P.S.

Referring to Blumfeld:

Februrary 9, 1915: "Just now read the beginning. It is ugly and gives me a headache. In spite of all its truth it is wicked, pedantic, mechanical, a fish barely breathing on a sandbank." - Kafka.

Well, fuck that.

Hey, Thanks

I had a lot of fun. I learned a lot. I got a lot of bruises. It was a good time.

thanks.

(the end.)

B is for Blumfeld, who was killed by falling balls.

This video is incredible. Also, could we get their leftovers? I think they had 300,000.

Watch for the frog at 1:40. And, all balls stop bouncing at some point.

On a mind bending side note, apparantly the image below is the image used to represent the balls on the endpages of the fancy shmancy edition of Blumfeld.

In the article reviewing the story, they said this at the end:

"What is most striking, for those expecting from Kafka a sense of isolation and confusion, is that ‘Blumfeld’ is not only lucid but very funny. Blumfeld’s recurring thoughts on getting a dog are funnier each time the subject comes up, and there is a delicious understated wit in lines like, 'If one looks at the whole thing with an unprejudiced eye, the balls behave modestly enough.'

"However there is isolation here too, and the balls reflect Blumfeld’s fractured relations with others, as is made clearer in the second section of the story. Here, having apparently solved the problem of the balls, he goes to his place of work, where he is saddled with a couple of assistants, who hound and trouble him, but are deemed necessary to him, and from whom he cannot escape."

I kind of think we captured everything that he talks about... and I find that really awesome, since I'm not sure if I really understood these things when I first read the story.

Also, saying the word awesome just now just made me think of our very first meeting, when I had no idea what we were getting into, but we used the word awesome a lot.

P.S. I am disappointed in both of you, since you have both promised me epic posts and failed to deliver. But this is an epic post. So watch the video and be amazed.

this is quite the day for me!

Thought i'd post the original pictures that I brought in that early rehearasal.Plus I remembered that I haven't yet posted any factory pictures! I found some great ones. If you (Dakota and John?) can post the pictures from that first day as well, that would be awesome! I'd like to use them. I think in particular there was one really good one of an apartment.

Just to make sure you're reading, and to make you comment!

What are the songs that we are using in the scene? Are they all Billie Holiday? Can you possibly post the tracks here? Is that possible?

So... I'm not in theater history anymore, because it's DONE for the semester, but I'm still procrastinating...

Some images of Prague around the 1920s/30s. Can't you see Blumfeld spending hours just sitting alone in that movie theater on the left in the first picture? I imagine that's how he spent some of his younger years. Now he doesn't even do that... I like the apartment image as well. I imagine Blumfeld's being this, but slightly less fancy and less colorful. Although I don't mind the blue walls all too much and the neatness and precision of the room is perfect. For the last one, maybe a view from his window? (oops, that means that's his suicide view. an interesting idea...)

So... I'm in theater history....

Interestingly enough, Kafka worked as a young man in an asbestos factory. And then he died, primarily of tuberculosis. Though asbestos usually can be harmful to the lungs, which is typically where TB starts, there doesn't seem to be a connection between the two. However, depending on what kind of linen factory B. works at, he could have some kind of lung thing after years of working there. Could we potentially give him a cough or a wheeze or something that might serve to emphasize his elderliness (apparently that's not a word.... oh well) as well as, to anyone who is really paying attention, some other connection to Kafka.

Also, Kafka was essentially afraid of sex, but in a weird way in that he would have purely sexual relationships with women (but maybe they weren't actually having sex... I'm confused on this point). But the main point is is that he broke off a number of engagements and long term relationships because he was afraid of the coital part of marriage. Again, if we're equating Blumfeld to Kafka, which I think is an interesting idea (Blumfeld as what Kafka was afraid he could become?), Blumfeld could have this history of being with a lot of women, none of whom he's had the guts to marry. Which is potentially even more lonely that him just being alone his entire life.

Now, three interesting (to me) images. The first two are cute little girls in berets, just to prove that cute little girls wear them and look cute. The third, well, that's obvious, and I think we're more awesome....

since when did this become my friday night?

“A first sign of the beginning of understanding is the wish to die.” - Kafka

Children

Apartment

I actually searched Blumfeld's balls to see if anyone else had had some sort of vision in the past about what these balls would look for. This was one of the images that came up. I'm not really sure why, but I love it.

