To catch the light

"Looking into your eyes is like looking into a very deep river." She said as we danced, "What is underneath the river?"

"More river." I said, "Forever."

We kissed on the stairs, she in a white ballgown, me in black sequin bodysuit. We were both covered in fake blood, the spectators watched while she pressed herself against me for more. More river. The boy she had been kissing before looked heartbroken, he thought he was special, but it was all part of the act. Interactive German theater. It was just like life really, but more blood, and in the end quite boring.

I left the theater with a girl who had light spilling out of her eyes. We talked all night about art and orange juice concentrate. Over shots of vodka we started a theater company.

My world is spinning fast these cold German days. I've already played in Berlin, Hamburg, and Leipzig. My stage fright takes the form of self defeat and pushes me down in the cold German ground. I fight the gravity and play on. The shows are getting better and better, the songs stronger, my voice more clear. I wear sequins onstage because they catch the light and throw it back in every direction.

I sleep alone and dream of death. The death of an era in my life maybe.

I wake up and catch the light, throw it back in every direction.

My Diamond Mind

I am the worst type of person: a romantic idealist. I see and want the very best in people. I will not settle for less.

I lose friends because I am intolerant of their choices. We all go through hard times, but when I see people actively and willfully choosing to stay in the same comfortable rut instead of facing a challenge which points in the direction of where they want to go I just get so disappointed.

I do not want pure women to stay with cheating men, or passionate men to stay with bitter women, or for people of any gender to stay with anyone who denies such a beautiful part of them.

I can see it all so clearly, this hard precise diamond of my perception, it is not a nice metaphor, the hardest substance. I cut everyone who touches me.

I'm not a good friend. Too demanding. I want your best. Your very best. And I think you want it to.

Excerpts from my Berlin journal

When we hold hands a universe is born between our palms. I can feel it all: galaxies swirling, their confounded nebulae erupting in iridescent clouds of refracted light: cascading stars: planets colonized with strange and wonderful life. I feel entire civilizations rise up from swamps. Teeming cultures. Cities are built and destroyed. Built again. Histories are written and forgotten between our hands.

The web of our entwined fingers is the cradle of existence. My outward experience is now focused inward as I watch with my mind how life begins each time you take my hand.

*

On the train from Hamburg the croissants are shaped liked turtles, little flaky turtles in a wicker basket. I doubt anyone else sees it this way. The man next to me fidgets and sighs, watches me out of the corner of his eye, eats fist fulls of Tic-Tacs(tm) as though he were starving and this his first sustenance in weeks.

*

I dream of death every night. I write in golden chalk. I try to save lives, sometimes I succeed.

*

There is a man standing on the corner with a piece of an Oboe.

*

The left handed boy on the tram is very cute. He watched me with my friends, being silly, probably thought we were drunk. Me in my red cape. His face is so well formed. He is highlighting something that looks like a script, maybe an actor, a student.

I miss someone very much.

When I look back the left handed boy is gone.

*

Morning coffee. Mac the knife. A wasp hovers. I must be sweet.

Supercilious Fenis Pencing

Last night was so good. I have great friends. Amanda has moved from the "person I know from work" category to a proximity friend (great friend when in the same physical space) and that is pretty fucking great because she is fucking great. Neil is still on the periphery but we can be silly together and walk arm in arm and he confides in me when I'm around, so while I wouldn't say "Yeah, I'm like totally best friends with Neil Gaiman." I would be sure to pick him up if he fell down a flight of stairs rather than water his plants when he went out of town - that I only do for the best of the bestest friends.

There was no dressing room in the venue last night so Amanda and I dressed in the men's room - "Better make-up tips from the boys." Amanda explained. We practiced 'Such Great Heights.' Cute German boys told us it the "the best pee we ever had!"

I got to see lots of friends, got to kiss AFP and NFG, got lots of good video footage, was VERY sparkly.

AFP and NFG signed my Ukulele, which will be available to one very lucky person after I am done with it here in Berlin and recording my album - details soon!




***



I'm making a video......!!! If you want to be in it just film yourself saying "We believe in you!" (even if there is only one of you please say "we.") You can say it in any language, including Sign (!!!! yes please!) and you can film it with whatever camera you have - laptop webcam is great.

Then email me a quicktime movie file to kim (at) kimboekbinder.com

This will be an ongoing project - the first edition will be posted in the next few days - maybe tomorrow!

***

Berlin is basically magical for me. I have an art piece going up at Strychnin Gallery for the next show which opens Sept. 9th. More details soon.

I love my life! Except when people throw eggs at me, which happened today for NO REASON. Luckily I was not hit, just splashed on one arm. Gross.



And now for something completely different:

The Abundance of Marmalade

I'm eating breakfast in Berlin and watching two wasps hover over the marmalade -I've placed it across the table so they stop hovering over me. I really don't like to be hovered around.

