K.Wyborny
FROM THE AGE OF LIGHTHEARTEDNESS
(FICTION AND TRUTH)
Subtitles of the English Version
REEL 1:
Who knows? Maybe a man`s real story
begins when he leaves his mother.
In my case the sea was calling. I
wanted to embrace the entire world.
The entire world -
BARCELONA!
Yes, scenes I experienced,
places I saw -
All part of a biography.
Of my biography.
And yet I´m only
describing my memories.
With pictures of places, where
time was spent.
They can be some kind of gauge.
Yes, I saw places and changed
people. So many places.
So many coastlines, cities,
harbours -
Pyramids!
In those days I often
felt like a pyramid.
Today I merely feel
like a tree in spring.
Yes, a tree in spring -
Bare yet lusting for life
and full of sap
and before leaves and twigs
burst out of its branches.
Oh you harbours of my youth!
But first I was merrily
off to sea.
Oh yes, oh yes, I saw the see!
In the early 70´s in a pub
called Bierstube Ganz
lost behind the blue tarps
in these images.
I was invited to accompany
a chance aquaintance to Egypt.
She offered to pay for the trip
if I fucked her
on top of several pyramids.
At the time I longed for friendship
and hoped it was the start of one.
Bierstube Ganz no longer exists.
Where once half-crazy people met
in a flat barrack-like structure
there now stands a post-modern,
half-circular building
where flowers and oriental
knick-knack are sold.
That´s what happens to places
when our feelings desert them.
Luise still had feelings and cried
upon seeing the big Cheops pyramid.
But due to all the tourists
who´d have watched
we had to cancel our brave plan.
Depressed we slept
in seperate beds.
Luckily there are hundreds
of pyramids in Egypt -
though mostly just heaps of
rubble, as here the one of Unnas
or here the Userkaf Pyramid.
The Stepped Pyramid in Saqqara
however impressed me indeed.
It´s the oldest large structure
in Egypt.
The pyramid form as we know it
resulted from a new
generation of builders
who keenly desired to fill out the
steps with sloping surfaces.
When we finally fucked in
the rubble of the Unnas Pyramid
Luise was disappointed.
We weren´t at any top
and the surroundings reminded her
of her youth in post-war Berlin.
I contrarily felt great in such
chaos even though I failed to see
the fundament of Sechemchet`s
pyramid at the edge of the rubble.
Ah, friendship, you are daring!
Daring and yet only
a leaf in the wind.
Less fearful now, we set out again
to the big pyramids.
The Chephren Pyramid
was our only choice
because Cheops´ pyramid was ruined
by Caliph El-Mamun
who tried to remove it
starting at the top.
El-Haukali wrote
in the 10th century
there was room for 10 camels on top
not just standing but kneeling.
As we started to climb
the Chephren Pyramid
souvenir sellers stopped us.
So we fucked in a crevice or slit
made by Caliph Othman and 10,000
men in 8 months in the 13th century
in the nearby pyramid of Mycerinos
because ist pagan existence
insulted God.
The slit was Othman´s attempt to
level it differently than El-Mamun.
Measuring Luise´s desire with
the size of the Cheops Pyramid,
I perceived its diagonal lines
due to the position we were in
as horizontal and straight.
Suddenly I believed I had solved
the mystery of the pyramids:
the resolute obliqueness
of their lines presents
a wonderful contrast to nature.
Ah - nature!
The horrible thing about nature is
how pictures of her
dissolve at the edges
and offer our aesthetic senses
nothing to hold on to.
Could a forceful act
help our senses find hold?
No, nature knows no
resolute oblique lines.
After gaining courage and fucking
on the stepped pyramid of Djoser
I suddenly realized it was 4600
years old and grew respectful.
For if others like us
came up here twice a year
then we´d be the 9200th pair
feeling high
on top of the world
seen by no one.
After that we took our time and
fucked in
the pyramid-field of Abusir
where tourists never came.
As I caught Luise´s hungry look
south to Snofru´s Red Pyramid
and the Bent Pyramid
rising in the distance
I realized she was looking
for something more exciting.
The Bent Pyramid she whispered
as I stimulated her from behind.
