every day because I like seeing it written in all sorts of places although most of the time the text around it doesn’t really change but is recycled from one arti cle to the other. This text will also recycle itself as it gets written. My eyes hurt from staying open for so long. The last
word will be ‘now’. 5/12/09 I’m in Paris my head is empty from all the weed. Life is watery. I’ve porn films running through my head. From the moment I wake up I’m daydreaming about outrageous sex. I wish I could stop. It happens because I have to finish writing this diary and I don’t have the energy. The view from the window as I woke up on the sofa in Japan was the prettiest view that month. A gym crosses the bottom of the window in a horizontal line. On its left edge under the roof, there’s a 3 meter by 4 meter billboard – 2 men in a swimming pool with rubber caps and goggles, swimming to the left. The rooftop of the gym is a parking lot and from noon till evening you can see people going in and out of their cars. Behind the gym there’s a multitude of buildings entangled into each other like an ur ban bouquet. bouquet. At some point the trees take over the landscape and stretch into a high mountain the shape of a green trapezoid, its tip covered with white fog. Because the mountain is so still it seems like the swimmers in the ad are moving.
8/12/09 The light by the bed is yellow. I’m thinking of sex. My back aches. I’ll have to stop smoking soon. My lungs hurt. I sound like a respirator even when I’m sitting or lyi ng down. I ate too much today. When I lie in bed and type this text my lips stretch across my face and I look like a toad. I used to laugh about it. The news: Amanda Knox was convicted and she deserves it. I don’t like the Americans’ support. She also tried to frame someone else in the murder – she has no sense of justice. People with no sense of justice should sit in jail. She’d do anything to get what she wants. It turns out she had an American boyfriend when she dated the Italian. After they were arrested the American found out about the affair. She broke up with the Italian and sent love letters to the American until he got back together with her. I had a nice dream just now. I think a newspa per or a TV crew reported immoral behavior from some group. They participated in an orgy – a woman is giving a blow job while someone is fucking
her from behind. I saw everything as silhouettes through a sheet. There were more people\ silhouettes in the orgy but I focused on one detail. The police decided to stop the orgy and said they were sending in a dog squad. Right after that the sheet is lifted, a row of white dogs approach, making alert steps. There is no sign of an orgy. The police speak proudly about the clean job and the dogs stand in equal spaces between one another and look straight forward or diagonally. diagonally. From a distance they looked like grains of rice. I wrote Martin an angr y email. He replied with an email that was too nice. My hand is g rowing numb. It hurts. I think that all in all he enjoys life. He has a big green col ored ring. Diamonds and turquoises look like stars twinkling at night. I think Martin’s ring is made of plastic. I’m reading Dostoevsky – Notes from the Underground. He wasn’t a good man. A pity. I’m taken by a quiet gloom which is occasionally interrupted by megalomania. I wanted to write that a cloud of quiet gloom f loats over my head, interrupted by lightning flashes of megalomania. Andrew is listening to Leonard Cohen – The Partisan.
Here is an option for the rest: I am a sick man I am an evil man I am a repulsive man. No – I am a repulsive woman. I think my lungs hurt. Enough. I didn’t see a doctor. I don’t know what I suffer from. I haven’t haven’t been to the bank since I got back. I wonder if I already received the Absolut money. I imagined myself telling a man with a camera – “I’m happy to be associated with this brand”. Dear diary, I am not an evil man. The truth changes. I am a product of my environment. This isn’t a poem. My habits change quickly. quickly. So this is what I want to say – the truth changes. If I don’t talk, I won’t lie, but I won’t be telling the truth. The world is run by lunatics. 18:55 I’ll have steak and potatoes today. At 21:00 I’ll go to buy red wine. Carl Jung’s Red Book should arrive January January seventh. I believe I’ll receive it long before, because Amazon wrote it’s already been shipped. I imagine what it’s going to look like – it will be in German – a hand crafted typeface and drawings. I wonder if the pen marks are distinguishable. It’s supposed to be an unfavorable documentation of a dive into
