Travel log. A word, an action, a token

Julia Schiefer is reporting on the OMNIBUS Reading Tour – without actually partaking personally, of course! A blog somewhere between fiction and reality: she will be taking us on her own Hop-On Hop-Off bus tour with real insights instead of the usual sightseeing! Her excursions – open to all – are designed for everyday life (but mostly out of range). If you look to your left, you may see a dog chewing on a skirt; to your right, a scooter transporting a bucket of water as a chariot carries a peacock off to a jolly good show…

Strolling down many roads from Greater Europe to even the smallest and hidden allies – it is fractal geometry built from pulsating channels that you can follow on the dotted lines on web. After having a reading/performance in the independently run Gängeviertel…

and in the official Literaturhaus in Hamburg. They were heading towards Kiel yesterday to take the city by storm. In 1554, Kiel was excluded from the Hanseatic League for the first time because they were allegedly hosting pirates. “In some of my poems the author is turned into the salesman. In one poem, “NATO”, I am selling weapons, missiles and aircraft, and I also tell what to do with the arsenal.” Point well made, Jyrki K. Ihalainen.

The crowds were rather at a loss as to what was happening. Some joined in like they would join a supermarket queue out of curiosity; others thought that the idea might actually be quite good: ta(l)king a walk. Some stayed standing, as the parade passed, watching the crusade pass by, wondering… And the action was just to speak, to delve into words, to evoke the surrounding public space and then negate and renegotiate its territorial border. There we are in Kiel, rallying the streets. Some say that you hear a crisp click when walking down the line. Some may take their arms as their legs, and fall head over heels over to an experience quite like jogging over the hot roof tin.

Behind his ear appears an extreme – over and over again. It doesn’t hurt. But from time to time it complains about being too less on the side, especially when everyone is sleeping. When it gets unbearable, he goes to the doctor. “The light breaks through rafters, racing down the stairs and passing old torn maps, he says, all traces of inhabitants of old times. We are drawing consequences from lived lives just to make new mistakes, hoping to forget. We summon names from darkened niches. When I am hungry I never eat, when I am thirsty I never drink.” The doctor knows he is lying, all the signs make that clear as dust, but the doctor plays his pokerface. “If he is capable of understatement, I can rest assured he has a few years ahead of him as well .”

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