YOU LOOK GREAT - BERLIN

A city defining itself about caring less? Berlin. Sitting on the rooftop terrace of my hotel I reviewed this past weekend in the city – which apparently accepts everyone – and came to even this conclusion. Berlin symbolizes the full range from Chanel to Kebab. Especially during Fashion Week this city gains a special sort of glamour it misses the rest of the year, nevertheless the desired laisser-faire seems forced. People need absolutely to fit the lifestyle the city imposes without reconsidering their perspectives. Everyone looks great in their special understanding of fashion anyhow I gained the feeling the city gets exploited from the rest of the nation. Two times a year the media-film-important-en-vogue-crowd overruns the hottest locations in town, celebrating an art-short-movie or the newest collection of an average talented designer before leaving behind the sleeping beauty, sucked by dry.

Back to Munich I attended one of the last performances of this years opera season. Watching Violetta Valéry die I began to understand the story of Berlin – La Traviata, the one who lost her way. Loved by the right, sabotaged by the wrong while never forgetting to party hard, in the end perishing of tuberculosis – a rather disillusioning goodbye.

So what is it about this nonchalance in life we all may appreciate about the atmosphere a city like Berlin is able to give? A whatever place to feel free? Actually I have to admit that is quite easy passing the days never thinking what may happen tomorrow. We may believe it doesn’t matter in any case – carpe diem in a modern understanding? But is it really a form of making the best of the day living the moment or do we simply appreciate the freedom of thoughtlessness? Somehow a reaction on the overload we are confronted with every single day. It might seem easier letting everything behind but was Violetta right singing the famous words of being free forever? Is a friendship with a moment at least more than a love-story with our life, while forgetting in our immense compulsion to be free that maybe the evanescent delight shouldn’t be a regular on our daily party? Maybe our bright entity permits only this certain kind of friendship because love somehow hinders a free spirit by regulating the own structures of being. What is it about my troubled soul, that nothing ever was able to set you in flame? What joy should it be to love and be loved and why do I reject it? For this life of pointless enjoyment? So Violetta’s words at the end of the first act.

At last we all should thank Berlin for being the free city we all escape to, if the rules of life restrict us that much. Being the way it is without thinking what others may hold us from. Sempre libera – free and aimless turning to the new delights, that make the spirits soar. La Traviata in a very unconventional understanding. Maybe we all should stay Berlin for a night – living the spirit just for a moment simply looking great.

Cheers

Lorax

CLASSY GOODBYE

A tribute

Lexi Featherston was one of the most thrilling characters of Sex And The City’s season 6. Memorable how she fell out of the window of one of New York’s exclusive penthouses seating her last hope to live in a brown silk curtain. Party girls are one of those really special types of a person. Always in search for the next hype or rush they seem to dismiss the world they live in. A 25 year old might be all right with living the party as she is still a girl and it effectively doesn’t matter how drunk or filled with coke she might be because her juvenility still helps her to hold the balance on her Manolos. But what happens 15 years later? Will she die like Lexi with the words You all bore me to death! on her lips? Nevertheless one out of a whole range of possibilities isn’t it? Otherwise she will make Betty Ford a lot richer by passing through her 5^th deprivation always persuaded she is wealthy enough to afford it.

Party girls are the shining stars of every Saturday night. Loved and hated they fill it doesn’t matter which hot spot with this certain kind of atmosphere, as everybody wants to get or stay in touch. Of course haters are going to hate, at least for the complete inappropriate outfit, but for my very own understanding this is whence this kind of woman takes her elixir of life out. They normally aren’t that attractive. They shout out to others trying to get their own lives in an ordered way always being behind making something out of them – somehow a kind of beauty. Nevertheless the time flies. While we had the time of our lives yesterday and sometimes try to continue starting into being a grown up these women seem to be bound to their glory days settled in the past, forgetting the present.

Having my last drink on Saturday night I sat down and watched the party people freaking out. I asked myself why the party girl never gets bored of an overfilled and overheated space like the most nightclubs are and what she hopes to find in a shabby location? What if she joins all those memorable stars in the 27 Club? Partying at least her last goodbye in a classy way and leaving the event for the very first time in her entire existence early? Will she even ever have been able to examine if the time was enough or will she somehow regret by saying there would have been enough time for a change? I wonder if she actually will achieve all she ever dreamed for from partying? I mean all talents she might have got, wasted drunk on a dirty floor running after a poshed up lifestyle, surrounding herself with more or less famous people – is it worth the while? Maybe yes. It helps not looking back. Life isn’t the party we were looking for, that’s what every Party girl somehow has to learn. However what our nocturnal excessive partiers have ahead of us is the ability to dance it doesn’t matter what they get, always prepared to every change of rhythm.

