WALLY'S BLOG 2008
December 31
GALLERY WALLYWOODS IS DEAD
Awoke with 39 cents in my right trouser pocket and an approximately matching bank account.
During the course of the day, received a five-euro note from a generous female, then a twenty-euro note from Fred the dentist-drummer who practices now and again with the guy whose name I can never remember in the invalid loo. It's tight back there; they used to be a trio, but lead-man Zottel opted out. Fred built his drums around the toilet upon which he sits. His was also a generous contribution, being seperate to the little fee the guys irregularly pay.
That makes 25.39 in cash, which, subtracted from the 50 bucks still outstanding on the December rent, brings the total Wallywoods profit since the grand start, in money terms at least, to minus 24.61 euros.
So. What have we learned from all this?
We have learned that Wally and P.P. need gather no more experience. Not a drop. Das reicht! "Studio Woods" must move to Mitte. Basta. Till then, Wallywoods is dead, Wally collapses off-duty in a tee-shirt crying "brother can you spare a pizza", and Paradox Paul blunders casually ahead beneath his hateful, meaningless, over-sized banner written in his own blood and shit:
"Sieg Art!"
December 31 (5am)
CONCLUDED LAST NIGHT
spontaneously and after much deliberation, to bury Wallywoods, here and tonight, in Berlin's frozen Weissensee outback (*).
Why? Because Wallywoods means many things. Too many things, and I, Wally, now 44 and tired, have never found the partner, the Schlussel-Person, I've been seeking since even before its birth as a gallery in Kreuzberg in 2004. I can't and won't continue to manage, alone and ever penniless, to present the art and music, great and small, of other creative amateurs, professionals, fellow twerps and geniuses... or rather, I could indeed continue, and of course will. But in a more "refined" way, if I can work out what that means; and (here's the rub) no longer at my own expense.
Above all it has has meant, "Good evening, I'm Wally. Come use my space and drink my beers. Hang stuff wherever you want and make a mess. Be as loud as you like on a stage which we'll put where you like, put your boots on the furniture which we'll move where you want, use any instruments and materials you find lying around and above all my own precious time and contacts whilst shouting at me or mumbling that I'm a control freak. Come bathe in underground limelight where whatever you do looks or sounds great, where guests join in and create and remember your night, or months, with fond tingles."
SUCH FUN
Instead, I grant myself 2009 to work at last on this book...
"How to Become an Artist Overnight"
subtitled "50 Months of Wallywoods on the brink of Berlin", or whatever.
See you tonight then, at yet another pointlessly hectic party, now officially declared:
THE LAST WALLYWOODS EVENT EVER
(*Decided against that.)
December 26
INTENTIONS
"Knowing now the worth of what I am doing, I can at last put it into words."
Darwin, near completion of his lying theses, "Origins of a Spy", which was never published.
Here are more important notes not to be considered:
First, to build two thrones by cutting a piano in half, at midnight on December 31st.
(*Decided against that. At least, decided against doing it on the terrace on New Year's Eve. For practical, technical and logistical reasons.)
Then, to build a book.
(*Since bloody forever.)
This is the latest new beginning of my never-to-be-finished book of everything, presently called,
HOW TO BUILD TWO THRONES FROM A PIANO OVERNIGHT
subtitled, "50 Months: a Short History of Wallywoods".
I like these words. They makes a fine new start!
Or do they..?
And the chorus goes, "Something or other..."
(*Live, tipsy and stoned, direct from Stephanie's birthday party. What fun. She's one of half-a-dozen Mädels I'm in love with these days. In another new offensive I'm telling them, one by one, "Wally requires a new partner. So get your knickers off immediately or bugger off and leave me alone forever.)
Need too, almost as urgently, a new space.
Best of all in Mitte, at the hub of Berlin, the funkiest city in Europe. Cheap and exciting still, like a favourite whore. Stuff London, (for now), Tehran or New York...
(Chorus continues; "I'm a something or other in Berlin!")
(Needs work but you get the idea.)
July 24
SORRY FOR THE SILENCE
"Been busy Dad. (It hasn't been silent here!) Our One Year in Weissensee event was a big hit. Too big. Two-hundred people came. Thrilled to bits. Good art, worthy entertainment and countless broken beer bottles. Incredible creative atmosphere. "Underground meets mainstream", as I've propaganded it for some time (and witnessed fully - frighteningly - on Saturday). It took exactly a year. We finished painting the ceilings, and therefore the gallery, just on time. As an artist I've been working not on canvas, but on the rooms. As a curator, I use the various artists, or rather their works, to decorate the place. It's simple, somehow, and something I do well, something I do automatically. I move things around until the whole - some kind of 'vision' - touches the realities of others; touches their comprehension. You might have seen photos on the websites. There are references to Warhol and Beuys. I'm approached by amazing artists and performers, or groups thereof, every day. The point is, I find them all (almost all!) amazing. And these are the rooms, rooms everyone appreciates, in which to present them. Working with them all, no matter what they are up to. And they get up to anything and everything, often inspired by the atmosphere here, to surpass themselves.
So if possible, please stop worrying about me any more. I've found my thing.
The trip home last year was put off by the fact that (...) Which that brings us to the real meaning of a 'successful gallery'. Money. That will come - Wally and his project are on their way up. I forecast that sometime next year we will sell enough, of whatever, that I can pay my own way from then on. Until then it's business as usual - with knobs on. Like, we have started decorating all the pianos, with bottle-tops, with brass handles, with knobs on. They currently cost 500 bucks each. The Broken Pianos Orchestra is quite popular. It underlines Wallywoods' place on the New Berlin map.
Must run again, love to Mum, take care!"
July 14
FINALLY
started painting the ceiling, with help mainly from Hanjo, now out of prison and wearing a painter's spacesuit, in a general attempt this week to finish the gallery for Saturday's "One Year Wallywoods in Weissensee Exhibition and Party". Twenty-three artists from twenty lands, plus entertainment from Isondú Tribe (touring Argentinean performance crew), Kakawaka (one-man flip-out show), Matthias Brozio from Babel Embassy (Theremin Remix), Marachowska (Siberian Blues), Stefan zur Nieden (Italian, French and own chansons), Dancefunktion (Micha on drums accompanied by DJ), the Broken Pianos Orchestra (already a local favourite), and of course the Uglies.
Sounds great. Feel terrible. On the edge of exhaustion.
Yesterday was the first day in many months, if not a whole year, without beer, fag or multiple spliffs. Will try to keep it up this week. No choice. Seem to have damaged the ribs and/or chest muscles whilst moving pianos, banging on pianos, arm-wrestling drunk and/or moving Gert's big ugly wood, metal and granite Berlin Bear sculpture (unlike the common Berlin symbol, female. Nice tits - good for grip). Extremely late with any kind of promotion for this international and, I expect, highly charged extravaganza. Haven't even finished postcards, fliers, posters. But fuck it, that's Wallywoods at any age. And naturally, if only due to the number of creative people taking part - the most ever in one mad night - quite some interest within the various scenes.
No need for concern, however. Saturday, if not Friday's preview show, will see Wally boozing his old self fit again, kiffing, banging on pianos and arm-wresting large-breasted animals of all nationalities. One day, as the oldest Wallywoods cliché goes, he'll get paid for it too. (7pm. Have eaten nothing today.)
(Regarding the last entry: some probable bullshitter, an intensely tiresome energy-absorbing neighbourhood nerd reckons one of the pianos is worth 1500 euros just as it is.)
July 5
PEERED THROUGH THE DIRTY WINDOW
about three weeks ago, of a piano shop seemingly gone bust. Place was full of dusty old stand-up pianos. Rang the number for rental enquiries and met the guy there a day or two later. Nice enough geezer, he cared little about the instruments, just wanted them gone. I chose the best one (far the best tone, anyway) and knocked him down to fifty bucks. At last, a real piano at Wallywoods! And dead cheap, even for Wally. It's eight minutes away by foot further down Berliner Allee, so we got it here on a trolley, as the ground is flat between us, not even a kerb. As an afterthought, I says, What's happening with the others? Oh, he says, there's a buyer willing to pay a tenna each; he wants them next week. That was bullshit, I think now, but no matter. Hold on! I says, and soon enough I've bought myself another ten of the buggers, all completely detuned, if not wrecked, for another hundred euros. Problem was of course, how to transport them all; certainly can't afford professional strong men, they charge a fortune. But the trolley worked well enough for Piano One, so last Monday at midday we mustered best we could (mainly Jack, Norbert, Klausie and I, and later on a big fat guy who couldn't see us struggling without wading in) and spent four and a half hours rolling them in, one after the other, with as little as three men per piano, on a very hot day. Turned out - relatively - a pinch of piss. Mission accomplished!
Wallywoods is now the proud owner of eleven pretty fucked pianos. In the first three days six people said they wanted one. Crazy. Next thing realised was, how many people we know can actually play the things - almost everyone who comes in the door! So; the Broken Piano Orchestra is born. First session, featuring whichever ten plonkers turn up, to take place tonight before the concert, as a kind of audition in preparation for a more formal "debut" next Thursday.
Next thing to dawn on me, banging away drunk and stoned last night, plotting away with Jack, who turns out to be a natural talent if not some kind of kindred genius, is the obvious necessity of turning each of them into art objects, almost regardless whether we later tune them or not. I will begin by painting Piano One with a bunch of left-over white paint, who cares what type, and with Cecile pen it full of chairs and figures, same as the walls, immediately adjusting the price from fifty to a thousand euros or whatever. Then invite other artists to help decorate the rest. None should remain untouched. Stuff the puritans - they're already muttering, Oh these lovely antiques; you simply MUST take care of them... Yes, indeedy, I shall take care of them.
Main thing is, as we sell them (assuming we will - if not in Weissensee then next year, if all goes well, in Mitte), the buyer should pay cash, pick the fuckers up themselves, AND deliver a replacement, no matter how kaput. Eventually a grand piano will turn up, which we can fill with Smarties. And one at least is surely destined for P.P.'s hammer.
So, that's the new plan. When Piano One is ready, I'll post a picture here and elsewhere - and Bam! the gallery has a new image... and a new route to make the small fortune I've been planning all these years without the foggiest clue how. After all, selling pictures or art in general, at least here and now in Berlin, is a wildly funny contradiction in terms.
Another afterthought and an aimless question: If it works, was it all down to luck, having stumbled upon those first dozen Kaputte Klaviers practically next door? Forget it. I've been optimistic ten thousand times before with absolutely zero result. Let's wait a bit and see.
Meanwhile, after a twelve year break (the only one I've owned before was at Norbert's in Danziger Strasse) I'm regularly bruising my fingers and frightening my guests on the greatest instruments ever devised.
June 17
A PAGE A DAY... HA!
Got bogged down at the outset in the Mire of Possibilities. Same problem as Ark of Colours. Too many ideas, avalanching, jumping on top of each other, all vitally important, down to the weeny details, all jostling for a place. A place they shall surely find; but only after constant re-starting, endless reworking, tireless rethinking. Who knows how long this will now take. What about some order, like, when does what happen, when are which texts revealed? And what do they in turn reveal? Should there be groups of text-discoveries? Six working days a week, so six texts a week - for three weeks, or six? Forget the details; who is writing them? dammit! Above all, the characters, the Father and the Son; they must be set, human and believable, from the start. Mustn't they? And who in fact are they?
Well, at least that one I'm becoming sure of. And at least I know where they are leading. Ha! Life will be sweet when I reach that end. Sabotage the world, why not! If something enormous is within ones power, and this power, this calamity, is the single proof and reward for ones existence... Hold that thought.
Am reading a lot, now, as compensation. Ignoring other "pressing" duties like organising a flea-market and a drummer for the coming weekend's Blumenfest, perhaps even making some money at it; generally postponing the piecing together of other events. Reading is easier than writing. So let's read till black in the face, till the legs drop off, till the boat comes in, till the doors open and all these characters, new friends and old, saints and idiots among them, disturb me from my thoughts within the thoughts of others. Even so, wandering in wasted time inside other men's dreams and nightmares, the brain is working without pause, in sleep too, on one's own Creation. Each book recently, each tale, writer, style, or lack of style, an inspiration. Even revelation. Including the crap-lame thrillers in between. They all have worth, all contribute, to the end game, or whatever it is that I'm headed for. On the other hand, how much you gotta read, man, before you've read enough? A mountain of books the size of a pyramid? Would that make you wise and great? Wiser and greater than you are now?
There's one last book, mine, right on the top of Cheops. Or buried under it.
As for the top three of late: Eco's Pendulum landed the religious and pompous historical themes, with its vague and comfortable promise of glory, or at least ultimate knowledge. Let us join the Masters of the World, why not! They are, after all, flesh and yellow teeth, like us. Bobby Seale's Seize The Time did something revolutionary to Wally's character, as it did to Wally himself (though very mildly). He goes from prophet to terrorist in a couple of easy moves (remaining, for the moment, both). Circumstance and reason behind those heroes' or fools' heroic or foolish actions, laid bare, understood - if that is possible for white-boy who never could dance or fight. Huge respect duly given, from now, in that sad direction. For the best language of the three, caught between the cleverest living Italian (uses too many words, impossible to look them all up) and a caged Panther (repeats himself tenfold, and is forgiven for it), and the most romantic, pathetic and uncomfortable subject, Ian McEwan's On Chesil Beach thrusts into the plot (my plot) the side-tracking and wholly unnecessary demand for sentimental love.
Now is confirmed, again as if it were needed, the true reason I do not read sentimental claptrap, and frown, for instance, on mum's eternal "women's books" collected by the sackfull every week from local libraries throughout her life. In fresher years I was simply afraid of the stuff, what it threw up, and I would relentlessly feign boredom, refusing ever to weep over film or tragic documentary in front of any other living person. Those pains - her pains (J.G.; I hardly dare utter that name after finishing that last horrible-marvellous chapter an hour ago, lest I burn this fucking borough down and all the cunts in it) - that pain is long buried. As the brain survived and then evolved, defining to near completion my own character as I have, at last, come to understand it, the heart has hardened, and all appears finally bearable. Things have been so for almost four years, a mega-record; practising this endless diversion of art and punk and drugs and more art and plans between binging and more drugs and binging between more plans. All that distracting shit'n'showbiz.
Edward should have killed her dead with his pebble. After she denied him that last time - yet again! - on the shingle beach, wreaking within him a hole (a "mess" was all they could agree on) he would never really recover from; even through the good years, the amazing years which incredibly followed. Hard to imagine Florence swinging through the sixties. No matter what her excuse - unfair! we know there is a darn good one! - he would never see her again in any case. He should have smote her pretty, sexy, frigid fucking brains out. Not even the nightingale, for it wasn't a nightingale, would have mourned at that moment. Edward could have finally nailed her. But thanks to his weakness, which is McEwan's own, I do the job myself. Sentimentality is a slow death sentence. It can be lifted from the self, thrown to the winds, though it takes much time and self-cussing.
Long live abstract violence, eternal binging, and sex with unlovable strangers.
(Regarding the last entry, below, I had just come third out of eight in a rigged poetry competition, and vowed never to do one again. Was shocked speechless - it was easily my best effort to date, appreciated by all but the unqualified jury. Went home muttering, kicking tin-cans, if there were any. Am over it now, but will stick to the vow. Occasional dull readings shall suffice.)
May 23
AS THE MONKEY
put it with his typewriter, after an infinity bashing it on his head,
"Three Solomons don't make a democracy."