Yes she was now open
to stronger perversions.
Ah - what is man
in such a state to mankind?
Altough I dislike perversions
I tried to be helpful
for I wanted us to become known
through our friendship
and most legends grow around
friendship and shared happiness.
Towards the heavens grows
the tree, pride of the earth.
You weather, storms and rain
pray spare the holy wood.
Yes, I´m a sailor
traveling the 7 continents
and 7 seas for 7 years.
Storms shook my bones, tropical
lulls squeezed sweat from my pores.
Coastlines, clouds and harbours
met my eye
but I saw nothing.
A merry-go-round of thoughts
circled my perceptions
more powerful than reality itself
which vegetates as a caricature.
Well, Luise ...
In the rubble of Userkaf´s pyramid
I reminded Luise of the purity
of her Berlin childhood
and the essence of her idea
but she didn´t want to
be fucked in such surroundings.
Her goal now was the Bent Pyramid
which lay in a military zone.
Not wanting to be shot because of a
camera, I left it at the hotel.
Luise was ready for anything
and fucked the guard
to gain access to the pyramid.
Afterwards when he laughed
and refused to let us through
she was a changed woman.
Until then she´d only met
serious types of men like myself.
She ended her enterprise
spontaneeously as it had begun.
Just like Melville she now
wanted to go to Jerusalem
but I didn´t wish
to follow her there.
On this day both our lives were
bent as if by that pyramid´s shape
and I only took this one picture
of the symbol of our failure.
She left me at the roadside
with some pocket money.
She probably took revenge on me
for what the guard did to her.
50 years after Djoser´s Pyramid
Snofru began both the Bent Pyramid
and the Stepped Pyramid in Madum
which was for his father-in-law.
Both had inclination angles of
53 degrees.
While being built the structure in
Madum collapsed in an earthquake
whereupon the other pyramid was
finished with a smaller angle -
that´s why the Bent Pyramid is
bent at around 50 meters.
As Snofru didn´t want to be buried
in a bent pyramid
he built another with
the safer angle of 43 degrees.
He was the only Pharao
who built 3 pyramids.
Luise did´t like his Red Pyramid -
For her it wasn´t steep enough.
Without Snofru´s sobering attempt
the steeper Giza pyramids
never could have been built
just another 50 years later.
Ah - what are 2 times 50 years?
I never heard from Luise again.
She led a risky life.
I still have a hell of a lot
of respect for her
especially her way of helping
ideas take shape.
I gave up on the idea of becoming
a legend through friendship
and made my way south.
But life without friendship
quickly seems empty.
Finally I have to thank her
for the idea of filming
with my camera at an angle:
For if a pyramid could already
be bent 5,000 yrs. ago
why shouldn´t I today
tip a landscape
from its horizontality
to prove my superior humanity?
By tipping my camera I could create
resolute diagonals in my pictures -
Oblique lines like the pyramids!
Mankind is free isn´t it?
I developed my new technique in the
centre of Africa filming flamingos.
There immediately an urgent
question arose:
Can pure nature alone be the
subject of an artistic dispute?
I regained my self-confidence
in a prehistoric settlement
above Lake Elmenteita
when I held a million year old
hand-axe in my hand.
Such an axe was much older and
handier than a pyramid.
Its human scale
reconciled me with humanity.
But what´s the point of holding
such a hand-axe in such a place
when one is alone?
I was about to throw it towards
the lake and a factory there
when I suddenly was reminded
of my aunt Veronica
who called a picture beautiful
if there were flowers in it.
There weren´t any flowers here
but she was the first woman
I saw between the legs
relatively successfully.
One summer long I was obsessed
with looking under her skirt
to see whether she had
anything on underneath.
That summer she read
"Gone with the Wind".
Seriously - shouldn´t that have
an effect on my later aesthetics?
I truly freed myself from Luise
years later in Stonehenge when
I collectively masturbated with
4000 others in a midsummer night.
My interest for outdoor sex
coupled with cultural monuments
rapidly diminished thereafter.
In my African days I resolved
to tame nature with my camera
perhaps hoping to tame
my inner self in the process.
I didn´t want to succumb
to it like Luise.
Because the world
is also beautiful.