the subconscious. I found this text written like a dream in the middle of the notebook. I’m adding it now 18/11/09 …I ordered quiche and cappuccino. I’ll leave for the airport in three hours. I stayed in bed this morning not understanding why I was hungry until I recalled throwing up what I had for dinner last night. My cappuccino looks like a donut. The foam rises up in an arch. I think the owner of the café is a Moroccan Israeli. I don’t know how to kill time until the flight. I’d go to the MOMA, but I don’t know where it is. Someone is blowing her nose in front of my face. I’m sitting in a bakery in Greenwich. It’s 13:03. I received an email from Rennen, she wrote her brother has twins and “How are you doing you dyke”. I have to answer her to ask if she’s planning to come to France and then explain that I don’t really have room for her to stay. I remember the two nights I fell asleep on her pouffe. Dan left in the middle of the night. She fell asleep on the adjacent sofa. We never really were friends, but during my visit to Israel I felt close to her. The pastries in this bakery
are vulgar. The second time I laid on the pouffe in her house, Dan had already left and it was just the two of us. She pushed me to admit that I’m attracted to her. She did it indirectly so I had a way out. Then we laughed about all sorts of things. I tried to get up from the pouf fe but couldn’t move. I said – “Wait, I’ll do a scissor kick” or “This move is called the crane dance” – “It isn’t as easy as it seems.” Every day or night I hung out with her,, we did dr ugs. her The following night, I met Tal and we sat in the bar The Third Ear. His sister was the bartender. We watched a flat screen TV showing a performance held in the next room. Tal said he was mad at Rennen for the amount of drugs she was doing and her lack of clarity. I agreed with every word. After half an hour the show ended and we went to look for Rennen. I called her thirty times. We looked for her in every bar and club in town. We gave up at about 3 a.m. The following day she called and we planned to go out with Dan that night. We ended up at her house again. This was the time when we laughed as I tried to get up from the pouffe. My brain was boiling. The following day was the day of the opening. My heart overflowed and shed waterfalls when I arrived at her house with my suitcase and met her
girlfriend. Then at the opening my entire family came – about twenty people – they surrounded me in a circle and asked how I was doing. I had prepared myself in advance for this situation so I didn’t have a go or answer rudely. I answered the questions politely and in my head there was a tune playing from the Arak I’d drunk at Rennen’s house. We decided that I’ll bring the suitcases over there because I had to leave that night for Berlin. Five minutes after I went to the apartment her girlfriend came in with the dog. She took it out for a walk. We shook hands. I drank more than I intended, because I felt uncomfortable. When I answered my family I was already drunk. Then they re ported to my parents, saying I was very polite. We W e went to the Cantina. Rennen took me to the bathroom and prepared lines and when I bent over she held up my bangs so they wouldn’t be in the way. That evening she repeated this gesture every time I snorted. At 3 a.m. we were at Rothschild 12. I had to leave for the airport. She took me to a cor ner and told me she wanted to do something artistic together. Within seconds we decided that every Thursday (that day was a Thursday) we would send each other a video or a music file. A week later I sent her a video from Stockholm. I said goodbye to
Tal and went to the airport. I wanted to talk to someone. I landed in Berlin. Andrew was up. I sat and talked with him and smoked weed. That night I went with Christoph to Berghain. I roll ed a joint and felt the bass rocking my body up to the nostrils. I felt I was going to collapse. I told Christoph I want to go. I grabbed his jacket from behind with a fist, because I didn’t feel well. On the way out we stopped for a second and sat on a bench. A couple of friends stopped to talk to him. I tried to smile but my brain was too cramped and I looked nowhere. The floor was the place for me. It seemed comfy and inviting and came closer to me until I collapsed. Christoph bent down and offered his hand. I tried to convince him that lying on the floor was the best thing. Some woman stood by him and asked “Are you O.K.?” the calm voice of the couple conversing in the room to my left and the reflection of the woman in the window in the hotel in Vienna penetrated my dream. I collapsed by the bar. There was some vacant floor over there – I’ll come back to this. I felt pressure inside my head. Four hours after I got back from New New York York to Berlin, I caught a f light to Johannesburg. While waiting in gate 57 I wrote …I feel the same pressure inside my head again.