Cheers

Lorax

IT'S UP TO YOU - NEW YORK

The island of Manhattan is a strange place. Totally crowded with millions of people it conveys the feeling of being welcome and home even if you haven’t been there for years. It may be the phenomenon of skyscrapers limiting the space – though you are in between the diversity of the human race a glance up to the sky suffices to feel total loneliness and nevertheless a kind of safety. Yes, it is definitely the skyscrapers, but what do we actually define as our homes and how can we express what it means to ourselves? Is a home where your family is, are your friends you might can find everywhere in the world the better family and are homes as a consequence therefore replaceable? Somebody one day said home is where your heart is – seems easy, effectively quite hard. Maybe this quote should be taken more literal than emotional. As our hearts are inside ourselves – not in all but at least in most cases – we carry our homes along every day it doesn’t matter in which place on our planet we are located for a while by furnishing it with memories we caught up since our ability to remember killed our childhood innocence. So why can a city like New York impact our feeling of home? It’s like coming back to your small hometown, having the impression nothing will ever change while the time stands still. Of course you can discover new adventures at any time but basically the structures last. People – fashion – the subway. You are used to it, that’s why it’s common and might be replaceable much more easily than you could ever have imagined. At the end we are able to replace everything from a broken plate to a friend if we actually just want to, so why are we often afraid of doing the same way with our homes? Human’s nature of convenience? I believe things would go like they did with Rupert Everett and his VIP dressing room he was so proud about getting after his first big success at one of London’s West End theaters. We are flying high. Five minutes. After that it makes us sick.

Every time I breathe the wasted air of New York City it is the bespoke feeling that comes over. What is a home? Can we accept a certain place as the one giving us the safety we need no matter what happens or is it our actual living style we need to get into somewhat deeper in order to establish nearness around us? I am afraid we often avoid the idea of loving the things we actually got in order not to run the risk that someday that something might be gone. In some points Frank Sinatra might end up to be right by singing It’s up to you! Doubtful if he meant the city or his very self. No matter where we will make it or want our vagabond shoes to stray – sometimes home is just a feeling.

Cheers

Lorax

SUN, SEA & SUNGLASSES

There seem to be a few fixed dates during the year in which the whole world wants to board the next flight to the very same destination. The highly fashionable island Sylt in the middle of the German northern sea is the hotspot of more or less every socialite during the Pentecost holidays, turning to a certain kind of Disney World for adults for a weekend only. The funny thing about this scattershot get together is that nearly everything takes places on an area of roundabout 5 km², compared to the most central areas of it doesn’t matter which city the groundwork for coincidences. Coincidences – are they real or again a consequence of decisions we take? It is weekends like the bespoke, which let me muse about how it is even possible to hit exactly the folks we would or even not would like to see more than once within 48 hours. Is it really that difficult to avoid the one who broke your heart or your archenemy among beach parties, dinner invitations and clubbing? Obviously it is, so maybe this might be the reason why everybody on the island wears sunglasses in the dark.

I guess coincidences are those strange things between science and fate we have to accept for ourselves as those, we can’t control anymore, like the rough sea, we actually cant swim in. I mean what would sometimes have happened, if we chose in an instant to go the complete opposite direction. Would we have met someone special earlier and what are coincidences meant to be for our road of life? Are they actually comparable to destiny or might this be a something too spiritual view for deciding a path to be gone or not? Maybe it is even the point in which we have to stop worrying about the what-ifs and the should-haves in order to stay clear in mind. Nevertheless it confuses me, how it might be possible to meet someone perfectly unknown in front of a night club, the next day at the same restaurant for breakfast, afterwards at the same house party and to top it all on the same plane back home. I mean, OK. Space is limited – but suchlike? Where do coincidence and destiny meet and are those simple constructs siblings in mind or distant relatives?

While I was resting a bit at the beach from a running and rather excessive party the whole collective looked forward to on Sunday afternoon, I couldn’t resist of thinking about coincidences over and again. Basically they seem to be nothing but a consequence of choices and choices are and will stay the frame of showing, which person we really are far more than our abilities ever will. Do we have a choice? I often had those moments in life asking myself what would have happened if I chose in a situation differently before? Surely I wouldn’t be settled in life where I find myself now but maybe I would have done the one or the other more exotic and freaky thing. Moving to Berlin for my studies was one of them for example. Obviously it is better doing something than doing nothing. Being stuck is even worse than getting the wrong direction, even if I maintain the point of view that a wrong could not be possible in life-choices. Everything might be for some reason and even if we cannot realize it for the very moment, I can’t leave the feeling that sometimes I could have done better for my very own. I am and will still reach for something greater, better, more fashionable, and waiting maybe for a further moving by accident enabling it.

Maybe it is again an issue of sunglasses – by taking them off we might find the coincidences we were meant for somehow easier by clearing our visibility, but why should we take them off, when we could find our sunshine somewhere else?