I travelled the seas for 7 years
a seasick sailor -
and saw nothing really.
A shiver still goes down my spine
when I see pictures of pyramids.
Even today I highly value
Luise´s fascination with the
pyramids´ outer form rather
than the silly graves within.
I still don´t know what she was
searching for up there.
I was only interested
in the obliqueness of the lines.
But I know even less why I think
of my aunt so often.
Who can claim that my escape to
sea and oblique lines
has nothing to do with her?
And what about nature?
Is it only beautiful because it
contains a few birds and flowers?
I too feel like a sailor traveling
the 7 continents on 7 seas.
Storms shook my bones and tropical
lulls squeezed sweat from my pores.
Coastlines, clouds and harbours
met my eye but I saw nothing.
O, all these many places where
we once felt something.
Lonely, I often thought then,
I´m not lonely.
What happens inside us to pictures
of those places we once were?
For example, now I understand
myself as nature -
at least according to
these last images I took.
10 years ago I was a building.
Yes, I saw myself as a building set
in this world in order to please.
I wanted to see the pyramids
and became a pyramid.
Now pyramids seem to me pathetic
like the dirt in this projector
compared to a simple tree.
A merry-go-round of thoughts
circled my perceptions
more powerful than reality itself
which vegetates as a caricature.
After that I wanted to write
poems, songs and other pieces
in order to to do more
than just please the world.
I think, I wanted to impress. Maybe
I only wanted to forget Luise.
Remember, remember, vague thought
began one of those poems.
What makes your substance throb?
Pre-spring branches.
Oh power - show me some world!
I think the poem of which
only these images are left
began like that.
Then it continued:
With such cleverness stretching
Towards the heavens.
Blow, wind. Blow down
the branches of the audacious.
Here where I am,
Caught in eternal smallness,
Are you, are you, bold light.
So the poem ended, if I recall
correctly.
Unbelievable how long it
takes to finally establish
that one is not a poet.
That must mean something.
But what?
It sent me helplessly
back to sea.
A mechanical failure
brought us to Rimini
where I was abaff
at Patricia´s interest
in the motherly forms
of Augustus´ Arch of Triumph.
Not far from the arch
was a bridge built by Tiberius.
Patricia told me Tiberius
was Augustus´son and
such a passionate bridge builder
that late in his life
he felt like a bridge himself
standing wide legged in water
with young boys swimming through
his thighs and licking his balls -
he himself now a bridge!
But Tiberius was long dead and
so much had died inside me that
I no longer wanted to write pieces
with roles of his kind.
Instead I regretfully was reminded
that evening in the hotel
of a promise I was unable to keep.
Maybe it´s the last one
I´ll ever have made to anyone.
It was at a table behind
the fish market in Hamburg -
also one of those places
deserted by feelings.
I felt strangely as if in Piraeus
on this warm evening
- even if these pictures
don´t express it -
maybe since I´d never been
in Piraeus.
But that evening we both
wanted to go there.
That promise was somehow lost in a
process called stabilizing my life.
It´s no longer in me and
on that night in Rimini
I had no success finding it at all.
The more I tried to recall it
the more my memories blended with
fragments of Tiberius´ bridge.
Yes I remember, I thought dreaming
yet what do memories mean for life?
In one of the pieces I remember
I met a Portuguese woman in a disco
called "After 8", in this picture
behind stupid diagonal stripes.
We had a common friend and
at some point we threw dice
whether we should sleep together.
She called herself my prize
due to my greater luck.
It was raining and we got wet as
we walked domn the street.
What do you want from me
she suddenly asked.
When I pretended not to know
she didn´t want to go any further.
Fine, I said.
I´ll wait for a taxi for you.
"After 8" also no longer exists.
The owner hung himself
and it´s now occupied by
an insurance firm.
We waited in front of
a furniture store.
A police car drove by.
Yes, now I remember.
At this intersection another taxi
once played a role in my life.
Back then I was a programmer
also for an insurance firm.
When I got home from work
Daniel was visiting us.
We talked a bit and then
wanted to go see a movie.
An the corner was a taxi stand
where we waited.