I’m afraid to stand up. I just ate some greasy food. I forgot to mention that I got back from New York today and landed in Berlin, but now I’m at Charles de Gaulles waiting for gate 57 to open. I left Ana and Christoph in the cafeteria. I feel strange. There’s a big flat TV screen hanging on one of the pillars. Obama is speaking. Above him it says “Obama in Hong Kong” and above that it says “Samsung”. The food makes it difficult for me to move. I’ll walk around the airport and listen to some music. Pink Floyd are inspiring. I forgot about them and then remembered two days ago. 13/12/09 Dear diary, it seems like many days have fl owed down the river since this flight. Yesterday I read “Save Nelson Mandela” – it’s not a book, it’s a facebook joke, I can’t remember where I read it or what it meant. In two days they’ll announce the winner of the National Galerie audience award. I’ll be in Frankfurt during that time. I’m happy I have an excuse and I don’t have to lie. I don’t get enough sleep. Better yet – I get enough sleep, but not in my own home. I think the distance takes off an hour of sleep. Marcus came in. He sits and waves his hand as
if I was a camera because I told him I’m writing the diary now. Andrew mentions my flight to Brussels in less than a week. The conversation flows and Marcus says Brussels is a beautiful city. I agree and he adds “A cute and miniature city”. I reply – “The city with the highest rate of racist pedophiles in Europe”. Marcus didn’t know. I hear Andrew laughing (he sits in his room and I’m with Marcus in the living room). I tell Marcus how corrupt Belgium is. Why do I even document this conversation? I show Marcus the clip the Tate made for D.I.E NOW and he laughs and says he wants to see it. I can’t write as fast as he speaks. I know why I’m documenting this conversation - Marcus says he’s never been to Japan. He thinks it must be nice out of Tokyo. It turns out he has a friend who has also been to Kitakyushu at the CCA. I’m very enthusiastic about what he tells me. Marcus is not as enthusiastic, because he has no idea how much this coincidence fits the location and the contents of these words.
16/12/09 This line repeats the line that repeated the line that precedes it but keeps moving further away from it in a spiralling motion. It reaches no where. wh ere. It’s so quiet in here. Andrew left. A month ago today my parents left me. I’m waiting for ten thirty. Then I’ll leave. I fell asleep at midday. I came in at noon from Frankfurt. I spent one night over there. The Frankfurt line would repeat the Vienna line and would grow shorter with every word. The time in New York – 15:27. In Berlin – 21:29. I’m waiting for ten thirty. thi rty. I woke up at the Nizza hotel in Frankfurt today,
and stepped into the bath. It wasn’t in the room but in the hallway. I stepped out of the bath, put on a robe, went out to the hallway and returned to the room. I wasn’t embarrassed or afraid someone would see me because it was only 7:30 a.m. I laid down on the bed in the robe and let time pass. Then I got dressed, checked emails, packed my bag and went down for breakfast. I ate everything twice. I drank coffee with milk. I soiled the tablecloth and asked for a taxi to be called for 8:40. Two minutes before it arrived I went to the counter and paid for two double Four Roses that I’d drank with Saul J. the night before. The Frankfurt airport is too big. Things to do: Nothing. December is stretching. In Frankfurt I was asked for my opinion about the city. All the moments converge at one point that makes breathing very difficult. It’s 22:28. Since I came back from Israel I haven’t slept at home. This was two months ago. I’m copying words from the night in Japan when I sat with the participants on the stairs outside and
smoked a cigarette. I thought I was expected to be different. I am not calm. I have to send Rennen a video. I have so many things to do I’m not even thinking about it. Tal wants to conti nue the operetta with me. Tomorrow on the way to Brussels I’ll think about the video I have to make for London. I shave my legs every morning. I don’t watch any TV series. I’m still smoking a joint. Last night I couldn’t sleep so I watched Madmen until 8 a.m. I don’t lie – I’m developing. Then I wrote music for a video on Garage Band. I’m addicted to the internet. I haven’t dreamt about Rennen since I met Christoph G. in Bar 3. When we lef t the Cantina we went to Rothschild 12. Halfway there a car stopped by and everybody from the Cantina who wasn’t with us was in it. They shouted “Come in” and without a second thought I opened the door – the car was full – and glided in. Rennen’s girlfriend gl ided in with me. We sat on two models and Tal. Rennen sat in the front and someone sat on her. Every body was laughing and screaming and I felt a relief because in the Cantina problems rolled ner vously on the table and now they all turned into a funny woollen ball. This is not interesting. I’m overflowing with sex
and love. Today I have to decide what I’ll pre pare for London. 21/12/09 I’m in Berlin. Oh my god, I climbed into the bath today with the heating not working, so I let it run for an hour until the steam heated the air. The day I wrote the water flowed and the sewer wasn’t clogged was the day I met Christoph G. I think my eyes are dull. They can’t contain the light coming through the window. I found the last paragraph I wrote in the diary the day after Bar 3. I’ve waited until this moment to write it (8/10/09) Oh my god I slept with Christoph G. – the man I met in Vienna in the beginning of the diary. Maruan told me he isn’t a good man, but I slept with him anyhow. When he went to the bathroom Maruan said “Promise me you won’t do it”,