Dog stuff...

So my friend is reading Ulysses for a class and she was describing to me this one part (I've never read it) that was about the main character imagining this dog. Of course, it's in Joyce's language, but it immediately caught my attention and I wanted to share this passage. Very interesting...

A bloated carcass of a dog lay lolled on bladderwrack....

A point, live dog, grew into sight running across the sweep of sand. Lord, is he going to attack me? Respect his liberty. You will not be the master of others or their slave. I have my stick. Sit tight. From farther away, walking shoreward across from the crested tide, firgures, two. The two maries. They have it tucked safe mong the bulrushes. Peekaboo. I see you. No, the dog. He is running back to them. Who?
...

The dog's bark ran towards him, stoppped, ran back. Dog of my enemy. I just simply stood pale, silent, bayed about. Terribla meditans. A primrose doublet, fortune's knafe, smiled on my fear. For that are you pining, the bark of their applause? ... Their dog ambled about a bank of dwindling sand, trotting, sniffing on all sides. Looking for something lost in a past life. Suddenly he made off like a bounding hare, ears flung back, chasing the shadow of a lowskimming gull. The man's shrieked whistle struck his limp ears. He turned, bounded back, came nearer, trotted on twinkling shanks. On a field tenney a buck, trippant, proper, unatired. At the lacefringe of the tide he halted with stiff forehoofs, seawardpointed ears. His snout lifted barked at the wavenoise, herds of seamorse. They serpented twoards his feet, curling, unfurling many crests, every ninth, breaking, plashing, from far, from farther out, waves and waves.

Cocklepickers. They waded a little way in the water and, stooping, soused their bags and, lifting them again, waded out. The dog yelped running to them, reared up and pawed them, dropping on all fours, again reared up at them with mute bearish fawning. Unheeded he kept by them as they came towards the drier sand, a rag of wolf's tongue redpanting from his jaws. His specked body ambled ahead of them and then loped off at a claf's gallop. The carcass lay on his path. He stopped, sniffed, stalked round it, brother, nosing closer, went round it, sniffling rapidly like a dog all over the dead dog's bedraggled fell. Dogskull, dogsniff, eyes on the ground, moves to one great goal. Ah, poor dogsbody! Here lies poor dogsbody's body.

-Tatters! Out of that, you mongrel!
The cry brough him skulking back to his master and a blunt bootless kick sent him unscathed across a spit of snad, crouched in flight. He slunk back in a curve. Doesn't see me. Along by the edge of the mole he lolloped, dawdled, smelt a rock. And from under a cocked hindleg pissed against it. He trotted forward and, lifting again his hindleg, pissed quick short at an unsmelt rock. The simple pleasures of the poor. His hindpaws then scattered the sand: then his forepaws dabbled and delved. Something he buried there, his grandbother. He rooted in the sand, dabbling, delving and stopped to listen to the air, scraped up the sand again witha fury of his claws, soon ceasing, a pard, a panther, got in spousebreach, vulturing the dead.

Ping Pong

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dcmDscwEcI

watch it. just a really cool idea for controlling some balls, you know... not necessarily possible, but just to have something to think about.

Random searches

Blumfeld (German pronunciation: [ˈbluːmfɛlt]) was an indie-pop band from Hamburg, Germany, which arose from the bands "Arm", "Laut" and "Der schwarze Kanal". The name of the band was coined by the main character of the short story "Blumfeld, ein älterer Junggeselle" by Franz Kafka. Blumfeld are counted among the most significant representatives of the Hamburger Schule (School of Hamburg) and are considered to be one of the most successful combos of the German indie scene.

Blumfeld's music is characterized by a distinctive dispute of human life in the context of modern consumer society. Fears, depressions, uncertainty, lack of orientation and love as main motive are the most important items, which are made a subject of discussion. The mainly melancholic music is seen as having a pessimistic tone.

I think this is really interesting, especially the second paragraph. I like espcially the idea of "lack of orientation" and "dispute of human life in the context of modern consumer society." It sounds pretty pretentious, and also a lot like Kafka.

Also, I looked up charwoman. I was unsure if it had any other meaning other than just a woman who is hired to clean. It is that, except it's usually in a large building (which makes sense), but I also found some really nice pictures:

Hey guys! This is out blog!

Here's a picture to start us off...