Suddenly its phone rang:
Here is Ding-Dang-Dong Sauna -
Dr. X needs a taxi.
On its way! we shouted.
Daniel didn´t want to go afterall.
When the taxi arrived
I went with Hannes and Christoph
to see a French movie -
they´re the best.
The taxi drove by
the Moorweide Meadow.
Slowly this all comes back to me.
I wrote about the meadow in another
piece: Sometime in September
walking with Hannes and Christoph
towards the Dammtor.
The sun shone and the grass
was soft underfoot.
I again felt power
in so many parts of my body.
I thought: The road to recovery.
Now I stood at this intersection
stroking a Portuguese woman´s hips.
Suddenly she grapped me
unexpectedly harshly and
shoved my hand between her legs.
She had nothing on under her skirt1.
With her back to the traffic light
she shoved my fingers into her.
She wan´t exactly wet
but rather roomy.
I knew you 5 years ago
she said angrily
pulling my cock from my pants:
You didn´t want me back then.
I couldn´t remember her.
She was too small for me
so we didn´t connect.
The police car drove by again.
and suddenly I had to think
of the South Seas.
Let´s go to my place I said.
- No.
Let´s walk a bit then I urged with
at least a trace of initiative.
We walked a bit, her hands in my
pants and mine under her skirt.
Then I set her on a fence
and wanted to penetrate her
but was unseccessful.
O harbours of the South Seas!
And Bridge of Tiberius!
Let´s go to my place,
I tried again.
But she stuck to her senseless no.
Also on a lower fence
we remained unsuccessful.
We ended up on some steps.
My cock wasn´t stiff
and I had to pull her legs
up high to enter her.
She wasn´t Portuguese.
She was from Bremen and was
part of a student theatre group.
A door opened at the other side.
An old woman came out and saw us.
We parted so hastily
I don´t even know if I came.
This rubble one calls one´s life!
More people came out of the door.
We went back to the lights
at the furniture store.
Now it was raining heavily.
Soon a taxi came.
We kissed once again and I said:
Safe journey home.
Sure, she said.
It wasn´t far to my flat
and after climbing the stairs
I went right to bed.
For the first time in a long time
- I didn´t want to admit it -
I was happy with myself.
Falling asleep I thought:
Why do we attach ourselves
to others with such hope!
Oh meadow of my youth!
What does one have from the
re-awakening of such memories?
A kind of orientation?
Perhaps the Portuguese woman
had been designated as such
because she seemed to be an
experienced woman
and because the Portuguese also
left traces all over the world.
Ah, dust of oblivion over the past!
Maybe one should just forget it.
I am and you are I often modestly
thought in such situations.
But also: Triumph!
Here, yes here I once
made someone feel life!
Sadly there isn´t a trace of
triumph left at these places.
Ah, the animal in man inflates
when describing the past.
Afterwards it becomes sad.
Only matter outlasts
a human cry undamaged!
Sad, I thought that night
in Rimini with Patricia, and:
I´m not sad because my longing
has grown more perfect.
The wild need to possess someone
has evolved into something else:
The wild need to understand
another person.
Patricia came from Malawi.
On visiting the Malatesta Temple
by Alberti the next morning
one of the first
Renaissance buildings
I noted she regarded me and Europe
with the same impartial arrogance
as I did the ancient world.
In those days Renaissance meant:
Back to Rome!
Patricia´s behaviour reminded me
of the arrogance I´d observed
in myself
at the battlefield of Chaironea
where the Roman commander Sulla
conquered 100,000 enemies of Rome.
More than 100,000
fought down there!
How indifferent places are to
events, I thought sentimentally.
And this was even
the place of a witness
the most powerful witness
of antiquity:
Chaironea - Plutarch´s hometown.
Not a trace of Sulla or Plutarch
in these pictures.
That gave me an idea of the power
with which man crushes the earth.
But Tiberius and Sulla
were long dead and
Patricia and I studied another
as if that was our only purpose
in this strangely burnt world.
And wherever I was, the sea
finally had a pull on me.
This surprised me.
What was it about the sea?
What pulled me to the sea?
All these harbours
where I left my memories.
Horrible empty voracious harbours.
Where in my memory is that seducing
sight that once enticed me.