May 21
THE LIBRARY OF BAD IDEAS
by PP
"There is a Librarian, this much is true. Whether awake or asleep, he is built like every other, of perishable flesh; this much he knows. He listens at night to his heart while it beats, and it is his own heart which beats. He hears it, and he knows it. It is the heart of a good man." (Is it? - he is a sarcastic bugger!) "He also believes - has always taken it for granted - that his mind is his own. And it is a good mind...
Of course, there is also a Library. A big one. But to begin with, it is merely a library, the place of his work and pastime..."
Starts pretty much like that. Although it sounds so familiar, I imagine ten thousand books have begun exactly like it. Have written, and/or assembled, 4,600 words in three days. That's record-breaking for P.P. I expect the job will still take years, but I would never have dreamed how easily the 'stitching' ideas, even the writing itself, now comes (comparatively - do not be fooled, Wally!). The trick so far is hardly to backtrack, simply plod on from point x, reading only (after any break - there are many around here) over the latest paragraph or two, before taking up the story. This is very new, but seems to work, because the old way makes large texts simply impossible. Corrections and embellishments must all come later, and that is particularly hard. Looking back sober at what was written the night before, it reads pale, even Bad. But - the Ideas are good. Cecile and Damian say so, and I think, not only to please me; even if the professional, the Ugly One, thinks the whole thing nerdy.
Appear to be reading, at intervals, the correct reference book. This Pendulum epic. Encyclopaedic. As I said at the start, painful. Read a couple of pages from 222 (all references are somehow demonic) as I just have. That writer, too, is looking for keys and connections to everything and anything that pops into his head (and that is a lot!); including the tricks of books selling. "We disguise ourselves as a flower," remarks one crazed editor, "and the bees will come swarming." Around there, he also mentions that, the Place we are always looking for, is often right under our noses. Like the gallery, now, it seems. I have made the perfect place for creation.
The difference in our scholarly backgrounds (I don't have one) and skill with the pen are enormous. I rarely use words a ten year-old won't understand, for instance, have very limited expressions covering "he said" ("he mumbled" "he enthused"); there just don't seem to be enough. And just look here, how often I use the word seem. Whilst my references to history and classic culture are almost non-existent. But I am not put off. I invent my own schooling, my own style, as other maniacs have in the past, and always will. Perhaps I am even a futurist - whatever that means. There are so many other books for reference, encouraging, heartening, through their simplicity. I won't even name them. Except: as literary genii, Eco pales in comparison to the hugely more exciting, original, witty, and strange worlds of Alice and her Creator.
May 18
IT IS CLEAR NOW
that I need another story. The Librarian's story. The one to tie all the others together. He, the Librarian, the Narrator, the Author, (P.P.) and the stitching. Some kind of quest, riddle, mystery is required. Not worlds apart from The Name of the Rose; that's a damned good launching point. It's very odd, but for as long as the Library has developed in my mind, I never saw it as an actual library - now with an actual Librarian. Is that strange? Until now, it was just a title. A collection of short stories. Now it becomes a novel.
The alternate idea, also relatively new, is to take the stories, two at a time to begin with, and merge them into one another. The end of one flows into the beginning of the other. Literally stitching. Here, the Librarian can help too. Where one episode ends and the other begins, though they may be violently differing in style and mood, the join must be subtle. The simplest example: the Librarian is leafing through manuscripts, and deciphering connections.
To discover the mystery is my task now. That will be fun. To discover the method of stitching, that is the challenge.
Idea: The Librarian awakes every morning to discover he has again written in his sleep. The texts which appear at his bedside, in an array of handwriting styles, could have been written by possessing spirits, the ghosts of writers or adventurers, or the disturbed fellow himself...
Yes, you're right Ken. It's easy. That's the story I shall write, starting tonight. And I hope you'll agree, if it ever gets finished, that it's a novel.
Response:
yeah yeah. better is to start fresh. write a very very long story from the beginning starting now. just tell the story. leave out the philosophizing. should take 2 months or so to get to the end. tell a story about man meets woman. man has no money. something like that. the tension is in the real life difficulties.
Reaction:
No!
May 17
TODAY
and next Saturday, too, the gallery hosts a private function. They are birthday parties, for up to forty people, tomorrow for a girl of eighteen, the next, a guy of forty. In fact, these nice locals whom I don't know from Adam, came separately to me, simply because they like the rooms - and I get dosh for it! For doing nothing except taking the night off. In fact, there is a website offering party venues in Berlin (of course there is!) through which I should soon advertise. Apart from that, yesterday I rented the redundant invalid's toilet (previously our little workshop) to Zottel's 'primitive rock' band - drums and all, loud as you like. In that poxy little room! But the band seems happy enough, and they know they can venture out and set up, often as they like, in the bigger space for recordings, parties, or whatever.
Can it be that the financial pressure is off? I don't dare stop to think about it. Either way, and coincidently, I find myself booking fewer music events (even if we have had a humdinger of a season of artsy-fartsy evenings since Christmas) and almost no exhibitions (the last artist cancelled at the last minute - don't talk about it - so Cecile is hung all over the place). After all, what do they bring, these magical nights, other than self-imposed stress for Wally, and joy and creation for every other sod and his drunken dog, who mostly hate to pay for their pleasure?
Then I received this from Ugly Ken Shakin, in his typical lazy American hieroglyphics,
(I normally correct his English), regarding the recent diary entries:
paul. you fucking cunt. it's now or never. write your book. i know what kind of books you like to read. write that book. now. people would not respect bob rutman if he wasn't in the smithsonian. nobody gives a shit about anything except success.
do it. you have the possibility. do it.
followed five minutes later by this:
this is clearly the first page of your book. just write the rest of it. don't worry about perfection. just write the stupid thing.
each day a chapter. that simple. i'll help you publish it. fucking cunt. you have the style. just write it. stupid fucking cunt. working title: HORNY FOR THE POPE.
Response:
Going back to my point, "a novel is asking too much of me. All I have are unfinished short stories, poems and inadequate diaries."
Get it into your head - I am incapable of writing a looooooong story. I love to write shrt stries, bits and pieces. I also like to build things, assembling a monument from shards of old food and rubbish I find on the floor around me.
But you may have something regarding the timing. "Now or never," is attractive.
What about a compromise book, like that Frenchman who just jotted down endless, apparently unconnected lists and ideas - experimental and quirky, in that it is not a novel, i.e., not one looooooong story, but a tapestry, a collage, taken from The Library of Bad Ideas, the poems, and chunks of the diaries (as the librarian's foot-notes, for instance, helping draw the fractions or "discovered manuscripts" together).
It's a possibility I've been kicking around for a year or two. Originally I assumed The Library would be a 'book of short stories', one after the other, straight, probably illustrated (as much to fatten it up as anything else). Even so, I always imagined a fairly thin book.
What I can try, and this begins to look interesting, even accomplishable, seeing as even highbrow lunatics like Umberto Eco do the same, i.e., waffle on through themes and history as if they are laying in bed bombarded with too many ideas (happens to me often), is find ingenious ways to connect them all. And, I suppose, if I'm not ripe for it now (I was always waiting for ripeness) then I never will be.
So what I do - and you probably won't like it (though if you agree, I'll start right away) - is begin to make connections, to thread a narrative through the likes of Little Giant, The Popes Whores, Unfinished Bath, Coin-Armour Man, The History of Wally, Black Fairy, Bucket, Lounging Lad, and the others, the poems, and even chunks of the more fanciful diaries.
That's all I've worked out so far, but I reckon its do-able. I would need perhaps one year. On the other hand, I've never finished anything in my life.
What d'you reckon?
P.P.
Then:
almost impossible to publish an experimental novel. easy to write though. blank pages sounds experimental. or just mental.
writing a novel is a different story. here's how it's done: one day you start writing. you don't have to know where you're going. like eastenders. it goes on and on. like a bedtime story. you make it up as you go along. each day you add some more and soon enough you've got 80,000 words. a very long story. all you need is characters, a place, and some conflict. a murder, or something else to propel the action. when you get to 80,000 words, end it, and you've got yourself a novel.
May 16
WHITE TRASH WITH CECILE
last night, for Bob Rutmann's 77th birthday bash. Otherwise rarely there. Feel uncomfortable. No, odd. "Oddfish". But looked smart enough in spiky new shoes and trousers sponsored by Cecile that afternoon ("No Cecile, I can't go. I have no shoes and no trousers") and my TV appearance shirt, the only other thing not sordid with holes, cheap paint and suspicious stains. Hardly recognised in any case, with my ridiculous hair, now longer than its ever been. Arrived stoned and quite early, as we had conspired, (Bob will later be inundated with present-givers, groupies and other annoying flatterers), though he was already performing, upstairs, bearably loud for the sexy, chomping clientele, this time around with Kristof Hahn, Yoyo, and a handsome tattooed Latino guy with a marvellous deep voice. This stuff is always impressive. So we go for an equally impressive rare and wonderful Prenzlauerberg curry - Weissensee food is dismal - come back, meet a few odd people we know from here and there; then Cecile gets a chance to talk to birthday boy. ("Go talk to him," I encourage, knowing he used to adore Cecile and hoping he'll finally agree, or at least consider anew, doing something or other at Wallywoods; if he remembers what Wallywoods is). Cecile wishes to present, and explain to him, our gift; a chairs-and-figures picture by the both of us. (We're producing more and more together nowadays, all types of crap). She panics when she can't find me in the crowd, barking my name across the room, sees my beaconing shirt, lunges through the throng to pull me to them, ripping it wide open; drawing stares, as she is adept at doing. "Where were you! You disappeared! I'm telling Bob about the picture..." I bend over old Bob, just stepped off the stage, who looks shaken, I suspect from Ceci's enthusiasm as much as the weight of his seventy-seven years spent inhaling all kinds, in places like this, and much grottier besides. "Hallo Bob!" I shout in his ear, "Cecile's really excited about tonight! Happy birthday, mate..." and I update the revered artist, top-speed, on where the gallery is at, i.e., its general brilliantness, and why he should drop in for a beer and a spliff some time soon.
If Bob Rutmann wishes to exhibit here, it would launch the gallery into immediate and longstanding respectability. However, his first comment was, "Do you sell?"
We all know the fellow is far from well-to-do. But if there is a lesson there, I refuse to learn it.
End up having a brief word with Papenfuss in the red, black and dirty-cream socialist cafe Baiz, where Freygang and other homeless ex-Art Pubbers now hang out (didn't see them, nor miss them), across the street and polar-opposite to the other Wally's Trash-classy den of commercial sin and success we'd just escaped from. Baiz is hard-core, in a dull, lazy, boozy way. The ill-looking lanky, bony-faced skinhead behind the bar, with his smart red braces over white t-shirt pulling up skin-tight jeans, could have been the real thing, direct from Rostock. Except that this is Baiz, one of the last bastions. Both in Trash and Baiz (actual headquarters of nearby Burger), I was angling for new external events, some little out-of-the-way adventures, ostensibly to promote the gallery's looming one years' existence. Perhaps just to get a feel for it again - and access again to a potential audience.
Doesn't matter if neither gig comes off; indeed, I think I've dropped it already. The gallery gig takes priority across all soirees so far this year, and will surely swing well. Now set for July 19, it features (officially since yesterday) special guests, the splendid "Isondu" crew of light-juggling performers and sweaty tropical dancers wrapped in Clingfilm, touring Europe from Argentina. And a bunch of other stuff on top...
Meanwhile, am dragging through Umberto Eco's Foucault's Pendulum, on loan from Alan's dopey, secret-stuffed, A.C. bookshop (do not heed rumours of the Anti-Christ) for seven or eight bucks. Probably seven bucks - for obscure and obvious numero-mystico reasons invented by queer and deadly masons who bricked themselves up with the Grail, thank god, long yesterdays ago, in pre-futuristic ghost-plagued library cellars and kitchens and rune-smeared bat-caverns. All in all, best seven or eight bucks reluctantly spent since I paid that damned tab at my own damned bar the other week (already I owe the guys twenty more bucks). The resulting degenerate offspring of this eye-watering, scroll-deciphering, penance of an activity is at least these two fourteen year-old Latino virgins in P.P.'s
THE POPES WHORES
(notes on a short story)
Two young girls seek, separately and independently, the help of a renowned medicine man. They complain, separately and independently, and, according to the medicine man's careful researches, one never having come in contact with the other (they are from quite different regions and very different backgrounds), of identical ailments, unusual aches, mental disturbances, nipple and groinal twinges, painful wet dreams, voyeuristic, expressionistic and exhibitionist tendencies, violent sexual fantasies and occasional true perversions, reverse-paranoia, the hearing of harmonic alien melodies, undeniable visions; and above all, the overwhelming urge to screw the Pope on his death bed.
The medicine man can do little for them.
He believes they have been temporarily possessed by Illiodine, one of four banished spirits of the Indonesian Larthinals' Temple of Debauchery. The Larthinals, a sub-christian splinter sect originating from the Egyptian Aahrin dynasty, announced that she had seduced all twelve Priests of the Inner Ring and therefore damned their souls to anti-martyrdom. The priests were tortured into confession, then exorcised, drawn, quartered, and burned in the underground Crypts of the Eternal Dead. Their ashes were collected and cast over Illiodine, who had been prepared for twelve hours with burning palm oils, after which she herself was cast alive into the Well of Demons, beneath the remote desert mountain secretly named Mourgaloine, known later as Le Castile der Wüste, and later still, Ararat.
The medicine man can only suggest they travel to the Well beneath Ararat, which is open until midnight for pilgrims on certain religious holidays, into which they should cast all their bodily hair at midnight, a fortnight before the approaching Last Solstice. Whether either of his clients do this, he will only discover fifteen years after, upon the publication of a book called "The Library of Bad Ideas".
A month later, he discovers over breakfast that the young ladies have met after all. They have been arrested, surprisingly, or not very surprisingly, together at the Vatican, amid a flurry of headlining bustle and scandal.
Interviewed separately and thouroughly, their stories, including detailed knowledge of the Pope's most personal situation and habbits, coincide to a tee. They claim to have enjoyed carnal bliss with his Holiness in a threesome, over three nights, in his private chambers, with not only his Papal blessing, but with his tireless sadistic-masochistic Papal participation. They claim to have evoked from him one-hundred-and-twenty ejaculations, with his spitting on the cross at every orgasm, whilst cursing in a language they fervently maintain was non-Human. They claim, too, that each is pregnant, and that they shall soon enough prove it: one of a boy, one of a girl, whom they will baptise "Adam" and "Eve".
They also claim that the Pope, the most popular and 'modern' in years, probably centuries, will be dead at the end of another three days.
Further, the girls coolly dictate that, on the seventh day following their first blessed encounter, they will be freed from all proceedings and return to their separate family homes (both rural) to rest. Thereafter, they will continue their lives... decently.
Beyond that, they have little to say.
The Pope officially damns them as liars, thieves, theological terrorists, political assassins, non-believers, "Devil's Whores", (and in a private excess one night, witnessed only by tight-lipped minions, "God's Bitches"), brainwashed into it by a fundamental, intolerable, state-sponsored deficit in modern and traditional values, across all levels, institutions, subjects, spilling over all borders and accepted standards in Christian education, thinking and behaviour.
At noon the next day, appearing haggard yet inspired after a night of vigil and consultation with his Master, on his knees before a full court of outraged or simply curious worshippers and tourists, he proclaims that Vatican City is suddenly and forever exorcised of all "dark undermining influences", blasphemies and other affronts, and on this day, after a secret battle which has stretched through centuries, all physical, spiritual and political infiltration has, at long last, been "evaporated". He orders that every mosque within three-hundred-and-thirty miles of the Vatican close for one month - and they do close; although the reasons are unclear and hotly debated, both nationally and internationally. And then he sets into immediate effect, a comprehensive list of religeous reforms, the likes of which have hardly been known since the Inquisition.