Segmented abdomens pulsate with what imagine to be pleasure as they eat the jelly. The wasps are very territorial about the marmalade. They ambush and tackle each other. While one wasp is eating the other will attack from behind, they fall to the table and tumble, curled around each other in a fierce embrace, until one of them takes flight, carrying the other for a moment, suspended in the air like a tangle of Escher, until they break apart and hover.

The dance begins anew.

Now they have discovered that it is effective to knock the other wasp into the bowl of marmalade. They eat, their movements sharp and intense, and then they throw each other into the sticky mass where they are momentarily immobilized. They fly out ever angrier.

They hardly get to eat.

There is enough marmalade for 100 wasps.




*



Why do we fight?


Over the abundance.


Of marmalade.



****

Speaking of marmalade: I'm doing this thing with Amanda Palmer: http://bit.ly/AFPberlin it's her concert, I will be there doing something yet to be determined, perhaps playing tambourine, perhaps just listening to one of the most engaging artists I know.

And just so you know I will be launching another fundraiser soon, this one for my whole solo album.

And also you should know: Berlin is fucking amazing.

Back in B-town

No one calls it B-town as far as I know, I just made that up and I think it sounds really lame. Anyway...I'm in Berlin, again! I love it here, the city, the people, the food, the hats. I am needing to be especially frugal, saving all I can so I can record my album - for which there will be a fundraiser very shortly - but I found a hat. Maybe even THE HAT. You know? The one that changes everything. It is very Berlin, very cabaret, very Kim, very very necessarily: MY HAT!

Berlin is good to me: good friends, good food, good shoes, good hats ...(....I know you know already!)

Tonight I had a great pasta dinner at 'Mädchen Italianer' in Mitte, even though we had to wait over an hour for our entrees and I spilled wax all over my velvet coat while pretending to throw a lighted candle at the next table which was full of obnoxious coworkers trying to dominate each other with laughter. Let this be a lesson to you:

If you are going to pretend to throw the candle just go ahead and throw it because the wax gets spilled all the same.

I move into temporary housing tomorrow - I'll be there for a week, still looking for more permanent digs in B-town (NO ONE CALLS IT THAT!)

I've been toying with the idea of doing webcasts of songwriting sessions. Probably mostly silly stuff, but maybe something nice will come of it. Basically I will write songs live online, and maybe take suggestion as to what the songs should be about. What do you think?

mmmmmmmmmm.......Berlin!!!!

The Socks Off My Feet

First the news:

The Socks Off My Feet!

Tuesday night I started listing objects to sell on my Twitter Stream, dresses at first, shoes, and some random little things, and then it became an art project and I was just grabbing things that I didn't necessarily want to get rid of just to see what would sell: original art, Geisha Wig - real hair, a marching bass drum, the socks off my feet (sold for $4 incl. US shipping.)




Here is my Tweet Stream if you want to look it over: http://twitter.com/KimBoekbinder

I will have another Twitter Yard Sale tonight! - Thursday night starting at 7pm PST (10pm EST) and will also webcast the event here: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/kim-boekbinder-vermillion

I will also play some songs on the webcast so even if you don't want to buy anything you can check out the weird stuff I have and listen to some sweet tunes.

I have also decided to have one final show before I leave for Berlin. This show will be at my house in Oakland on Sunday, sept. 6th, and there is only room for 20 people so reserve a ticket. You can purchase tickets here for any price (pay what you can, I need money for life [$20?]) http://www.kimboekbinder.com/tickets.html

The show will be on Sunday, Sept. 6th at 7pm. The address will be sent to those who reserve space.

Schrödinger's Love?

Everything we see, feel, experience is ourselves. When we love another person what we love is our own experience of this other person. The more we experience them, the more we see them through the filter of our own perceptions. We cannot observe something without changing it. A person is a multitude of possibilities (perhaps endless) which are constantly being expressed, but because of the way our perceptions seek to maximize efficiency and streamline what we experience we can only perceive a small sampling of the varying states of another human being.

We love, and we want to believe that our love is unconditional, but everything we do is based on the conditions with which we experience.

A person - a lover - may exist in every state at once, but our perceptions change this state of constant everything into a single state of one thing.

Or: we do not change our lover by perceiving her, rather the universe splits - strand by strand - in each moment, as each possibility is expressed. The universes unfold before us and we choose which one we will exist in from moment to moment, splitting ourselves - strand by strand, every once in a while glimpsing from the corner of our minds the possibilities we have chosen not to see, these moments chilling or thrilling us to the core, sometimes shattering, sometimes making stronger the way we have chosen.

My mind unfolds in endless possibilities and I could keep writing forever, or else fall into the pit of my words' inadequacies...instead I will post this. Because sharing is caring.

And I like the me I see in you.