I said “Of course, no chance. I promise”, but then we went to his house and fucked. He just sent me a text message. I politely replied something that sounds like yes and no. Too bad he isn’t somebody else, otherwise I’d meet up with him once again. I saw him at the National Gallerie as well. We nodded hello to each other and didn’t speak. I spoke to an Austrian guy who lived in Paris for some time and acted as if he’d arrived from the sixteenth century. I was very drunk. Andrew walked past me. I told him that no one really talks or speaks his mind. Andrew agreed. I saw Christoph G. in the corner of my eye, we exchanged nods and I turned my head to the side. We didn’t exchange a word and I’m not sorry because I had to return to Japan the following day. day. When I got back I wrote two more paragraphs in the diary. One was after I put caustic soda in all the bathtub’s cavities and the second was after I came back from Christoph’s and before I went to Hanna H’s project. When I got back from Christoph’s I met Andrew in the kitchen wearing a leopard print robe and fleecy white slippers, making coffee. I told him a summary of everything, went to the living room,
turned my computer on and realized I had to run to Hanna H’s project. I was supposed to have a dialogue about feelings with Christoph C. I told him I met someone in a bar and had sex with him. I said I was really excited and explained that I don’t usually have occasional sex. We spoke for half an hour and someone photographed our silhouettes through a white cloth. I recall the dream with the orgy, the sheet, and the white dogs. Hanna H. said it’s good we whispered, because the other couples spoke too clearly clearly.. Two days ago I heard the couple in my building having sex again. This was the first time I’d heard them since I came back from Vienna. It wasn’tt so awful because it was in the middle of wasn’ the day and I was immersed in a conversation with Andrew Andre w. The line extends – sorry – grows shorter. Everything changes. 17:4 7:42 2 I am in Berlin now home alone. I’ve slept almost all day long. I bought vegetables and stocked up the fridge. This may be the sanest period of my life. My back aches.
Andrew left a note and thanked me for the time he’d stayed at my place. He wrote it on brown cardboard with white and purple chalks. I have no more flights until the end of the year. Wow. I don’t know what I’ll do on New Year’s. Last year I celebrated at home, alone. When the fireworks started I watched Leni Riefenstahl’s Olympia. I received Carl Jung’s Red Book it’s gigantic and heavy and worth every minute. Carl Jung dives into the subconscious and realizes it lacks imagination. His thoughts are collective. He chats with the devil and asks him why he’s holding an axe. The devil evades answering. I didn’t read it all. 18:25 I just wrapped the Serge Gainsbourg book I bought in Paris. I sent an sms to Christoph and asked if the birthday par ty was at home or out. If it’s out I won’t bring the present. I like the book very much. My window is open. Everybody left town. Andrew went to London and Nora went to Rome. I have no idea what she’s doing over there. The temperature was minus fourteen yesterday. It’s much nicer now. It snows occasionall y. The birthday is out. Serge Gainsbourg stays with me.. me
23/12/09 I’m back to the lungs which hurt less and I let myself smoke half a pack a day. My window is shut and I am in Berlin. I just wrote an email to the people in Paris and confirmed my flight on January seventh. In two hours I’ll go to buy lobsters. I can’t decide what starter to make. Less than a week ago - who’s counting? - I gave a lecture in a school in Frankfurt. On the fli ght I looked at the sunset over the clouds and sank into melancholy. I was happy to be sad because it took my mind off the lecture. Christoph wants to have caviar as a starter, but I don’t believe it will be enough for a first course. He sent me a text message ‘how did it go?’ after the lecture. I only managed to reply after t hree hours because I wasn’t alone for a minute. When the lecture started my heart raced and my hands trembled and my brain was paralyzed. I didn’t expect it because I was very calm before that. The room was packed with students and the teachers were seated in the first row. I tried to talk but my tongue was tied and I wanted to apologize and run away after every word that came out of my mouth. Daniel B. was there, he sat in the corner. Later when we talked at his wife’s party he said none of the students left
because they wanted to see if I would collapse. Three days ago I woke up in a hotel in Brussels and wrote the following text: 19/12/09 Yesterday Y esterday I exhibited work s in the upper level of a pub in Brussels. I t hink I let my hosts down because after dinner I went to sleep. I arrived there late because the f light had a two hour delay. This was three days after Frankfurt. I met Aline in Frankfurt. She brought me a Japanese canned drink and I drank it during the lecture. In Brussels I was free and tired and people laughed at every word that came out of my mouth. I said twice – “It wasn’t that funny”. The line grows tighter from Vienna to Frankfurt to Brussels. This was my last f light for the year. year. I am in Berlin now – 24/12/09 I have a week left to fix the video I made for Ja pan. Andrew celebrates Christmas in London with his mother. mother. The last time I saw Marcus was when we spoke about Brussels and realized his friend – Scott – was in Kitakyushu. He ate a ke bab in a pita and I told him it didn’t look appetiz-
- ing. Yesterday I bought lobsters for tonight. Now they’re living in Christoph’s fridge. I was happy to see Marcus because I wanted his character to appear one more time in the diar y. I bought Wasabi powder for the tuna tartare and balsamic syrup to decorate the starter plate. Christoph bought red cabbage for the goulash and threw away a white cabbage that took up space in the fridge. Here is an option for the rest: 27/12/09 I have to finish this diary today. Now. The tuna tartare came out horrible because I’ve never prepared or tasted tuna tartare before. I shouldn’t have added the pomegranate seeds. The goulash came out wonderful. I had three servings.