He has much support among his immense following. Yet clearly, on the wider stage, among so many watching Powers, he has become, literally over-night, the most feared man on the planet.
Two days after their arrest, the girls are condemned to prison, each for seven years, in a whirlwind, extraordinary, securely closed trial. Essentially, the verdict is "witchcraft".
Then, early on the third day, as the girls had foretold, the Pope is discovered dead in his bed...
May 15
THE UNFINISHED MAN
is another idea for another unfinished story on a relevant theme. The story starts a hundred times. Tonight like this:
"I keep starting things I don't or can't or won't finish. Maybe they shouldn't be finished. Ha! I've said that before and don't believe it. But if the process really is more important than the result, where am I then?
Not very anywhere.
Let's continue those thoughts another time. Until then, here are some recent starts:
THE UNFINISHED MAN
Alternative name for these diaries?
COIN-ARMOUR MAN
An ex-medical student implants coins under his skin, covering the whole of his body. Not to die of shock, he allows himself one year, vanishing from life to work on himself, and recover, sections at a time. Finally, for the parts he cannot reach, he persuades an old medical student buddy to do for him. The buddy, now a foot-doctor, is horrified but agrees...
THE PRIEST AND THE MAID'S HAND
A priest believes he can smell the 'good' or 'evil' about a person, through their hands. He visits over some years a cafe and grows enchanted, and then obsessed, by a waitress who works there. He believes she is a saint, and forgets his theory, leaves his church, and pursues her with the aim of marriage, carnal indecency, or whatever bit of her exquisite existence he can get. One heavenly evening, as she finally accepts all his proposals, he indeed gets close enough to smell her hand...
SKINNY MAN IN FAT SKIN SUIT
Yes, the time has arrived at which modern surgical techniques can offer a whole new suit of skin, according to your desire. You may have a terrible skin complaint, be of the 'wrong' ethnic appearance, be covered in blotches or wrinkles of natural ageing, or have suffered terrible burns (for which the research was uncontroversially begun). You can order and wear that of a black person (recently deceased), or of a Caucasian, of course, or of a tattooed freak, of a silky-perfect teenager, or a darling celebrity (most expensive). However, the procedure at this stage in its history, for reasons concerned with hormones, immune-systems and something too technical for this writer to understand, has only been successful in deploying the transplanted body flesh of females. This however is no great problem. When prepared for a male patient, the breasts are removed, the chest area sewn tidily, hair implanted where and if desired, and the vaginal slit fits snugly around the male genitals (clitoris and suchlike removed, of course - although...)
DIGESTION
A man wakes up (why is it always a man?) on the operating table. He is alone. The surgeons are still washing up, or have gone off to dinner, or have gone on another blitz strike, who knows. He is still doped up, feels rather well in fact, and slowly realises he is hungrier than ever before. Somewhat restrained, he grows uncomfortable, and has a series of awkward dreams. He is at his own sixth birthday party gobbling ginger-cake which he hates, he is at a business dinner with his fat boss and his boss's fat wife, he has been condemned to death for reasons unknown and is enjoying his last supper. His innards are open to the world, of that he becomes vaguely aware. And then he is aware that the surgeons have returned. He hears them gasp...
LITTLE UPDATE FOR HH
Helge der Hinterhofdichter said, Why do you just have boring e-mails on your diaries? You should write about the crazy people and events, like you used to, about the real shit!
He was in fact alluding to something specific. So here you go Helge, a quick update.
Since Christmas, first two months collecting trash thrown out of this "culture" house to exhibit as "Peter Edel, What's Left?" ("Was Bleibt?"), which sparked interest and sympathy and no great results; and other occasional exhibitions, including young Tacheles artists, and a growing interest in the Big Chairs thing. The art takes care of itself, as there's always enough of it to dollop around, and anyway the place looks fine without much on the walls, which after five months are now totally covered in the sketches of Cecile and I. In a word, the place looks great - innovative, freaky, unique. People love it here. Music-wise, have been concentrating on "experimental, industrial, improvised, noise" and all that. Not much rock'n'roll, which we hardly miss. The weird stuff fits the gallery better - experimental rackets within experimental walls. That's not a concrete rule of course, there are no concrete rules at Wallywoods (excluding my hatred of drunks and aggression). For instance, old Jacobites Dave Kusworth and Jeremy Thirlby played last night (April 25), and good old-fashioned fun it was too. If you don't count the guy who Marachowska brought, who shat on the stage between sets, and in his hand, to smear shit on his face and on people's beer bottles. Maria defended him. "He is great Russian performer. He is crazy like you!"
GOOGLE TRANSLATION
Am Samstag, den 20. Juli 2007, Wallywoods öffnete seine derzeitigen 300 Quadratmeter große Galerie Raum, in Weissensee's "Peter Edel Kultur-Haus" mit dem Start einer Ausstellung namens "10", einer Gruppe zeigen, an denen "10 Künstler aus 10 Ländern" - und ein denkwürdigen Nacht im Wert von musikalischen Darbietungen. Ein Jahr später, und wir sind glücklich - überrascht auch - noch hier zu sein (wenn der Tat sind wir immer noch!). Das Original "vorübergehenden Verwendung" Vertrag wurde für eine Dauer von sechs Monaten zu laufen, Ende Januar, nach diesem, sah es zweifelhaft, da wurde das Gebäude zu privatisieren, und alle Arten von Gerüchten vorgeschlagen hätten wir bewegen, wahrscheinlich im ersten Teil dieses Jahres. Doch unsere Vermieter, der örtlichen Bezirk Pankow, dann freundlicherweise angeboten Erneuerung des Vertrages, über den Zustand eines gegenseitigen vier Wochen geben-Kündigungsfrist. So, hier sind wir immer noch, in welcher ständig der Entwicklung als eines der am meisten gesprochen, einzigartige und unabhängige Ausstellung und Veranstaltungen Räume in Berlin. Zur Feier unserer ersten (und wahrscheinlich letzte) Jahr in Weissensee, ebenso wie die Gründung der neuen Wallywoods "Verein" (eingetragene Gesellschaft oder Vereinigung; Papierkram jetzt im Gange), die Ausstellung jetzt in der Planung ist mit der Bezeichnung "20" ( für den Zeitraum vom 19. Juli bis 9. August). Natürlich dann, "20 Künstler aus 20 Ländern" wird eingeladen, daran teilzunehmen, beginnend mit der 10 beteiligten im letzten Jahr zeigen, wenn sie finden sich in der Stadt. Unnötig zu sagen, belegbar exotischen Musiker und Performer finden sich auch eingeladen...
BERLIN BIG CHAIRS
In 1999, Woods painted the flattened geometrical image of a chair, the ninth of ten canvases in the series "Learning Games for Babies". It appeared to be constructed using a simple block system (seven blocks high, four wide; later standard dimensions) but the picture is deceptive and the object would prove tricky to build in reality. In this case, the "electric chair for toddlers" symbolised spiritual death at birth. However, as the artist became interested in the two, three and other dimensional possibilities of the ambiguous symbol he had accidentally devised, particular meaning fell away, and he began producing canvases, drawings, models and montages in a great many contexts and styles. In 2001 Woods bought his first modern computer, and over the following years manufactured numerous variations of the now named "Big Chairs" in conceptual-digital form, including hundreds of Big Chair posters, 'finished' versions of which illustrate either side of (this/front page) column. Emerging from years of depression Woods took a risk and, with little financial means, opened and developed the first Gallery Wallywoods in Kreuzberg. Since then he has organised, on his own initiative and without outside funding, over seventy exhibitions for other Berlin-based and international artists, embracing all media, subject matter and levels of professionality; as well as hundreds of music, literature and experimental arts events, at Wallywoods and other venues across Berlin. Two years 'underground' (i.e., mostly unadvertised) activity at the Kreuzberg gallery, was followed by a year or so as events-manager at the 'Art Pub' in Mitte (jointly opened by Thomas Heger and Wallywoods in 2006). Then, in 2007 arose the exciting opportunity to move into, on a temporary basis, a 300 square meter space at the 'Peter Edel House of Culture' in Berlin's otherwise culturally unexciting Weissensee.
Right now, officially, Gallery Wallywoods' term at Peter Edel has almost run out, in its wonderful, long-neglected rooms right on the park and lake; due to something called 'privatisation'. Unofficially, Wallywoods is in debate with the local authority, the private theatre school which will eventually take over, and various agencies and persons, with a mind to holding out in Weissensee for as long humanly possible. This now with principally one objective in mind: the BBC Project.
During these almost four years as curator and events organiser, Woods' own Big Chairs art has remained on the back-burner; notwithstanding sporadic small-scale BBC exhibitions presented at Wallywoods locations...
WAS IST GALERIE WALLYWOODS?
Na, das ist ein lange Geshichte - angefagen mit der erröffnung der original Galery Wallywoods in der Kopischstrasse in Kreuzberg, am 1 November 2004, mit den erste Ausstellung-event (von uber 300) und ein kleines Konzert gegeben von dem gestorbenen Nikki Sudden. Projektleiter und Kurator: Paul "Wally" Woods (geb. London, seit '92 in Berlin)
Und jetzt sind wir, seit July 2007, hier in der Kulturhaus Peter Edel, mit Terrasse direkt an diesem wonderschonen Park und See. Das ist immerhin ein Zwischungnutzungs arrangement mit Bezirksamt Pankow...
Galerie Wallywoods ist auch
Ein Verein in Grunden
Ein Treffpunkt für verschiedenste Kreative Menschen aller Herkunft - anders beschäftigte Menschen auch - wir glauben fest das "Jeder ist ein Kunstler!"
Eigenartig und schon, serious und locker, und (fast) professionel!
Eine Website...
Besuchen sie unsere aktuellen Program und reichlisches Archive bei...
Was bieten wir an?
Ein helles, kreatives angerichtet 300qm "Plattform" hier und jetzt in Weissensee fur Kiez, Berlin-gebased und internationale Künstler, Performer, Musiker, Schriftsteller, sowie Workshopleiter(innen) u.s.w. Ins besonderes ist den Ort sehr gut geiegnetet fur:
Kunst Ausstellungen
(z.b. Malerei, Plastic, Zeichnungen, Installationen, Foto, Konzeptuelles, Fashion, Architektoral, u.s.w.)
Kleinkonzerte
ins besonderes, experimental, ungewohnliches, visuelles, aber auch singer-songwriter, Bands verschiedene Art.
Lesungen
alle art, auch Performance-/Theateriche-lesungen
Workshops
Wenn es ihnen die Räume gefallen, dann alles möglisch, von Theater, Kunst-bastelstunden, Tanz, Kinderkram, Kunst-therapy, meditation, Puppentheater.. schlagen Sie etwas vor!
Probemöglischkeiten
(ehe für singer-songwriter, Theater, kleine Ensemble)
Private Feiern
Buchen Sie die gesamte Räume, oder ein Teil der Galerie, fur Ihren kulturelles Event oder Private Party...
Was brauchen wir?
Was braucht Weissensee? Wir glauben (gerade jetzt!) Kunst und Kultur alle art, von alle mögliche Ländern und Richtungen...
Den "Plattform" die der total Unabhängig und nicht offizielle unterstuzt Galerie anbietet ist nur möglich durch den Hilfe und Support von Gäste, Freunde und Kultur-interesierten (und dich!)...
Kunstler, Musiker, Performer...
Video-Beamer, sowie Filmemacher...
Materialen, sowie Wandfarbe...
ein grosser Fernseher
Vereins mitglieder, sowie Hilfe in richtung Sponsoring, Werbung...
Praktikanten(in)...
ein Klavier
und naturlich, ist jede Spende wilkommen...
SATZUNG DES WALLYWOODS e.V.
§ 1 Name, Sitz, Eintragung, Geschäftsjahr
(1) Der Verein trägt den Namen Wallywoods e.V.
(2) Er hat den Momentanen Sitz in Berlin-Pankow ( Stadteil Weißensee )
(3) Er soll in das Vereinsregister Pankow eingetragen werden.
(4) Geschäftsjahr ist das Kalenderjahr..
§ 2 Vereinszweck
Zweck des Vereins ist die Förderung und Pflege von Kunst und Kultur, ins besondere die organisation und Durchführung von Ausstellungen und anderer Kultureller Ereignisse, wie Lesungen und Konzerten die dem Verein zur Berreicherung des Vereinszwecks geeignet erscheinen. Desweiteren, die bereitstellung von geeigneten Orten, Räumen und Plattformen für jegliche Künstler im Bezirk Pankow, vorerst im Stadtteil Weißensee und stellen somit Nachhaltige öffentliche Kulturarbeit im Bezirk Weißensee sowie innerhalb der Gesamten Stadt dar. Momentane Sitz des Vereins ist das Kulturhaus Weißensee.
(2) Der Satzungszweck wird insbesondere verwirklicht durch den Verein selbst und angeschlossene Künstler, Performer, Musiker, Schriftsteller, Workshop Leiter(innen) u.s.w.
§ 3 Selbstlosigkeit/ Gemeinnützigkeit
(1) Der Verein ist selbstlos tätig, er verfolgt nicht in erster Linie eigenwirtschaftliche Zwecke.
Der Verein verfolgt ausschließlich und unmittelbar gemeinnützige Zwecke im Sinne des Abschnitts "Steuerbegünstigte Zwecke" der Abgabenordnung (§§ 51ff) in der jeweils gültigen Fassung
(2) Mittel des Vereins dürfen nur für die satzungsmäßigen Zwecke verwendet werden.
Die Mitglieder des Vereins dürfen in ihrer Eigenschaft als Mitglieder keine Zuwendungen aus Mitteln des Vereins erhalten.
(3) Die Mitglieder dürfen bei ihrem Ausscheiden oder bei Auflösung oder Aufhebung des Vereins keine Anteile des Vereinsvermögens erhalten.
(4) Es darf keine Person durch Ausgaben, die dem Zweck des Vereins fremd sind, oder durch unverhältnismäßig hohe Vergütungen begünstigt werden.
§ 4 Mitgliedschaft
(1) Mitglied des Vereins kann jede natürliche (und juristische) Person werden, die seine Ziele unterstützt.
(2) Über den Antrag auf Aufnahme in den Verein entscheidet der Vorstand.
(3) Die Mitgliedschaft endet durch Austritt, Ausschluss oder Tod.
(4) Der Austritt eines Mitgliedes ist nur zum ende eines Quartals Möglich. möglich. Er erfolgt durch schriftliche Erklärung gegenüber dem Vorsitzenden unter Einhaltung einer Frist von 4 Wochen
(5) Wenn ein Mitglied gegen die Ziele und Interessen des Vereins schwer verstoßen hat oder trotz Mahnung mit dem Beitrag für 3 Monate im Rückstand bleibt, so kann es durch den Vorstand mit sofortiger Wirkung ausgeschlossen werden.
Dem Mitglied muss vor der Beschlussfassung Gelegenheit zur Rechtfertigung bzw. Stellungnahme gegeben werden.
Gegen den Ausschließungsbeschluss kann innerhalb einer Frist von .4 Wochen nach Mitteilung des Ausschlusses Berufung eingelegt werden, über den die nächste Mitgliederversammlung entscheidet.
§ 5 Beiträge
Die Mitglieder zahlen Beiträge nach Maßgabe eines Beschlusses der Mitgliederversammlung. Zur Festlegung der Beitragshöhe und -fälligkeit ist eine einfache Mehrheit der in der Mitgliederversammlung anwesenden stimmberechtigten Vereinsmitglieder erforderlich.