My trips led me back to Marrakesh
where I happily discovered -
on hand of the Kotoubia Minaret
built at the same time
as Othman´s attempt to
level the Mycerinos Pyramid -
that the pyramid´s form had
developed in the course of history
and turned into a tower.
I finally had an inkling of what
Luise could have been looking for
in her confusion at the top
of the pyramids.
She thought she was
closer to God there.
And she wanted to
show it to him.
But doesn´t God see
everything anyways?
In the nearby Menara Garden
I smugly noted the pyramid´s form
had even evolved into domesticity.
Congratulations therefore
to Arabic culture!
However I was unable
to identify myself
with the gingerbread architecture
of Ait Ben Hadou.
No, I failed to find a mirror
in that, and so instead
I made a few better controlled
self-portraits:
Myself as Stonehenge.
Myself as a palm in the wind.
And in a particularily weak moment:
Myself as 3 leaves in the wind.
But what´s a selfportrait
if one´s alone?
Then one wishes to tread in
another´s footsteps.
And
Here on this meadow I was happy -
One wishes to speak clear sentences
like that, but I couldn´t find any
and therefore tread in
brave Ulysses´ footsteps
and set again for sea.
I finally wanted to reach Greece.
Yes, I wanted to reach Greece,
democracy and Piraeus
and see the shrubs
round the Acropolis.
I didn´t expect to cry upon seeing
the Acropolis for the first time,
but just in case
I didn´t look too closely.
Ah, shrubs and bushes.
You uncork eternal anger in me -
I wanted to destroy this place
more than time and
yet preserve it and
finally bathe in simpler waters.
I wanted peace yet the stupid songs
I used to sing with steady voice
in the early 80´s came up in me.
I am free - I am film - I am poetry
I used to sing and
Help me Aphrodite, stay at my side
while I near your holy being
so that I may not always feel this
horrible sad loneliness inside.
Feel the earth! Let its
wide expanse penetrate you!
Know that here and in this hour
you are touching the whole planet.
Ah, antiquity gives comfort
yet not enough.
And because God
always sees everything
Luise need not show herself to him
in such a difficult manner
if she wanted to protest
against him and his world!
Slit!
Maybe a man´s real story does
begin when he leaves his mother.
So the European face is befallen
from an adventurous disease
Three quarters already black, it
moves north with restless grey eyes
Yes, Aphrodite, help me,
stay at my side
as I try to near your
holy being one last time.
The sea from which
no Aphrodite arose anymore.
Ende Rolle 1 27:29
Rolle 2:
Yes 7 years we travelled the seas
Seasick sailors on seaworthy ships
Seasick sailors on seaworthy ships
but we saw nothing!
But we saw nothing!
O Mogador - you Lusitanic beauty!
The next morning in the hotel
as Patricia studied a brochure
about Augustus´, Tiberius´
and Alberti´s buildings
I realized our encounter contained
something much closer at hand:
A nightmare in New York from
the 60´s - at least for me
it was a nightmare and had nothing
to do with a Portuguese.
Strange how memories make their
mysterious way into the present.
I met Norma in a bar where I used
to get drunk almost every evening.
She tended to be violent
throwing tables and chairs
when she felt insulted by a man.
She then said very loudly:
I know you! You can´t deceive me.
At 24 I was unable to read
such signs properly.
One night we went to a party with
a bunch of people from the bar.
Soon I was the only
white in the room.
Like when I took this picture.
We drank and smoked
and when someone shot up, pulled
a knife and broke windows
Norma said: Let´s go!
and we left.
Norma was from Chicago and had
lived near the Fermi Institute.
The men there looked exactly
like you she said.
She showed me her pottery,
her child and a German Shepherd.
Since she didn´t want to sleep
with me there we went to my place.
I saw horror in her eyes
as she registered the chaos
in which I lived.
At some point it surprised me
- though it´s not very original -
how pale my cock looked
when I withdrew from her.
Norma was totally drunk;
had some white discharge
and I shortly thereafter
had gonorrhea.
Maybe that´s why Africa
vaguely interests me since.
Doesn´t sound so nice but why
make things nicer than they were?