In the first chapter I was waiting
for an email from Christoph. It hasn’t arrived. We met up the following day, had dim-sum and went over to my place. We split after three hours. Two days before I left for the London poetry reading we met again at the Odyssey bar. I told him what Maruan had told me and he ex plained what Maruan meant. We drank vodka
tonics. My hand lay on the table and he laid his head on it. It warmed my heart. Then we went to his place. The following day I left for London. This line is going nowhere. I spend seventy percent of my life lying down. Rennen sent me an email about the video I have to send her. her. Maybe I’ll dismantle a clock and assemble it back together.. I don’t have a clock to dismantl e. together I always wanted to build a life size cardboard air plane – 1:1 and watch it all my life long. I have no patience for details. I answered Rennen that it’s Christmas now and that finishing the diary is more urgent. She re plied that she doesn’t understand what I’m talking about, but guesses that I meant to say I miss her and will send her a video soon. What were the white dogs doing there? I usually dream about cats. Freud says kittens are a symbol of change. I once dreamt I was in a pound with bird cages full of quail’s eggs. I held one of them and it hatched in my hands and a wet kitten came out. I petted it and tried to feed it, but it was too small. I wanted
to put it back in the cage and get a dripper, but when I lifted my eyes I saw that kittens were hatching from all the eggs in all the cages and there was no room for the kitten in my hand. The shelves were dirty and the kittens stepped and shat over each other. I cleaned the shelves and moved the kittens from one cage to another. Some of them died of suffocation and filth, but most stayed alive. Finally I managed to put the kitten in one of the cages. I woke up in Christoph’s house today. I’m breathing heavily heavily again. I’m si tting in the same chair I sit in ever y day when I write in the living room. I have to make room for a change in my life – this is the conclusion from the last dream, that wasn’t the last, but one of the first I’ve had this year. The heating in the bathroom stopped working, the heating in the bedroom stopped working too, I’m sleeping in Andrew’s room. I need to get sl eeping pills for next year. 21:34 - I washed up and cut my hair. I shortened it by two centimeters. Then I listened to some music. I’m now back to writing again. My hair is still wet. I dreamt of more kittens. They were just born and lay on the beach with their eyes closed. I petted them and ran to call my
mother to show her how cute they were. When I came back I saw the kittens were in danger because of the tide and they almost got wet. I wanted to put them in a bucket but my hands were shaking because there was nothing near me and I was afraid they would die, but then my mother took them and lay them on her skirt (she doesn’t wear skirts) between her legs where they felt safe. They were all saved – none of them drowned or got wet. 00:08 - I once had a cat named Cat. One mor ning she woke me up and lay on my blanket. I didn’t understand what she wanted until she started going into labor. I was happy to know she loves me and trusts me. She delivered a big kitten that didn’t move or meow. Even before he fully came out of the belly, I realized he was dead. My hands trembled. I mumbled and cried – “Oh no – oh no”. When it fully came out of the belly I held him with a cloth, went out of the house and threw him in one of the garbage bins in the building. When I came back, I saw Cat meowing and looking for her baby. I had dreamt about kittens before this happened.
28/12/09 01:23 – I’m tired. I’ve got nothing to eat at home. Soon I’ll go out. I started dreaming about kittens after I heard what Freud thinks about such dreams. I have to make room for a change in my life. I’ll start now now..
title in Japanese... dark blue letters...