Der für kulturelle Zweckssetzung des Vereins zu entrichtende Mitgliedsbeitrag; sollte Monatlich mindest 5 € betragen. Eine befristete Mitgliedschaft ist möglich.
Ein ausgeschiedenes Mitglied hat keinen anspruch auf das Vereinsvermögen. Geleiste Beiträger können nicht zuruck verlangt werden.
§ 6 Organe des Vereins
Organe des Vereins sind
a) der Vorstand
b) die Mitgliederversammlung
§ 7 Der Vorstand
(1) Der Vorstand besteht aus 3 Mitgliedern
Er vertritt den Verein gerichtlich und außergerichtlich. Je zwei Vorstandsmitglieder sind gemeinsam vertretungsberechtigt.
(2) Der Vorstand wird von der Mitgliederversammlung für die Dauer von 2 Jahren gewählt.
Die Wiederwahl der Vorstandsmitglieder ist möglich.
Der Vorsitzende wird von der Mitgliederversammlung in einem besonderen Wahlgang bestimmt. Die jeweils amtierenden Vorstandsmitglieder bleiben nach Ablauf ihrer Amtszeit im Amt, bis Nachfolger gewählt sind.
(3) Dem Vorstand obliegt die Führung der laufenden Geschäfte des Vereins. Er hat insbesondere folgende Aufgaben: Der Vorstand übt seine Tätigkeit ehrenamtlich aus. Der Vorstand kann für die Geschäfte der laufenden Verwaltung einen Geschäftsführer bestellen. Dieser ist berechtigt, an den Sitzungen des Vorstandes mit beratender Stimme teilzunehmen.
(4) Vorstandssitzungen finden jährlich mindestens 4 mal statt. Die Einladung zu Vorstandssitzungen erfolgt durch den Verein schriftlich unter Einhaltung einer Einladungsfrist von mindestens 7 Tagen. Vorstandssitzungen sind beschlussfähig, wenn...
(5) Der Vorstand fasst seine Beschlüsse mit einfacher Mehrheit.
(6) Beschlüsse des Vorstands können bei Eilbedürftigkeit auch schriftlich oder fernmündlich gefasst werden, wenn alle Vorstandsmitglieder ihre Zustimmung zu diesem Verfahren schriftlich oder fernmündlich erklären. Schriftlich oder fernmündlich gefasste Vorstandsbeschlüsse sind schriftlich niederzulegen und von zu unterzeichnen.
§ 8 Mitgliederversammlung
(1) Die Mitgliederversammlung ist einmal jährlich einzuberufen.
(2) Eine außerordentliche Mitgliederversammlung ist einzuberufen, wenn es das Vereinsinteresse erfordert oder wenn die Einberufung von 10% der Vereinsmitglieder schriftlich und unter Angabe des Zweckes und der Gründe verlangt wird.
(3) Die Einberufung der Mitgliederversammlung erfolgt schriftlich durch den Protokollführer unter Wahrung einer Einladungsfrist von mindestens 2 Wochen bei gleichzeitiger Bekanntgabe der Tagesordnung. Die Frist beginnt mit dem auf die Absendung des Einladungsschreibens folgenden Tag. Es gilt das Datum des Poststempels. Das Einladungsschreiben gilt dem Mitglied als zugegangen, wenn es an die letzte vom Mitglied des Vereins schriftlich bekannt gegebene Adresse gerichtet ist.
(4) Die Mitgliederversammlung als das oberste beschlussfassende Vereinsorgan ist grundsätzlich für alle Aufgaben zuständig, sofern bestimmte Aufgaben gemäß dieser Satzung nicht einem anderen Vereinsorgan übertragen wurden.
Ihr sind insbesondere die Jahresrechnung und der Jahresbericht zur Beschlussfassung über die Genehmigung und die Entlastung des Vorstandes schriftlich vorzulegen. Sie bestellt zwei Rechnungsprüfer, die weder dem Vorstand noch einem vom Vorstand berufenen Gremium angehören und auch nicht Angestellte des Vereins sein dürfen, um die Buchführung einschließlich Jahresabschluss zu prüfen und über das Ergebnis vor der Mitgliederversammlung zu berichten.
Die Mitgliederversammlung entscheidet z. B. auch über
a) Gebührenbefreiungen,
b) Aufgaben des Vereins,
c) An- und Verkauf sowie Belastung von Grundbesitz,
d) Beteiligung an Gesellschaften,
e) Aufnahme von Darlehen ab EUR...,
f) Genehmigung aller Geschäftsordnungen für den Vereinsbereich,
g) Mitgliedsbeiträge,
h) Satzungsänderungen,
i) Auflösung des Vereins.
(5) Jede satzungsmäßig einberufene Mitgliederversammlung wird als beschlussfähig anerkannt ohne Rücksicht auf die Zahl der erschienenen Vereinsmitglieder. Jedes Mitglied hat eine Stimme.
(6) Die Mitgliederversammlung fasst ihre Beschlüsse mit einfacher Mehrheit. Bei Stimmengleichheit gilt ein Antrag als abgelehnt.
§ 9 Satzungsänderung
(1) Für Satzungsänderungen ist eine 2/3-Mehrheit der erschienenen Vereinsmitglieder erforderlich. Über Satzungsänderungen kann in der Mitgliederversammlung nur abgestimmt werden, wenn auf diesen Tagesordnungspunkt bereits in der Einladung zur Mitgliederversammlung hingewiesen wurde und der Einladung sowohl der bisherige als auch der vorgesehene neue Satzungstext beigefügt worden waren.
(2) Satzungsänderungen, die von Aufsichts-, Gerichts- oder Finanzbehörden aus formalen Gründen verlangt werden, kann der Vorstand von sich aus vornehmen. Diese Satzungsänderungen müssen allen Vereinsmitgliedern alsbald schriftlich mitgeteilt werden.
§ 10 Beurkundung von Beschlüssen
Die in Vorstandssitzungen und in Mitgliederversammlungen erfassten Beschlüsse sind schriftlich niederzulegen und vom Vorstand zu unterzeichnen.
§ 11 Auflösung des Vereins und Vermögensbindung
(1) Für den Beschluss, den Verein aufzulösen, ist eine 3/4-Mehrheit der in der Mitgliederversammlung anwesenden Mitglieder erforderlich. Der Beschluss kann nur nach rechtzeitiger Ankündigung in der Einladung zur Mitgliederversammlung gefasst werden.
(2) Bei Auflösung des Vereins oder bei Wegfall der steuerbegünstigten Zwecke fällt das Vermögen des Vereins an Verein scherer8
(Bezeichnung einer juristischen Person des öffentlichen Rechts oder einer anderen steuerbegünstigten Körperschaft)
- der - die - das - es unmittelbar und ausschließlich für gemeinnützige, mildtätige oder kirchliche Zwecke zu verwenden hat,
alternativ
b) an eine juristische Person des öffentlichen Rechts oder eine andere steuerbegünstigte Körperschaft zwecks Verwendung für gemeinutzige tätichkeiten (Angabe eines bestimmten gemeinnützigen, mildtätigen oder kirchlichen Zwecks).
..........................................
(Ort) (Datum)
Vorsitzender, Stellverträter, Kassenwart...
WELL STUFF ALL THAT
And yet occasionally something appears through the fog, so nearly finished that it nearly makes up for all the rest. Like the gallery, how well it looks and almost functions now. If I make it to July 20 without starving (having left Cecile again) it will have been one year at Weissensee. Longer than any of us expected, and another excuse for a party. A big one. Followed I hope by a holiday. After that, I hardly care.
GALLERY WALLYWOODS IS DEAD
Awoke with 39 cents in my right trouser pocket and an approximately matching bank account.
During the course of the day, received a five-euro note from a generous female, then a twenty-euro note from Fred the dentist-drummer who practices now and again with the guy whose name I can never remember in the invalid loo. It's tight back there; they used to be a trio, but lead-man Zottel opted out. Fred built his drums around the toilet upon which he sits. His was also a generous contribution, being seperate to the little fee the guys irregularly pay.
That makes 25.39 in cash, which, subtracted from the 50 bucks still outstanding on the December rent, brings the total Wallywoods profit since the grand start, in money terms at least, to minus 24.61 euros.
So. What have we learned from all this?
We have learned that Wally and P.P. need gather no more experience. Not a drop. Das reicht! "Studio Woods" must move to Mitte. Basta. Till then, Wallywoods is dead, Wally collapses off-duty in a tee-shirt crying "brother can you spare a pizza", and Paradox Paul blunders casually ahead beneath his hateful, meaningless, over-sized banner written in his own blood and shit:
"Sieg Art!"
December 31 (5am)
CONCLUDED LAST NIGHT
spontaneously and after much deliberation, to bury Wallywoods, here and tonight, in Berlin's frozen Weissensee outback (*).
Why? Because Wallywoods means many things. Too many things, and I, Wally, now 44 and tired, have never found the partner, the Schlussel-Person, I've been seeking since even before its birth as a gallery in Kreuzberg in 2004. I can't and won't continue to manage, alone and ever penniless, to present the art and music, great and small, of other creative amateurs, professionals, fellow twerps and geniuses... or rather, I could indeed continue, and of course will. But in a more "refined" way, if I can work out what that means; and (here's the rub) no longer at my own expense.
Above all it has has meant, "Good evening, I'm Wally. Come use my space and drink my beers. Hang stuff wherever you want and make a mess. Be as loud as you like on a stage which we'll put where you like, put your boots on the furniture which we'll move where you want, use any instruments and materials you find lying around and above all my own precious time and contacts whilst shouting at me or mumbling that I'm a control freak. Come bathe in underground limelight where whatever you do looks or sounds great, where guests join in and create and remember your night, or months, with fond tingles."
SUCH FUN
Instead, I grant myself 2009 to work at last on this book...
"How to Become an Artist Overnight"
subtitled "50 Months of Wallywoods on the brink of Berlin", or whatever.
See you tonight then, at yet another pointlessly hectic party, now officially declared:
THE LAST WALLYWOODS EVENT EVER
(*Decided against that.)
December 26
INTENTIONS
"Knowing now the worth of what I am doing, I can at last put it into words."
Darwin, near completion of his lying theses, "Origins of a Spy", which was never published.
Here are more important notes not to be considered:
First, to build two thrones by cutting a piano in half, at midnight on December 31st.
(*Decided against that. At least, decided against doing it on the terrace on New Year's Eve. For practical, technical and logistical reasons.)
Then, to build a book.
(*Since bloody forever.)
This is the latest new beginning of my never-to-be-finished book of everything, presently called,
HOW TO BUILD TWO THRONES FROM A PIANO OVERNIGHT
subtitled, "50 Months: a Short History of Wallywoods".
I like these words. They makes a fine new start!
Or do they..?
And the chorus goes, "Something or other..."
(*Live, tipsy and stoned, direct from Stephanie's birthday party. What fun. She's one of half-a-dozen Mädels I'm in love with these days. In another new offensive I'm telling them, one by one, "Wally requires a new partner. So get your knickers off immediately or bugger off and leave me alone forever.)
Need too, almost as urgently, a new space.
Best of all in Mitte, at the hub of Berlin, the funkiest city in Europe. Cheap and exciting still, like a favourite whore. Stuff London, (for now), Tehran or New York...
(Chorus continues; "I'm a something or other in Berlin!")
(Needs work but you get the idea.)
July 24
SORRY FOR THE SILENCE
"Been busy Dad. (It hasn't been silent here!) Our One Year in Weissensee event was a big hit. Too big. Two-hundred people came. Thrilled to bits. Good art, worthy entertainment and countless broken beer bottles. Incredible creative atmosphere. "Underground meets mainstream", as I've propaganded it for some time (and witnessed fully - frighteningly - on Saturday). It took exactly a year. We finished painting the ceilings, and therefore the gallery, just on time. As an artist I've been working not on canvas, but on the rooms. As a curator, I use the various artists, or rather their works, to decorate the place. It's simple, somehow, and something I do well, something I do automatically. I move things around until the whole - some kind of 'vision' - touches the realities of others; touches their comprehension. You might have seen photos on the websites. There are references to Warhol and Beuys. I'm approached by amazing artists and performers, or groups thereof, every day. The point is, I find them all (almost all!) amazing. And these are the rooms, rooms everyone appreciates, in which to present them. Working with them all, no matter what they are up to. And they get up to anything and everything, often inspired by the atmosphere here, to surpass themselves.
So if possible, please stop worrying about me any more. I've found my thing.
The trip home last year was put off by the fact that (...) Which that brings us to the real meaning of a 'successful gallery'. Money. That will come - Wally and his project are on their way up. I forecast that sometime next year we will sell enough, of whatever, that I can pay my own way from then on. Until then it's business as usual - with knobs on. Like, we have started decorating all the pianos, with bottle-tops, with brass handles, with knobs on. They currently cost 500 bucks each. The Broken Pianos Orchestra is quite popular. It underlines Wallywoods' place on the New Berlin map.
Must run again, love to Mum, take care!"
July 14
FINALLY
started painting the ceiling, with help mainly from Hanjo, now out of prison and wearing a painter's spacesuit, in a general attempt this week to finish the gallery for Saturday's "One Year Wallywoods in Weissensee Exhibition and Party". Twenty-three artists from twenty lands, plus entertainment from Isondú Tribe (touring Argentinean performance crew), Kakawaka (one-man flip-out show), Matthias Brozio from Babel Embassy (Theremin Remix), Marachowska (Siberian Blues), Stefan zur Nieden (Italian, French and own chansons), Dancefunktion (Micha on drums accompanied by DJ), the Broken Pianos Orchestra (already a local favourite), and of course the Uglies.
Sounds great. Feel terrible. On the edge of exhaustion.
Yesterday was the first day in many months, if not a whole year, without beer, fag or multiple spliffs. Will try to keep it up this week. No choice. Seem to have damaged the ribs and/or chest muscles whilst moving pianos, banging on pianos, arm-wrestling drunk and/or moving Gert's big ugly wood, metal and granite Berlin Bear sculpture (unlike the common Berlin symbol, female. Nice tits - good for grip). Extremely late with any kind of promotion for this international and, I expect, highly charged extravaganza. Haven't even finished postcards, fliers, posters. But fuck it, that's Wallywoods at any age. And naturally, if only due to the number of creative people taking part - the most ever in one mad night - quite some interest within the various scenes.
No need for concern, however. Saturday, if not Friday's preview show, will see Wally boozing his old self fit again, kiffing, banging on pianos and arm-wresting large-breasted animals of all nationalities. One day, as the oldest Wallywoods cliché goes, he'll get paid for it too. (7pm. Have eaten nothing today.)
(Regarding the last entry: some probable bullshitter, an intensely tiresome energy-absorbing neighbourhood nerd reckons one of the pianos is worth 1500 euros just as it is.)
July 5
PEERED THROUGH THE DIRTY WINDOW
about three weeks ago, of a piano shop seemingly gone bust. Place was full of dusty old stand-up pianos. Rang the number for rental enquiries and met the guy there a day or two later. Nice enough geezer, he cared little about the instruments, just wanted them gone. I chose the best one (far the best tone, anyway) and knocked him down to fifty bucks. At last, a real piano at Wallywoods! And dead cheap, even for Wally. It's eight minutes away by foot further down Berliner Allee, so we got it here on a trolley, as the ground is flat between us, not even a kerb. As an afterthought, I says, What's happening with the others? Oh, he says, there's a buyer willing to pay a tenna each; he wants them next week. That was bullshit, I think now, but no matter. Hold on! I says, and soon enough I've bought myself another ten of the buggers, all completely detuned, if not wrecked, for another hundred euros. Problem was of course, how to transport them all; certainly can't afford professional strong men, they charge a fortune. But the trolley worked well enough for Piano One, so last Monday at midday we mustered best we could (mainly Jack, Norbert, Klausie and I, and later on a big fat guy who couldn't see us struggling without wading in) and spent four and a half hours rolling them in, one after the other, with as little as three men per piano, on a very hot day. Turned out - relatively - a pinch of piss. Mission accomplished!