In memories there is
no unhappiness
without priorily felt happiness.
And that`s so long ago
that I forgot what it´s like -
so long ago that I don´t even know
how true it really is.
I´d experienced it but we all
were so readily getting into
such situations back then
that one could call them
directed by the participants
or even thought out.
Do you, for example, believe
that a few years ago
and after all that had happened
I - to put it cautiously now - had
kissed a woman up on that mountain?
No, seen like that
man is not free.
Not even in Africa.
I´d taken so many beatings since,
I felt like a mere windblown bush
and even that only, when I met
people I knew from earlier
and pulled myself together.
Often you understand only much
later what you went through.
The sea, from which
no Aphrodite arose anymore.
After the adventure with Norma
I got sick at the sight of horses
or even ants.
But man is no animal and must
learn to live with such things.
After Norma, Doris visited me
with whom I lived before New York.
It was Christmas. At the airport
I had trouble speaking German.
I kept dropping English expressions
as if I was making fun of her.
At some point the thicket of one´s
own actions appears so inscrutable
and muddled that one gets trapped.
Then it´s no longer funny.
When she wanted to sleep with me
I told her I had the clap.
She was angry and started
throwing things at me.
Ah, Africa!
I´ll kill you she cried
and scratched my face.
We fought.
Finally when I was on top of her
holding her arms, she calmed down.
Fuck me, you pig
she cried angily.
Life is more brutal than
you sometimes suspect.
I´d got on with her till then
so I did what she wanted.
Doesn´t sound so nice either,
but that was the 60`s -
everything was changing and
no one knew how to behave
in those new situations.
Doris´ revenge was to burn the
shack where I stored my stuff.
Thus I lost my early
manuscripts and films.
No great loss
as I realize today.
But I lost the only picture
I had of her in the fire
and so I no longer know
what she looked like.
I guess she never understood
one principle promise of love:
Never force anything.
Yes, that was the Sixties
when the desasters were simple and
when a little money or penicillin
could solve the harm we caused.
At the time one thought
it couldn´t come worse -
but such things
were of no consequence.
Today we realize that something
much worse happened
which isn´t as easily defined
because the evil in it
doesn´t seem to be evil:
By our mere presence
- and that is really brutal -
we encouraged others
to lead an overconfident life.
Yes 7 years we travelled the seas
Seasick sailors on seaworthy ships
Seasick sailors on sea -
I wish I could say: I regret!
But inside me I´ve no regrets.
For I also let others lead me
by their mere presence, so that my
life took turns I didn´t ask for.
Use me but don´t touch me
we now often say to another.
And no one can after all
forbid anyone to simply stand
like a tree in the world
pretending to enjoy it.
The sky was cloudless
the afternoon mild.
Nothing!
Nothing, nothing.
Well, the animal in man inflates
when describing the past.
Afterwards it becomes sad.
Cries of murder and death!
Fearful beating of wings!
What a groan, what chain of sighs!
Rising up to our heights!
All of them already slain
And the sea red with blood.
And the Heron`s precious adornments
robbed by malformed desire.
Well, even my mother said there´s
no escaping the hell of memories.
No idea where she got that from.
And on second thought
she´s probably not even right.
Yes 7 years we travelled the seas
Seasick sailors on seaworthy ships
Seasick sailors on seaworthy ships
But we saw nothing!
But we saw nothing!
Oh, this rubble my life´s become.
Democracy! it yelled inside me now.
Democracy for the entire world!
Oh, you places of democracy!
Places! Places! Places!
The entire world!
Barcelona! Embrace it!
No, after all I´ve no regrets.
So many of my memories are so
far away I barely feel them.
It´s painful to recall them.
Most of the time I don´t feel them,
not their weight nor their riches.
No, no: there is no past!
The huge sea in which whales pee,
I thought at some point.
The cheapness of this provocation
made me laugh.
It was - I have no idea why -
as if this thought´s simplicity
relieved me from an immense burden.
Suddenly, finally and
after a long, long time
I was again satisfied with myself.
Horses - Nothing!
Ants - Nothing!
Nature also does give comfort
yet probably also not enough.
Yes, the huge sea
in which ...
Ende Rolle 2 24:21
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