Wallywoods is now the proud owner of eleven pretty fucked pianos. In the first three days six people said they wanted one. Crazy. Next thing realised was, how many people we know can actually play the things - almost everyone who comes in the door! So; the Broken Piano Orchestra is born. First session, featuring whichever ten plonkers turn up, to take place tonight before the concert, as a kind of audition in preparation for a more formal "debut" next Thursday.
Next thing to dawn on me, banging away drunk and stoned last night, plotting away with Jack, who turns out to be a natural talent if not some kind of kindred genius, is the obvious necessity of turning each of them into art objects, almost regardless whether we later tune them or not. I will begin by painting Piano One with a bunch of left-over white paint, who cares what type, and with Cecile pen it full of chairs and figures, same as the walls, immediately adjusting the price from fifty to a thousand euros or whatever. Then invite other artists to help decorate the rest. None should remain untouched. Stuff the puritans - they're already muttering, Oh these lovely antiques; you simply MUST take care of them... Yes, indeedy, I shall take care of them.
Main thing is, as we sell them (assuming we will - if not in Weissensee then next year, if all goes well, in Mitte), the buyer should pay cash, pick the fuckers up themselves, AND deliver a replacement, no matter how kaput. Eventually a grand piano will turn up, which we can fill with Smarties. And one at least is surely destined for P.P.'s hammer.
So, that's the new plan. When Piano One is ready, I'll post a picture here and elsewhere - and Bam! the gallery has a new image... and a new route to make the small fortune I've been planning all these years without the foggiest clue how. After all, selling pictures or art in general, at least here and now in Berlin, is a wildly funny contradiction in terms.
Another afterthought and an aimless question: If it works, was it all down to luck, having stumbled upon those first dozen Kaputte Klaviers practically next door? Forget it. I've been optimistic ten thousand times before with absolutely zero result. Let's wait a bit and see.
Meanwhile, after a twelve year break (the only one I've owned before was at Norbert's in Danziger Strasse) I'm regularly bruising my fingers and frightening my guests on the greatest instruments ever devised.
June 17
A PAGE A DAY... HA!
Got bogged down at the outset in the Mire of Possibilities. Same problem as Ark of Colours. Too many ideas, avalanching, jumping on top of each other, all vitally important, down to the weeny details, all jostling for a place. A place they shall surely find; but only after constant re-starting, endless reworking, tireless rethinking. Who knows how long this will now take. What about some order, like, when does what happen, when are which texts revealed? And what do they in turn reveal? Should there be groups of text-discoveries? Six working days a week, so six texts a week - for three weeks, or six? Forget the details; who is writing them? dammit! Above all, the characters, the Father and the Son; they must be set, human and believable, from the start. Mustn't they? And who in fact are they?
Well, at least that one I'm becoming sure of. And at least I know where they are leading. Ha! Life will be sweet when I reach that end. Sabotage the world, why not! If something enormous is within ones power, and this power, this calamity, is the single proof and reward for ones existence... Hold that thought.
Am reading a lot, now, as compensation. Ignoring other "pressing" duties like organising a flea-market and a drummer for the coming weekend's Blumenfest, perhaps even making some money at it; generally postponing the piecing together of other events. Reading is easier than writing. So let's read till black in the face, till the legs drop off, till the boat comes in, till the doors open and all these characters, new friends and old, saints and idiots among them, disturb me from my thoughts within the thoughts of others. Even so, wandering in wasted time inside other men's dreams and nightmares, the brain is working without pause, in sleep too, on one's own Creation. Each book recently, each tale, writer, style, or lack of style, an inspiration. Even revelation. Including the crap-lame thrillers in between. They all have worth, all contribute, to the end game, or whatever it is that I'm headed for. On the other hand, how much you gotta read, man, before you've read enough? A mountain of books the size of a pyramid? Would that make you wise and great? Wiser and greater than you are now?
There's one last book, mine, right on the top of Cheops. Or buried under it.
As for the top three of late: Eco's Pendulum landed the religious and pompous historical themes, with its vague and comfortable promise of glory, or at least ultimate knowledge. Let us join the Masters of the World, why not! They are, after all, flesh and yellow teeth, like us. Bobby Seale's Seize The Time did something revolutionary to Wally's character, as it did to Wally himself (though very mildly). He goes from prophet to terrorist in a couple of easy moves (remaining, for the moment, both). Circumstance and reason behind those heroes' or fools' heroic or foolish actions, laid bare, understood - if that is possible for white-boy who never could dance or fight. Huge respect duly given, from now, in that sad direction. For the best language of the three, caught between the cleverest living Italian (uses too many words, impossible to look them all up) and a caged Panther (repeats himself tenfold, and is forgiven for it), and the most romantic, pathetic and uncomfortable subject, Ian McEwan's On Chesil Beach thrusts into the plot (my plot) the side-tracking and wholly unnecessary demand for sentimental love.
Now is confirmed, again as if it were needed, the true reason I do not read sentimental claptrap, and frown, for instance, on mum's eternal "women's books" collected by the sackfull every week from local libraries throughout her life. In fresher years I was simply afraid of the stuff, what it threw up, and I would relentlessly feign boredom, refusing ever to weep over film or tragic documentary in front of any other living person. Those pains - her pains (J.G.; I hardly dare utter that name after finishing that last horrible-marvellous chapter an hour ago, lest I burn this fucking borough down and all the cunts in it) - that pain is long buried. As the brain survived and then evolved, defining to near completion my own character as I have, at last, come to understand it, the heart has hardened, and all appears finally bearable. Things have been so for almost four years, a mega-record; practising this endless diversion of art and punk and drugs and more art and plans between binging and more drugs and binging between more plans. All that distracting shit'n'showbiz.
Edward should have killed her dead with his pebble. After she denied him that last time - yet again! - on the shingle beach, wreaking within him a hole (a "mess" was all they could agree on) he would never really recover from; even through the good years, the amazing years which incredibly followed. Hard to imagine Florence swinging through the sixties. No matter what her excuse - unfair! we know there is a darn good one! - he would never see her again in any case. He should have smote her pretty, sexy, frigid fucking brains out. Not even the nightingale, for it wasn't a nightingale, would have mourned at that moment. Edward could have finally nailed her. But thanks to his weakness, which is McEwan's own, I do the job myself. Sentimentality is a slow death sentence. It can be lifted from the self, thrown to the winds, though it takes much time and self-cussing.
Long live abstract violence, eternal binging, and sex with unlovable strangers.
(Regarding the last entry, below, I had just come third out of eight in a rigged poetry competition, and vowed never to do one again. Was shocked speechless - it was easily my best effort to date, appreciated by all but the unqualified jury. Went home muttering, kicking tin-cans, if there were any. Am over it now, but will stick to the vow. Occasional dull readings shall suffice.)
May 23
AS THE MONKEY
put it with his typewriter, after an infinity bashing it on his head,
"Three Solomons don't make a democracy."
May 21
THE LIBRARY OF BAD IDEAS
by PP
"There is a Librarian, this much is true. Whether awake or asleep, he is built like every other, of perishable flesh; this much he knows. He listens at night to his heart while it beats, and it is his own heart which beats. He hears it, and he knows it. It is the heart of a good man." (Is it? - he is a sarcastic bugger!) "He also believes - has always taken it for granted - that his mind is his own. And it is a good mind...
Of course, there is also a Library. A big one. But to begin with, it is merely a library, the place of his work and pastime..."
Starts pretty much like that. Although it sounds so familiar, I imagine ten thousand books have begun exactly like it. Have written, and/or assembled, 4,600 words in three days. That's record-breaking for P.P. I expect the job will still take years, but I would never have dreamed how easily the 'stitching' ideas, even the writing itself, now comes (comparatively - do not be fooled, Wally!). The trick so far is hardly to backtrack, simply plod on from point x, reading only (after any break - there are many around here) over the latest paragraph or two, before taking up the story. This is very new, but seems to work, because the old way makes large texts simply impossible. Corrections and embellishments must all come later, and that is particularly hard. Looking back sober at what was written the night before, it reads pale, even Bad. But - the Ideas are good. Cecile and Damian say so, and I think, not only to please me; even if the professional, the Ugly One, thinks the whole thing nerdy.
Appear to be reading, at intervals, the correct reference book. This Pendulum epic. Encyclopaedic. As I said at the start, painful. Read a couple of pages from 222 (all references are somehow demonic) as I just have. That writer, too, is looking for keys and connections to everything and anything that pops into his head (and that is a lot!); including the tricks of books selling. "We disguise ourselves as a flower," remarks one crazed editor, "and the bees will come swarming." Around there, he also mentions that, the Place we are always looking for, is often right under our noses. Like the gallery, now, it seems. I have made the perfect place for creation.
The difference in our scholarly backgrounds (I don't have one) and skill with the pen are enormous. I rarely use words a ten year-old won't understand, for instance, have very limited expressions covering "he said" ("he mumbled" "he enthused"); there just don't seem to be enough. And just look here, how often I use the word seem. Whilst my references to history and classic culture are almost non-existent. But I am not put off. I invent my own schooling, my own style, as other maniacs have in the past, and always will. Perhaps I am even a futurist - whatever that means. There are so many other books for reference, encouraging, heartening, through their simplicity. I won't even name them. Except: as literary genii, Eco pales in comparison to the hugely more exciting, original, witty, and strange worlds of Alice and her Creator.
May 18
IT IS CLEAR NOW
that I need another story. The Librarian's story. The one to tie all the others together. He, the Librarian, the Narrator, the Author, (P.P.) and the stitching. Some kind of quest, riddle, mystery is required. Not worlds apart from The Name of the Rose; that's a damned good launching point. It's very odd, but for as long as the Library has developed in my mind, I never saw it as an actual library - now with an actual Librarian. Is that strange? Until now, it was just a title. A collection of short stories. Now it becomes a novel.
The alternate idea, also relatively new, is to take the stories, two at a time to begin with, and merge them into one another. The end of one flows into the beginning of the other. Literally stitching. Here, the Librarian can help too. Where one episode ends and the other begins, though they may be violently differing in style and mood, the join must be subtle. The simplest example: the Librarian is leafing through manuscripts, and deciphering connections.
To discover the mystery is my task now. That will be fun. To discover the method of stitching, that is the challenge.
Idea: The Librarian awakes every morning to discover he has again written in his sleep. The texts which appear at his bedside, in an array of handwriting styles, could have been written by possessing spirits, the ghosts of writers or adventurers, or the disturbed fellow himself...
Yes, you're right Ken. It's easy. That's the story I shall write, starting tonight. And I hope you'll agree, if it ever gets finished, that it's a novel.
Response:
yeah yeah. better is to start fresh. write a very very long story from the beginning starting now. just tell the story. leave out the philosophizing. should take 2 months or so to get to the end. tell a story about man meets woman. man has no money. something like that. the tension is in the real life difficulties.
Reaction:
No!
May 17
TODAY
and next Saturday, too, the gallery hosts a private function. They are birthday parties, for up to forty people, tomorrow for a girl of eighteen, the next, a guy of forty. In fact, these nice locals whom I don't know from Adam, came separately to me, simply because they like the rooms - and I get dosh for it! For doing nothing except taking the night off. In fact, there is a website offering party venues in Berlin (of course there is!) through which I should soon advertise. Apart from that, yesterday I rented the redundant invalid's toilet (previously our little workshop) to Zottel's 'primitive rock' band - drums and all, loud as you like. In that poxy little room! But the band seems happy enough, and they know they can venture out and set up, often as they like, in the bigger space for recordings, parties, or whatever.
Can it be that the financial pressure is off? I don't dare stop to think about it. Either way, and coincidently, I find myself booking fewer music events (even if we have had a humdinger of a season of artsy-fartsy evenings since Christmas) and almost no exhibitions (the last artist cancelled at the last minute - don't talk about it - so Cecile is hung all over the place). After all, what do they bring, these magical nights, other than self-imposed stress for Wally, and joy and creation for every other sod and his drunken dog, who mostly hate to pay for their pleasure?
Then I received this from Ugly Ken Shakin, in his typical lazy American hieroglyphics,
(I normally correct his English), regarding the recent diary entries:
paul. you fucking cunt. it's now or never. write your book. i know what kind of books you like to read. write that book. now. people would not respect bob rutman if he wasn't in the smithsonian. nobody gives a shit about anything except success.
do it. you have the possibility. do it.
followed five minutes later by this:
this is clearly the first page of your book. just write the rest of it. don't worry about perfection. just write the stupid thing.
each day a chapter. that simple. i'll help you publish it. fucking cunt. you have the style. just write it. stupid fucking cunt. working title: HORNY FOR THE POPE.
Response:
Going back to my point, "a novel is asking too much of me. All I have are unfinished short stories, poems and inadequate diaries."
Get it into your head - I am incapable of writing a looooooong story. I love to write shrt stries, bits and pieces. I also like to build things, assembling a monument from shards of old food and rubbish I find on the floor around me.
But you may have something regarding the timing. "Now or never," is attractive.
What about a compromise book, like that Frenchman who just jotted down endless, apparently unconnected lists and ideas - experimental and quirky, in that it is not a novel, i.e., not one looooooong story, but a tapestry, a collage, taken from The Library of Bad Ideas, the poems, and chunks of the diaries (as the librarian's foot-notes, for instance, helping draw the fractions or "discovered manuscripts" together).
It's a possibility I've been kicking around for a year or two. Originally I assumed The Library would be a 'book of short stories', one after the other, straight, probably illustrated (as much to fatten it up as anything else). Even so, I always imagined a fairly thin book.
What I can try, and this begins to look interesting, even accomplishable, seeing as even highbrow lunatics like Umberto Eco do the same, i.e., waffle on through themes and history as if they are laying in bed bombarded with too many ideas (happens to me often), is find ingenious ways to connect them all. And, I suppose, if I'm not ripe for it now (I was always waiting for ripeness) then I never will be.
So what I do - and you probably won't like it (though if you agree, I'll start right away) - is begin to make connections, to thread a narrative through the likes of Little Giant, The Popes Whores, Unfinished Bath, Coin-Armour Man, The History of Wally, Black Fairy, Bucket, Lounging Lad, and the others, the poems, and even chunks of the more fanciful diaries.
That's all I've worked out so far, but I reckon its do-able. I would need perhaps one year. On the other hand, I've never finished anything in my life.
What d'you reckon?
P.P.
Then:
almost impossible to publish an experimental novel. easy to write though. blank pages sounds experimental. or just mental.
writing a novel is a different story. here's how it's done: one day you start writing. you don't have to know where you're going. like eastenders. it goes on and on. like a bedtime story. you make it up as you go along. each day you add some more and soon enough you've got 80,000 words. a very long story. all you need is characters, a place, and some conflict. a murder, or something else to propel the action. when you get to 80,000 words, end it, and you've got yourself a novel.
May 16
WHITE TRASH WITH CECILE
last night, for Bob Rutmann's 77th birthday bash. Otherwise rarely there. Feel uncomfortable. No, odd. "Oddfish". But looked smart enough in spiky new shoes and trousers sponsored by Cecile that afternoon ("No Cecile, I can't go. I have no shoes and no trousers") and my TV appearance shirt, the only other thing not sordid with holes, cheap paint and suspicious stains. Hardly recognised in any case, with my ridiculous hair, now longer than its ever been. Arrived stoned and quite early, as we had conspired, (Bob will later be inundated with present-givers, groupies and other annoying flatterers), though he was already performing, upstairs, bearably loud for the sexy, chomping clientele, this time around with Kristof Hahn, Yoyo, and a handsome tattooed Latino guy with a marvellous deep voice. This stuff is always impressive. So we go for an equally impressive rare and wonderful Prenzlauerberg curry - Weissensee food is dismal - come back, meet a few odd people we know from here and there; then Cecile gets a chance to talk to birthday boy. ("Go talk to him," I encourage, knowing he used to adore Cecile and hoping he'll finally agree, or at least consider anew, doing something or other at Wallywoods; if he remembers what Wallywoods is). Cecile wishes to present, and explain to him, our gift; a chairs-and-figures picture by the both of us. (We're producing more and more together nowadays, all types of crap). She panics when she can't find me in the crowd, barking my name across the room, sees my beaconing shirt, lunges through the throng to pull me to them, ripping it wide open; drawing stares, as she is adept at doing. "Where were you! You disappeared! I'm telling Bob about the picture..." I bend over old Bob, just stepped off the stage, who looks shaken, I suspect from Ceci's enthusiasm as much as the weight of his seventy-seven years spent inhaling all kinds, in places like this, and much grottier besides. "Hallo Bob!" I shout in his ear, "Cecile's really excited about tonight! Happy birthday, mate..." and I update the revered artist, top-speed, on where the gallery is at, i.e., its general brilliantness, and why he should drop in for a beer and a spliff some time soon.
If Bob Rutmann wishes to exhibit here, it would launch the gallery into immediate and longstanding respectability. However, his first comment was, "Do you sell?"
We all know the fellow is far from well-to-do. But if there is a lesson there, I refuse to learn it.
End up having a brief word with Papenfuss in the red, black and dirty-cream socialist cafe Baiz, where Freygang and other homeless ex-Art Pubbers now hang out (didn't see them, nor miss them), across the street and polar-opposite to the other Wally's Trash-classy den of commercial sin and success we'd just escaped from. Baiz is hard-core, in a dull, lazy, boozy way. The ill-looking lanky, bony-faced skinhead behind the bar, with his smart red braces over white t-shirt pulling up skin-tight jeans, could have been the real thing, direct from Rostock. Except that this is Baiz, one of the last bastions. Both in Trash and Baiz (actual headquarters of nearby Burger), I was angling for new external events, some little out-of-the-way adventures, ostensibly to promote the gallery's looming one years' existence. Perhaps just to get a feel for it again - and access again to a potential audience.
Doesn't matter if neither gig comes off; indeed, I think I've dropped it already. The gallery gig takes priority across all soirees so far this year, and will surely swing well. Now set for July 19, it features (officially since yesterday) special guests, the splendid "Isondu" crew of light-juggling performers and sweaty tropical dancers wrapped in Clingfilm, touring Europe from Argentina. And a bunch of other stuff on top...
Meanwhile, am dragging through Umberto Eco's Foucault's Pendulum, on loan from Alan's dopey, secret-stuffed, A.C. bookshop (do not heed rumours of the Anti-Christ) for seven or eight bucks. Probably seven bucks - for obscure and obvious numero-mystico reasons invented by queer and deadly masons who bricked themselves up with the Grail, thank god, long yesterdays ago, in pre-futuristic ghost-plagued library cellars and kitchens and rune-smeared bat-caverns. All in all, best seven or eight bucks reluctantly spent since I paid that damned tab at my own damned bar the other week (already I owe the guys twenty more bucks). The resulting degenerate offspring of this eye-watering, scroll-deciphering, penance of an activity is at least these two fourteen year-old Latino virgins in P.P.'s
THE POPES WHORES
(notes on a short story)
Two young girls seek, separately and independently, the help of a renowned medicine man. They complain, separately and independently, and, according to the medicine man's careful researches, one never having come in contact with the other (they are from quite different regions and very different backgrounds), of identical ailments, unusual aches, mental disturbances, nipple and groinal twinges, painful wet dreams, voyeuristic, expressionistic and exhibitionist tendencies, violent sexual fantasies and occasional true perversions, reverse-paranoia, the hearing of harmonic alien melodies, undeniable visions; and above all, the overwhelming urge to screw the Pope on his death bed.
The medicine man can do little for them.
He believes they have been temporarily possessed by Illiodine, one of four banished spirits of the Indonesian Larthinals' Temple of Debauchery. The Larthinals, a sub-christian splinter sect originating from the Egyptian Aahrin dynasty, announced that she had seduced all twelve Priests of the Inner Ring and therefore damned their souls to anti-martyrdom. The priests were tortured into confession, then exorcised, drawn, quartered, and burned in the underground Crypts of the Eternal Dead. Their ashes were collected and cast over Illiodine, who had been prepared for twelve hours with burning palm oils, after which she herself was cast alive into the Well of Demons, beneath the remote desert mountain secretly named Mourgaloine, known later as Le Castile der Wüste, and later still, Ararat.
The medicine man can only suggest they travel to the Well beneath Ararat, which is open until midnight for pilgrims on certain religious holidays, into which they should cast all their bodily hair at midnight, a fortnight before the approaching Last Solstice. Whether either of his clients do this, he will only discover fifteen years after, upon the publication of a book called "The Library of Bad Ideas".
A month later, he discovers over breakfast that the young ladies have met after all. They have been arrested, surprisingly, or not very surprisingly, together at the Vatican, amid a flurry of headlining bustle and scandal.
Interviewed separately and thouroughly, their stories, including detailed knowledge of the Pope's most personal situation and habbits, coincide to a tee. They claim to have enjoyed carnal bliss with his Holiness in a threesome, over three nights, in his private chambers, with not only his Papal blessing, but with his tireless sadistic-masochistic Papal participation. They claim to have evoked from him one-hundred-and-twenty ejaculations, with his spitting on the cross at every orgasm, whilst cursing in a language they fervently maintain was non-Human. They claim, too, that each is pregnant, and that they shall soon enough prove it: one of a boy, one of a girl, whom they will baptise "Adam" and "Eve".
They also claim that the Pope, the most popular and 'modern' in years, probably centuries, will be dead at the end of another three days.
Further, the girls coolly dictate that, on the seventh day following their first blessed encounter, they will be freed from all proceedings and return to their separate family homes (both rural) to rest. Thereafter, they will continue their lives... decently.
Beyond that, they have little to say.
The Pope officially damns them as liars, thieves, theological terrorists, political assassins, non-believers, "Devil's Whores", (and in a private excess one night, witnessed only by tight-lipped minions, "God's Bitches"), brainwashed into it by a fundamental, intolerable, state-sponsored deficit in modern and traditional values, across all levels, institutions, subjects, spilling over all borders and accepted standards in Christian education, thinking and behaviour.
At noon the next day, appearing haggard yet inspired after a night of vigil and consultation with his Master, on his knees before a full court of outraged or simply curious worshippers and tourists, he proclaims that Vatican City is suddenly and forever exorcised of all "dark undermining influences", blasphemies and other affronts, and on this day, after a secret battle which has stretched through centuries, all physical, spiritual and political infiltration has, at long last, been "evaporated". He orders that every mosque within three-hundred-and-thirty miles of the Vatican close for one month - and they do close; although the reasons are unclear and hotly debated, both nationally and internationally. And then he sets into immediate effect, a comprehensive list of religeous reforms, the likes of which have hardly been known since the Inquisition.
He has much support among his immense following. Yet clearly, on the wider stage, among so many watching Powers, he has become, literally over-night, the most feared man on the planet.
Two days after their arrest, the girls are condemned to prison, each for seven years, in a whirlwind, extraordinary, securely closed trial. Essentially, the verdict is "witchcraft".
Then, early on the third day, as the girls had foretold, the Pope is discovered dead in his bed...
May 15
THE UNFINISHED MAN
is another idea for another unfinished story on a relevant theme. The story starts a hundred times. Tonight like this:
"I keep starting things I don't or can't or won't finish. Maybe they shouldn't be finished. Ha! I've said that before and don't believe it. But if the process really is more important than the result, where am I then?
Not very anywhere.
Let's continue those thoughts another time. Until then, here are some recent starts:
THE UNFINISHED MAN
Alternative name for these diaries?
COIN-ARMOUR MAN
An ex-medical student implants coins under his skin, covering the whole of his body. Not to die of shock, he allows himself one year, vanishing from life to work on himself, and recover, sections at a time. Finally, for the parts he cannot reach, he persuades an old medical student buddy to do for him. The buddy, now a foot-doctor, is horrified but agrees...
THE PRIEST AND THE MAID'S HAND
A priest believes he can smell the 'good' or 'evil' about a person, through their hands. He visits over some years a cafe and grows enchanted, and then obsessed, by a waitress who works there. He believes she is a saint, and forgets his theory, leaves his church, and pursues her with the aim of marriage, carnal indecency, or whatever bit of her exquisite existence he can get. One heavenly evening, as she finally accepts all his proposals, he indeed gets close enough to smell her hand...
SKINNY MAN IN FAT SKIN SUIT
Yes, the time has arrived at which modern surgical techniques can offer a whole new suit of skin, according to your desire. You may have a terrible skin complaint, be of the 'wrong' ethnic appearance, be covered in blotches or wrinkles of natural ageing, or have suffered terrible burns (for which the research was uncontroversially begun). You can order and wear that of a black person (recently deceased), or of a Caucasian, of course, or of a tattooed freak, of a silky-perfect teenager, or a darling celebrity (most expensive). However, the procedure at this stage in its history, for reasons concerned with hormones, immune-systems and something too technical for this writer to understand, has only been successful in deploying the transplanted body flesh of females. This however is no great problem. When prepared for a male patient, the breasts are removed, the chest area sewn tidily, hair implanted where and if desired, and the vaginal slit fits snugly around the male genitals (clitoris and suchlike removed, of course - although...)
DIGESTION
A man wakes up (why is it always a man?) on the operating table. He is alone. The surgeons are still washing up, or have gone off to dinner, or have gone on another blitz strike, who knows. He is still doped up, feels rather well in fact, and slowly realises he is hungrier than ever before. Somewhat restrained, he grows uncomfortable, and has a series of awkward dreams. He is at his own sixth birthday party gobbling ginger-cake which he hates, he is at a business dinner with his fat boss and his boss's fat wife, he has been condemned to death for reasons unknown and is enjoying his last supper. His innards are open to the world, of that he becomes vaguely aware. And then he is aware that the surgeons have returned. He hears them gasp...
LITTLE UPDATE FOR HH
Helge der Hinterhofdichter said, Why do you just have boring e-mails on your diaries? You should write about the crazy people and events, like you used to, about the real shit!
He was in fact alluding to something specific. So here you go Helge, a quick update.
Since Christmas, first two months collecting trash thrown out of this "culture" house to exhibit as "Peter Edel, What's Left?" ("Was Bleibt?"), which sparked interest and sympathy and no great results; and other occasional exhibitions, including young Tacheles artists, and a growing interest in the Big Chairs thing. The art takes care of itself, as there's always enough of it to dollop around, and anyway the place looks fine without much on the walls, which after five months are now totally covered in the sketches of Cecile and I. In a word, the place looks great - innovative, freaky, unique. People love it here. Music-wise, have been concentrating on "experimental, industrial, improvised, noise" and all that. Not much rock'n'roll, which we hardly miss. The weird stuff fits the gallery better - experimental rackets within experimental walls. That's not a concrete rule of course, there are no concrete rules at Wallywoods (excluding my hatred of drunks and aggression). For instance, old Jacobites Dave Kusworth and Jeremy Thirlby played last night (April 25), and good old-fashioned fun it was too. If you don't count the guy who Marachowska brought, who shat on the stage between sets, and in his hand, to smear shit on his face and on people's beer bottles. Maria defended him. "He is great Russian performer. He is crazy like you!"
GOOGLE TRANSLATION
Am Samstag, den 20. Juli 2007, Wallywoods öffnete seine derzeitigen 300 Quadratmeter große Galerie Raum, in Weissensee's "Peter Edel Kultur-Haus" mit dem Start einer Ausstellung namens "10", einer Gruppe zeigen, an denen "10 Künstler aus 10 Ländern" - und ein denkwürdigen Nacht im Wert von musikalischen Darbietungen. Ein Jahr später, und wir sind glücklich - überrascht auch - noch hier zu sein (wenn der Tat sind wir immer noch!). Das Original "vorübergehenden Verwendung" Vertrag wurde für eine Dauer von sechs Monaten zu laufen, Ende Januar, nach diesem, sah es zweifelhaft, da wurde das Gebäude zu privatisieren, und alle Arten von Gerüchten vorgeschlagen hätten wir bewegen, wahrscheinlich im ersten Teil dieses Jahres. Doch unsere Vermieter, der örtlichen Bezirk Pankow, dann freundlicherweise angeboten Erneuerung des Vertrages, über den Zustand eines gegenseitigen vier Wochen geben-Kündigungsfrist. So, hier sind wir immer noch, in welcher ständig der Entwicklung als eines der am meisten gesprochen, einzigartige und unabhängige Ausstellung und Veranstaltungen Räume in Berlin. Zur Feier unserer ersten (und wahrscheinlich letzte) Jahr in Weissensee, ebenso wie die Gründung der neuen Wallywoods "Verein" (eingetragene Gesellschaft oder Vereinigung; Papierkram jetzt im Gange), die Ausstellung jetzt in der Planung ist mit der Bezeichnung "20" ( für den Zeitraum vom 19. Juli bis 9. August). Natürlich dann, "20 Künstler aus 20 Ländern" wird eingeladen, daran teilzunehmen, beginnend mit der 10 beteiligten im letzten Jahr zeigen, wenn sie finden sich in der Stadt. Unnötig zu sagen, belegbar exotischen Musiker und Performer finden sich auch eingeladen...
BERLIN BIG CHAIRS
In 1999, Woods painted the flattened geometrical image of a chair, the ninth of ten canvases in the series "Learning Games for Babies". It appeared to be constructed using a simple block system (seven blocks high, four wide; later standard dimensions) but the picture is deceptive and the object would prove tricky to build in reality. In this case, the "electric chair for toddlers" symbolised spiritual death at birth. However, as the artist became interested in the two, three and other dimensional possibilities of the ambiguous symbol he had accidentally devised, particular meaning fell away, and he began producing canvases, drawings, models and montages in a great many contexts and styles. In 2001 Woods bought his first modern computer, and over the following years manufactured numerous variations of the now named "Big Chairs" in conceptual-digital form, including hundreds of Big Chair posters, 'finished' versions of which illustrate either side of (this/front page) column. Emerging from years of depression Woods took a risk and, with little financial means, opened and developed the first Gallery Wallywoods in Kreuzberg. Since then he has organised, on his own initiative and without outside funding, over seventy exhibitions for other Berlin-based and international artists, embracing all media, subject matter and levels of professionality; as well as hundreds of music, literature and experimental arts events, at Wallywoods and other venues across Berlin. Two years 'underground' (i.e., mostly unadvertised) activity at the Kreuzberg gallery, was followed by a year or so as events-manager at the 'Art Pub' in Mitte (jointly opened by Thomas Heger and Wallywoods in 2006). Then, in 2007 arose the exciting opportunity to move into, on a temporary basis, a 300 square meter space at the 'Peter Edel House of Culture' in Berlin's otherwise culturally unexciting Weissensee.
Right now, officially, Gallery Wallywoods' term at Peter Edel has almost run out, in its wonderful, long-neglected rooms right on the park and lake; due to something called 'privatisation'. Unofficially, Wallywoods is in debate with the local authority, the private theatre school which will eventually take over, and various agencies and persons, with a mind to holding out in Weissensee for as long humanly possible. This now with principally one objective in mind: the BBC Project.
During these almost four years as curator and events organiser, Woods' own Big Chairs art has remained on the back-burner; notwithstanding sporadic small-scale BBC exhibitions presented at Wallywoods locations...
WAS IST GALERIE WALLYWOODS?
Na, das ist ein lange Geshichte - angefagen mit der erröffnung der original Galery Wallywoods in der Kopischstrasse in Kreuzberg, am 1 November 2004, mit den erste Ausstellung-event (von uber 300) und ein kleines Konzert gegeben von dem gestorbenen Nikki Sudden. Projektleiter und Kurator: Paul "Wally" Woods (geb. London, seit '92 in Berlin)
Und jetzt sind wir, seit July 2007, hier in der Kulturhaus Peter Edel, mit Terrasse direkt an diesem wonderschonen Park und See. Das ist immerhin ein Zwischungnutzungs arrangement mit Bezirksamt Pankow...
Galerie Wallywoods ist auch
Ein Verein in Grunden
Ein Treffpunkt für verschiedenste Kreative Menschen aller Herkunft - anders beschäftigte Menschen auch - wir glauben fest das "Jeder ist ein Kunstler!"
Eigenartig und schon, serious und locker, und (fast) professionel!
Eine Website...
Besuchen sie unsere aktuellen Program und reichlisches Archive bei...
Was bieten wir an?
Ein helles, kreatives angerichtet 300qm "Plattform" hier und jetzt in Weissensee fur Kiez, Berlin-gebased und internationale Künstler, Performer, Musiker, Schriftsteller, sowie Workshopleiter(innen) u.s.w. Ins besonderes ist den Ort sehr gut geiegnetet fur:
Kunst Ausstellungen
(z.b. Malerei, Plastic, Zeichnungen, Installationen, Foto, Konzeptuelles, Fashion, Architektoral, u.s.w.)
Kleinkonzerte
ins besonderes, experimental, ungewohnliches, visuelles, aber auch singer-songwriter, Bands verschiedene Art.
Lesungen
alle art, auch Performance-/Theateriche-lesungen
Workshops
Wenn es ihnen die Räume gefallen, dann alles möglisch, von Theater, Kunst-bastelstunden, Tanz, Kinderkram, Kunst-therapy, meditation, Puppentheater.. schlagen Sie etwas vor!
Probemöglischkeiten
(ehe für singer-songwriter, Theater, kleine Ensemble)
Private Feiern
Buchen Sie die gesamte Räume, oder ein Teil der Galerie, fur Ihren kulturelles Event oder Private Party...
Was brauchen wir?
Was braucht Weissensee? Wir glauben (gerade jetzt!) Kunst und Kultur alle art, von alle mögliche Ländern und Richtungen...
Den "Plattform" die der total Unabhängig und nicht offizielle unterstuzt Galerie anbietet ist nur möglich durch den Hilfe und Support von Gäste, Freunde und Kultur-interesierten (und dich!)...
Kunstler, Musiker, Performer...
Video-Beamer, sowie Filmemacher...
Materialen, sowie Wandfarbe...
ein grosser Fernseher
Vereins mitglieder, sowie Hilfe in richtung Sponsoring, Werbung...
Praktikanten(in)...
ein Klavier
und naturlich, ist jede Spende wilkommen...
SATZUNG DES WALLYWOODS e.V.
§ 1 Name, Sitz, Eintragung, Geschäftsjahr
(1) Der Verein trägt den Namen Wallywoods e.V.
(2) Er hat den Momentanen Sitz in Berlin-Pankow ( Stadteil Weißensee )
(3) Er soll in das Vereinsregister Pankow eingetragen werden.
(4) Geschäftsjahr ist das Kalenderjahr..
§ 2 Vereinszweck
Zweck des Vereins ist die Förderung und Pflege von Kunst und Kultur, ins besondere die organisation und Durchführung von Ausstellungen und anderer Kultureller Ereignisse, wie Lesungen und Konzerten die dem Verein zur Berreicherung des Vereinszwecks geeignet erscheinen. Desweiteren, die bereitstellung von geeigneten Orten, Räumen und Plattformen für jegliche Künstler im Bezirk Pankow, vorerst im Stadtteil Weißensee und stellen somit Nachhaltige öffentliche Kulturarbeit im Bezirk Weißensee sowie innerhalb der Gesamten Stadt dar. Momentane Sitz des Vereins ist das Kulturhaus Weißensee.
(2) Der Satzungszweck wird insbesondere verwirklicht durch den Verein selbst und angeschlossene Künstler, Performer, Musiker, Schriftsteller, Workshop Leiter(innen) u.s.w.
§ 3 Selbstlosigkeit/ Gemeinnützigkeit
(1) Der Verein ist selbstlos tätig, er verfolgt nicht in erster Linie eigenwirtschaftliche Zwecke.
Der Verein verfolgt ausschließlich und unmittelbar gemeinnützige Zwecke im Sinne des Abschnitts "Steuerbegünstigte Zwecke" der Abgabenordnung (§§ 51ff) in der jeweils gültigen Fassung
(2) Mittel des Vereins dürfen nur für die satzungsmäßigen Zwecke verwendet werden.
Die Mitglieder des Vereins dürfen in ihrer Eigenschaft als Mitglieder keine Zuwendungen aus Mitteln des Vereins erhalten.
(3) Die Mitglieder dürfen bei ihrem Ausscheiden oder bei Auflösung oder Aufhebung des Vereins keine Anteile des Vereinsvermögens erhalten.
(4) Es darf keine Person durch Ausgaben, die dem Zweck des Vereins fremd sind, oder durch unverhältnismäßig hohe Vergütungen begünstigt werden.
§ 4 Mitgliedschaft
(1) Mitglied des Vereins kann jede natürliche (und juristische) Person werden, die seine Ziele unterstützt.
(2) Über den Antrag auf Aufnahme in den Verein entscheidet der Vorstand.
(3) Die Mitgliedschaft endet durch Austritt, Ausschluss oder Tod.
(4) Der Austritt eines Mitgliedes ist nur zum ende eines Quartals Möglich. möglich. Er erfolgt durch schriftliche Erklärung gegenüber dem Vorsitzenden unter Einhaltung einer Frist von 4 Wochen
(5) Wenn ein Mitglied gegen die Ziele und Interessen des Vereins schwer verstoßen hat oder trotz Mahnung mit dem Beitrag für 3 Monate im Rückstand bleibt, so kann es durch den Vorstand mit sofortiger Wirkung ausgeschlossen werden.
Dem Mitglied muss vor der Beschlussfassung Gelegenheit zur Rechtfertigung bzw. Stellungnahme gegeben werden.
Gegen den Ausschließungsbeschluss kann innerhalb einer Frist von .4 Wochen nach Mitteilung des Ausschlusses Berufung eingelegt werden, über den die nächste Mitgliederversammlung entscheidet.
§ 5 Beiträge
Die Mitglieder zahlen Beiträge nach Maßgabe eines Beschlusses der Mitgliederversammlung. Zur Festlegung der Beitragshöhe und -fälligkeit ist eine einfache Mehrheit der in der Mitgliederversammlung anwesenden stimmberechtigten Vereinsmitglieder erforderlich.
Der für kulturelle Zweckssetzung des Vereins zu entrichtende Mitgliedsbeitrag; sollte Monatlich mindest 5 € betragen. Eine befristete Mitgliedschaft ist möglich.
Ein ausgeschiedenes Mitglied hat keinen anspruch auf das Vereinsvermögen. Geleiste Beiträger können nicht zuruck verlangt werden.
§ 6 Organe des Vereins
Organe des Vereins sind
a) der Vorstand
b) die Mitgliederversammlung
§ 7 Der Vorstand
(1) Der Vorstand besteht aus 3 Mitgliedern
Er vertritt den Verein gerichtlich und außergerichtlich. Je zwei Vorstandsmitglieder sind gemeinsam vertretungsberechtigt.
(2) Der Vorstand wird von der Mitgliederversammlung für die Dauer von 2 Jahren gewählt.
Die Wiederwahl der Vorstandsmitglieder ist möglich.
Der Vorsitzende wird von der Mitgliederversammlung in einem besonderen Wahlgang bestimmt. Die jeweils amtierenden Vorstandsmitglieder bleiben nach Ablauf ihrer Amtszeit im Amt, bis Nachfolger gewählt sind.
(3) Dem Vorstand obliegt die Führung der laufenden Geschäfte des Vereins. Er hat insbesondere folgende Aufgaben: Der Vorstand übt seine Tätigkeit ehrenamtlich aus. Der Vorstand kann für die Geschäfte der laufenden Verwaltung einen Geschäftsführer bestellen. Dieser ist berechtigt, an den Sitzungen des Vorstandes mit beratender Stimme teilzunehmen.
(4) Vorstandssitzungen finden jährlich mindestens 4 mal statt. Die Einladung zu Vorstandssitzungen erfolgt durch den Verein schriftlich unter Einhaltung einer Einladungsfrist von mindestens 7 Tagen. Vorstandssitzungen sind beschlussfähig, wenn...
(5) Der Vorstand fasst seine Beschlüsse mit einfacher Mehrheit.
(6) Beschlüsse des Vorstands können bei Eilbedürftigkeit auch schriftlich oder fernmündlich gefasst werden, wenn alle Vorstandsmitglieder ihre Zustimmung zu diesem Verfahren schriftlich oder fernmündlich erklären. Schriftlich oder fernmündlich gefasste Vorstandsbeschlüsse sind schriftlich niederzulegen und von zu unterzeichnen.
§ 8 Mitgliederversammlung
(1) Die Mitgliederversammlung ist einmal jährlich einzuberufen.
(2) Eine außerordentliche Mitgliederversammlung ist einzuberufen, wenn es das Vereinsinteresse erfordert oder wenn die Einberufung von 10% der Vereinsmitglieder schriftlich und unter Angabe des Zweckes und der Gründe verlangt wird.
(3) Die Einberufung der Mitgliederversammlung erfolgt schriftlich durch den Protokollführer unter Wahrung einer Einladungsfrist von mindestens 2 Wochen bei gleichzeitiger Bekanntgabe der Tagesordnung. Die Frist beginnt mit dem auf die Absendung des Einladungsschreibens folgenden Tag. Es gilt das Datum des Poststempels. Das Einladungsschreiben gilt dem Mitglied als zugegangen, wenn es an die letzte vom Mitglied des Vereins schriftlich bekannt gegebene Adresse gerichtet ist.
(4) Die Mitgliederversammlung als das oberste beschlussfassende Vereinsorgan ist grundsätzlich für alle Aufgaben zuständig, sofern bestimmte Aufgaben gemäß dieser Satzung nicht einem anderen Vereinsorgan übertragen wurden.
Ihr sind insbesondere die Jahresrechnung und der Jahresbericht zur Beschlussfassung über die Genehmigung und die Entlastung des Vorstandes schriftlich vorzulegen. Sie bestellt zwei Rechnungsprüfer, die weder dem Vorstand noch einem vom Vorstand berufenen Gremium angehören und auch nicht Angestellte des Vereins sein dürfen, um die Buchführung einschließlich Jahresabschluss zu prüfen und über das Ergebnis vor der Mitgliederversammlung zu berichten.
Die Mitgliederversammlung entscheidet z. B. auch über
a) Gebührenbefreiungen,
b) Aufgaben des Vereins,
c) An- und Verkauf sowie Belastung von Grundbesitz,
d) Beteiligung an Gesellschaften,
e) Aufnahme von Darlehen ab EUR...,
f) Genehmigung aller Geschäftsordnungen für den Vereinsbereich,
g) Mitgliedsbeiträge,
h) Satzungsänderungen,
i) Auflösung des Vereins.
(5) Jede satzungsmäßig einberufene Mitgliederversammlung wird als beschlussfähig anerkannt ohne Rücksicht auf die Zahl der erschienenen Vereinsmitglieder. Jedes Mitglied hat eine Stimme.
(6) Die Mitgliederversammlung fasst ihre Beschlüsse mit einfacher Mehrheit. Bei Stimmengleichheit gilt ein Antrag als abgelehnt.
§ 9 Satzungsänderung
(1) Für Satzungsänderungen ist eine 2/3-Mehrheit der erschienenen Vereinsmitglieder erforderlich. Über Satzungsänderungen kann in der Mitgliederversammlung nur abgestimmt werden, wenn auf diesen Tagesordnungspunkt bereits in der Einladung zur Mitgliederversammlung hingewiesen wurde und der Einladung sowohl der bisherige als auch der vorgesehene neue Satzungstext beigefügt worden waren.
(2) Satzungsänderungen, die von Aufsichts-, Gerichts- oder Finanzbehörden aus formalen Gründen verlangt werden, kann der Vorstand von sich aus vornehmen. Diese Satzungsänderungen müssen allen Vereinsmitgliedern alsbald schriftlich mitgeteilt werden.
§ 10 Beurkundung von Beschlüssen
Die in Vorstandssitzungen und in Mitgliederversammlungen erfassten Beschlüsse sind schriftlich niederzulegen und vom Vorstand zu unterzeichnen.
§ 11 Auflösung des Vereins und Vermögensbindung
(1) Für den Beschluss, den Verein aufzulösen, ist eine 3/4-Mehrheit der in der Mitgliederversammlung anwesenden Mitglieder erforderlich. Der Beschluss kann nur nach rechtzeitiger Ankündigung in der Einladung zur Mitgliederversammlung gefasst werden.
(2) Bei Auflösung des Vereins oder bei Wegfall der steuerbegünstigten Zwecke fällt das Vermögen des Vereins an Verein scherer8
(Bezeichnung einer juristischen Person des öffentlichen Rechts oder einer anderen steuerbegünstigten Körperschaft)
- der - die - das - es unmittelbar und ausschließlich für gemeinnützige, mildtätige oder kirchliche Zwecke zu verwenden hat,
alternativ
b) an eine juristische Person des öffentlichen Rechts oder eine andere steuerbegünstigte Körperschaft zwecks Verwendung für gemeinutzige tätichkeiten (Angabe eines bestimmten gemeinnützigen, mildtätigen oder kirchlichen Zwecks).
..........................................
(Ort) (Datum)
Vorsitzender, Stellverträter, Kassenwart...
WELL STUFF ALL THAT
And yet occasionally something appears through the fog, so nearly finished that it nearly makes up for all the rest. Like the gallery, how well it looks and almost functions now. If I make it to July 20 without starving (having left Cecile again) it will have been one year at Weissensee. Longer than any of us expected, and another excuse for a party. A big one. Followed I hope by a holiday. After that, I hardly care.
Here's an eerie picture of the front of the gallery in early May. Taken by Alexander, who spent four days photographing in black and white every square meter of wall space so far covered in chair and figure drawings. Then he took some general colour shots like this. It's the only one I've seen, since he dissappeared shortly afterwards(*). The wish is to produce a neat little catalogue for the one year anniversary and, if possible, find sponsorship to produce a few hundred. Another unfinished project then, as I never completed any book of the old gallery.
And here is something, also nearly finished, which I sent off last month for possible inclusion in the next Bordercrossing compilation:
LITTLE GIANT
"Once upon a time there lived a little giant called Little Giant..." (etc.)
(*Never saw Alexander again.)
February 25
RUSSIANS
"Dear friends,
You are warmly invited to a special 'secret' concert tomorrow given by two excellent sound-performance acts passing through Wallywoods from the Russian Federation:
Volga
(www.myspace.com/volgamusic)
and
Alexei Borisov
(www.myspace.com/alexeiborisov)
Hope to see you!
Wally."
February 23
AND FURTHER MORE
"Dear T.
E-mails are a very different way of communicating than face to face. They can corrupt time, energy and intent. On matters of importance, let us hope face to face is the English AND German way. Talk to you soon,
P."
"Hi P.
My last mail wasn't about tables but about Germans. I have just read a book "These Strange German Ways". I had the idea to say something about it. I already made an offer to separate art and material value. You give me unpainted tabletops of that kind and get back those painted by you. So I get only the material value of the wood refunded, and you can keep your art.
Greetings, T."
"T.
We are not talking about property. I never disputed the tables were yours. We are talking about original and important Big Chairs art - that is MY art. I painted the tables AFTER you bought them. Yet still, after that, you have treated them as if they are mere tables. They are not. Stop thinking around corners, you are wasting your time. I already told you, you will never see my point - not until you respect the feelings I have for my own art. Those feelings outshine all the mistakes and blunders and deep shit we went through at the Art Pub while I was there, with all my efforts, skill and passion, again and again blocked or cheapened by your decisions and actions as boss. Continue to see those as mere tables or property, then we have nothing more to discuss.
P."
"Hi P.
I guess, it really is some difference in culture. Germans are proud owners: They treat their property as part of their body. They don't like anyone to even touch it. They feel personally offended if things are destroid. Well thats the german way and I'm not free of that. So, in case you deal with germans, the respect for a person starts with the respect for its property. If you question ownership you will get immediat enemies. So don't do. That is quite different from the american way. I guess, the british are a bit in the middle. Same with burdens and worries. Germans like to help, but like to help and not to take over the burden. So if you got some trouble you may ask for help, as long as you take your burden as yours. Do never ever ask anybody to feel responsible for your problems. Germans like to help each other in a community. They define comunities as where help is provided- given and taken. If asked for help and don't do is like excluding oneself from a community. So, if you like to stay in friendship with the average german, than be polite, respect property, don't make your problems that of some else, offer help, stick to a community. If they like you, there might be a chance, they are interested in your art.
cu, T."
February 22
E-MAILS
"Dear Friends,
Wallywoods is proud to announce, playing live at the gallery this Saturday, the great London-Berlin band:
THE SAILPLANES
(www.myspace.com/thesailplanes)
supported by
OHMNOISE
(www.myspace.com/ohmnoise)
and
UGLY ONE + ugly guests..."
"Hallo Paul,
So, the exhibition must take place in 2008. I must have an invitation card, something to show that it was done, some response from the local newspapers. I don't know yet how much money I can get from the Ministry, but if I start I must do it well. I'm interested in interesting people, an opening party etc. What is happening with your space? And, otherwise - yes, it would be ok if you could look around. I like the combination with the OK gallery and strange places. I already exhibited in prisons, castles, undergrounds, trains, public shelters etc. Ok, I'm waiting for your suggestions. Bye,
Goran, Ljubljana."
"Hey Paul
Alan only bought the three tables with marble tops and no paintings on them. I do not know what happened to the other tables, good luck with your search for them.
Talk to you later,
Kim."
February 21
E-MAILS
"Ok T.
But please don't sell or give away any more tables before we talk about it. Thankyou.
P."
"Sorry P.
This is a different story and im willing to talk about. BUT: the WIP threatened me with the "little man with the briefcase" and it would have cost me an other (x)000 Euros if I had not handed over the keys by yesterday 2pm. So I had to close my eyes and mind and shuffle around five truckloads of shit (that allmost broke my spine). It was of extreme narrow time limits and I was not able at all to care about your feelings. First was for me to put everything in some storage of whatever kind. Now I have some time to breathe and to make future plans. Where stuff is stored it can be taken out. It is not easy, but possible. In the last days my plan was to sell as much as possible, because it's way easier to carry money than tables.
T."
"T.
You now talk about laws (yes, very German!) You see, you just don't get it. First I wait all afternoon and most of the night, and you can't even make one quick call to say you are not coming, which is rude and yes, un-English (same as with problems at the Pub; you avoided all possible communication, getting you often into a bigger mess). Then you phone the next day, and I understood we will meet here at 4pm. By that time you are already gone (the stuff outside) and there are only chairs (no bar either, as was clearly agreed - though I don't care about the fucking bar). Why didn't you say on the phone you would come earlier? It felt like you were avoiding me purposefully. I wanted to talk to you about a business chance here, quickly and easily to make a Cafe ("Kaffe Kuchen & Kunst") and a little bit of money, before I too am thrown out. But without those tables the plan at the moment does not work. I just don't have enough of the same kind of table (all our different 'odd' furniture is too wierd for normal people). They were perfect, and there was a beautiful, simple, logical chance - gone. It is, as much as anything, the WAY you do things. You promise or agree to do one thing, then you change your mind, so easily and so often, as if nothing really matters at all. In this case, it brought back those feelings of extreme frustration from my time at the Pub, so many maddening times when you worked as much against me as with me. I thought I had gotten over that (though never forgotten), but it seems I haven't. As for you got paid for decoration, well, that leaves me speechless.
P."
"Hi P.
I'm still extremly tired, not as extreme as before, but still too much. I have thought about this issue again and about my own opinion. Maybe the difference is due to the fact that I am German and you are British. German laws are a bit different from Anglo-saxon. We have i.e. the distinction between ownership and the right to posess (to use it, to get the hands on). The right of artist is called Urheberrecht, what is quite different than copyright. The german law grants the artist an unsellable right of authorship, protecting against unothorised copying. The owner has the right to own, that includes the right to decide who is allowed to posess an item. In conflict of ownership and authorship the ownership is usually stronger. So if you want to own a piece of art you should buy a cardboard first. On the other hand I do not want to get across with you on this issue or enrich myself on your art, so I want to make you an offer. If you give me tabletops of same specification you can have those painted by you in return.
cu, T."
"T.
"I actually had no eye for these kinds of problems" you say. That is exactly it T. You don't see, do you? The most difficult thing concerning connection to the Art Pub over these 17 months was witnessing, again and again, the way you treated the artists, the musicians, and their works; even to the point of humiliating them. Again and again. Often, even the audience was embarrassed, again and again and again. But you never saw it, and I gave up trying to explain this fundamental blindness in your character, and other things you don't see, because my words never changed your attitude or actions. That is why Wallywoods left your Pub. Once more: as an artist, gallerist, and co-founder of Art Pub, those table-tops are of importance to me. Of course you don't see it. You will never understand what I am talking about.
P."
"Dear P.
Whats going on with you? You might have noticed that I just recently lost all my posessions and the fruit of 18 months hard labour. I had to put the remains wherever I found some space. Most of the stuff was sold for cheap, destroyed or thrown away. But it was not my choice. I could not resist the bitter facts. Now you demand those tables because you have painted on them, in demanding or even threatening manner. What's that??? I actually had no eye for these kinds of problems. There were too many others and there still are. Sorry but I will not be able to figure out the proper soloution. I need some days off. After that, let me think about this subject. Now I have no idea who owns what. I do own those tables - you might have some rights on the drawings. As far as I remember, you got paid for decoration. Doesn't that cover tabletops?
cu, T."
"T.
I believe it was totally ignorant of you to dispose of those tables without consulting me. Dont forget, I made them into art-pieces AFTER you bought them - making them part of the Big Chairs project - therefore changing completely their meaning, worth and future-worth. As a conceptual artist, I have made very few pieces of 'real' art that I can refer to in any way. I trusted the tables were safe at the Pub, and they were. I trusted and expected you to bring them here for a while (it was your idea and I agreed) and then you show no regard for my art, for my time, for me, or for our friendship. Of all the let downs, even pain, I had to suffer through your incompetent pub venture, and there were many let downs, not least your intent at the beginning to make me a 50 per-cent partner which came to nothing; this is the last ignorant insult you pay me for all my earlier input. By the way, the one table you brought here, has YOUR drawings on it, which means it is the one people didn't want. They only wanted mine, yes? I don't know if we can be friends again T. Either way, I don't accept your disposal "around town" of my art-objects, something I would never do without permission of any artist, let alone a 'friend'.
ps. I wish to bring together, for a while at least here at the gallery, all the tables painted by me. Firstly, I've written to Stefi and Another Country, asking if I can have any such tables, or buy them, borrow them, or exchange them with something here at the gallery. Secondly, I would be grateful if you would help me in bringing the remaining collection together again. I know you are tired; if transport is a problem, I will arrange it. I just need to know where they are. This can all happen quickly and easily - problem solved. However, if you don't reverse your attitude of ignorance in this respect, it could be long and painful.
Either way, they are MY WORKS OF ART.
P."
"Hi Christoph
Thanks for your mail and encouraging words - and thanks for the night, it was super (too few people, yes, but super.) Sure you can have another evening here, that would be great. Whatever you suggest. I just don't know at all if I will still be here in April! What I can do for now, is offer Sat 22 March? Please let me know first if that is any good for you..?
Bis bald, Wally."
"Hello Wally
First I would like to thank you for the opportunity to play at your gallery. I think it was a good concert, even though there could have been a bit more audience, we liked to play and choose up people. May be you would like to make another concert with this kind of music. I can offer you an evening with a friend of mine, Jürg Bariletti (maybe you know him from stralau68, he managed it), playing his self-built klangkoffer, and the duo .adol. .adol is a duo with Marc, the guitarrist of Tomorrow Collective and me, playing more compositions in a new musik style mixed with improvisations. You can listen to it at www.myspace.com/adolberlin. Please let me know what do you think, then we can talk about a concert in April(?)
Best greetings, Christoph."
"Hi P.
My stuff is now distributed all over town. Some was sold and a lot is given away. There was some need to hury, because there was not enough time to sort things properly. Some tables are at the bookstore, some are sold near the bar, one was a present to Steffi Angst, one is here in my appartment and some are in a cellar, one is at your place, borrowed for some time. But if you insist, I can pick my stuff up shortly. But please Paul, I need at least a week of rest now. I guess that two or three of your felt-pen drawings still exist. I'm not sure what to do about that. It's bit heavy and space-consuming for a piece of art. Maybe I scratch that off, maybe not. It is unreacheble anyhow because they are behind a big pile of junk that I have to sort and care for. This could take a very long time.
cu, T."
"Hi T.
You might as well come and pick everything up, as loads of chairs and no tables is no use. I thought you would bring both - that seemed to make sense. About the other tables. As the artist, I would like to know what happens to them: where they are now, and if/when you sell them, who gets them. I think you will agree, that is my right. I seriously don't like the way you do things.
ps. They belong to you of course, but as far as I can see the tables should be here, where Wallywoods can make good temporary use of them - NOT in any Keller, and NOT with that asshole Wieland. In fact, if they are at Wieland's place, I will consider taking court action to get them away from him. Where are they?
P."
"Hi P.
They switched my phone back on today. But what's up? I'm a bit tired after all this moving, lifting, cleaning... But at the end it all worked fine. I put some furniture to your place for some time. Hope that is ok.
cu, T.
"Hallo Tim
Anytime after 7pm will be fine for soundcheck. I've come up with 2 surprise acts to plump out the night (aha!), both noisy/experimental/improvised. Ohmnoise (www.myspace.com/ohmnoise) is Markus Schwill's apocalyptic shock therapy, in short sharp bursts. Farfisaman is fun-seeker Ken from The Ugly Americans (www.myspace.com/uglyamericans) - funk-punk with add-lib vocals from various nutty women in the audience. Can play earlier and/or later, doesn't matter - both acts informal, no stress (just loud). Our 'PA' system is minimal - couple of monitors, one small amp, small mixer...
Paul."
February 20
E-MAILS
"Hallo T.
Your number doesn't work. Please can you call me right away. Right now please!
Thankyou, P."
"Dear Wally
Was at bookshop tonight. Heard you did many terrible things. Spit beer in face of Rashidi... bad Wally. Checked wallywoods.com. You want the Uglies this Saturday to support band?
Ugly One."
January 11
POLITICS
Hi Dad,
To expand a bit on the situation I touched upon in my last mail, here's a message I just sent to H., to pass on to her sympathetic friend in the Green Party:
Last night, Thursday, the Vorderverein held a meeting upstairs. Agenda: to discuss whether to 'dissolve' themselves, or continue as best they can. The chairman, nice old Herr Görner, announced he is stepping down. He is depressed, tired, busy with his wife who has MS, and feels he cannot push through any of the organisation's wishes. However, the rest of the group (very few attended this milestone meeting), decided to stick with it, for now at least.
Afterwards four of them, all good people, came down for a drink and a long chat. They like the gallery, and seem to regard my opinion with increasing respect. Certain things became clear:
1. They are ALL unhappy with the situation, and see it (until our talk last night, I hope!) as hopeless. General opinion: politics is killing culture in the borough of Weissensee, but no-one can do anything about it.
2. The chairman gone, his temporary replacement is Dr so-and-so, a gentle man, who believes in diplomacy and communication with the Theatre School; even though they AVOID CONTACT as much as possible with them, as the avoid contact with our gallery. They simply want the building and don't care about any of the cultural projects based here, which for them are a pain in the arse and are not seriously addressed in their master-plan.
3. The Theatre School AND the Bezirksamt (local authority) are showing NO-ONE the school's concept, or giving out any details except the bare minimum.
4. When I pushed them (they must be pushed) to tell me what they REALLY think, off the record, more than one last night used the word SCANDAL. A small example: U. was angry to learn that the Kulturhaus is throwing away tons of stuff, which we find every day in the Mullhoff, including historic signs and posters from the eighties through the early nineties. They also say that the Bezirksamt has invited the school to simply take/keep what furniture and other effects they like from the building, and get rid of other stuff as and how they wish.
5. The local people, and Berlin in general, may know that the Kulturhaus will be "changing hands", through occasional small articles in the papers - but none of these articles tell the wider story. Weissensee's inhabitants, who are only partially interested in any of this, seem to believe that whatever happens they will at least be able to keep their precious concert-hall. THIS IS NOT NECESSARILY SO.
So, after listening to this and more besides, I asked them what their plan of action is. But they are part-time, unpaid volunteers. As said, they believe they have no power. I told them, THIS IS ALSO NOT TRUE. They are the only ones, right now, with the influence to begin to change the course of things. Their answer at first was (of course), "na ja, we will wait and see..."
I then told them what I think.
The Vorderverein must call a press meeting as soon as possible (I suggested Monday after next, in the concert-hall - in any case it should take place before the end of this month, when the School may well be signing the papers, which they have not yet done!). Call it something like "Peter Edel - how does the future look?" They/we must invite EVERYONE with an interest, including all involved parties:
The Verein and all its hundreds of members, who seem lazy, or uninterested (so far).
Kulturamt Pankow, i.e. Frau Juresko.
Bezirksamt Pankow.
The Theatre School.
The Weissensee Art School.
Leersandsinitiative Weissensee (though it is currently no longer funded or functioning!)
Brotfabrik, and other local culture projects, including Experiment City.
Political parties / the Burgermeister, Herr Nelken, Herr Thierse, etc.
The general public! After the conference: open questions / free debate.
Very important: Journalists, radio, tv...!!!
They think it's a very good idea. But (of course) they said, "na ja, but they probably won't give us the concert-hall." I said, they MUST give you the concert-hall! If they don't, it's part of the cover-up; in which case simply document the reason they give, and hold the bloody press conference on the street in front of the Kulturhaus!
Those are the main points I remember for now. Will be in touch as I learn more.