Cheers

Lorax

THE STORYTELLER

He lives the story – not his life. This might be the résumé of two hilarious and rather inspiring hours in the sun together with one of my most heartily friends, somewhere in the museums quarter on a creepy Sunday afternoon. Why I came to even this issue about telling stories, depends on a guy the both of us were talking about. A guy who might have perfected the way of living the life as a beloved or maybe even dreamed story he built around his very self. I admit that I don’t know him that well on a personal level, but in every of our always occasional getting together he symbolizes, and not only to me the belonging to another time of the 20^th century. It’s primarily about his style but all above about his eloquence bringing you to the idea this man has boarded a time machine some when in the golden twenties and has left all those great intellectuals and artists, from Ernest Hemingway to Salvador Dalí simply to get faced to an epoch his soul seems lost in. Last time I saw him, he was passing by on his bicycle, vintage of course, with a pair of gorgeous cognac-colored-calf-leather brogues, shoelaces in red and his steady companion, a tweed jacket – the accomplished Francis Scott Fitzgerald look. I often wonder if he ever gets connected to our world and our style. He sometimes seems thus affected in projecting his own understanding of an ideology to the rest of his entourage he might forget the story he lives. But are we ever able to change the story we were giving to get along with? Can we even tell a story of life while we are actually still living it? Maybe we try to display a perfect image of ourselves by telling stories we might never have heard of, by blurring the own imperfections away. But can any story be told were perfection is found? I think it was Harvey Weinstein, one of Hollywood’s most famous storytellers who brought it to the point by saying, that we are mostly fascinated of what we do, but over all we love how people look at it, that’s why we might love doing it perfectly. He also said that people love a true story, so what should we give the preference at least – the truth or a variation of it?

Later that day I began thinking in a story telling context, what we might want to achieve by telling some. I mean besides the fact of putting some records straight it remains an entertaining issue, it doesn’t matter in which range of story we are delayed: Opera – Film – Art. All of them want to tell a story in order to might letting forget the own conditions we are located in for a certain while. Perhaps we should understand our own told story more as an artistic act, in order to let us forget what we actually are having sort of a showdown with. Never complain, never explain – that’s what I was told last week and I admit that it fits even in our story’s coherence. So why should we bother about living the story while forgetting to live, when living is nothing but a story to tell.

Cheers

Lorax 

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OVERKILL MANIA

Sometimes the strange need of leaving overcomes me and I have to pack up my stuff, turning my back on the city from one instant to another. So it did happen after the rather disillusioning opening event of the new Louis Vuitton Maison that week. I don’t know if my expectations where to high or if it may get constantly difficult to impress me, but I was kind of disappointed by the demonstrated show. I don’t even know if it was the event by itself or the highly valuable guests celebrating some new bags – what I know is that I struggled with myself and my own reflection on others. Is it possible that we lead our lives like some weird dress code on a fancy invitation? Sometimes Black Tie, sometimes Cocktail and sometimes simply Come As You Are! Why are we ever and over again thus affected to be the ones, anybody wants us to be? Do expectations and reality ever even get close and do we really want to be part of a world, in which C-list celebrities are paid court to, solely Marc Jacobs himself should obtain?

It was the point to step outside and clear my head – direction south – next stop Italy!

While I was driving through the marvelous hills of Tuscany on my direct way to Florence I tried rather hard to examine why I had to escape from the city’s clutches helter-skelter. Is it possible to get a literal overkill from everything and is the only solution passing some days in soleness to get things back on track? I mean if it is really that hard to lead our lives the way, we as actual independent-thinking folks decided to, why do we get thereof overmuch every once in a while? Taking my first Espresso on Piazza della Signoria I watched the gorgeous Italian guys pursuing their daily business with an untouchable and thus so much unaffected sophistication, on an oddish level similar to the attitude of a cigarette – nostalgic romance of smoking and I don’t care mindset at once. I am not sure, but again am able to guess that even this sentiment might be an answer to overkills, handling them all’italiana and letting them pass through like the yearly tourist flood at the Uffizi Gallery.

Overkill – an expression we use this often in our daily life, but what it is ultimately about? Is it nothing but overdoing things we are accustomed to and which may concern all of our routine? Maybe it is more of an overload of information, than a literal killer, as I am not convinced that our own lives may assassinate ourselves – a kill is not an overkill. It seems to be more about changing the very own structures, like our friends, enemies or even political goodwill to get through with this sort of lesson.

Back in Munich – back in style. While unpacking my Florentine shopping achievements the subject of overkills didn’t get off my head. Maybe even overkills are likewise a cigarette’s smoke – disappearing into thin air and still bringing a something to a higher level. Without overkills we might never examine what really struggles us and we would literally miss the opportunity for some new inspiration in life. Like many things in our personal entity we need to get tired of some issues – even if it is a simple invitation for a party you were absurdly behind – in order to inspire ourselves for upcoming proceedings. Inspiration via overkill – at least it is a starting point, bringing us somewhere new.

Cheers

Lorax

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BRING THE ACTION

Saturday at lunchtime I had a really amusing get together with the parents of a friend of mine at the jammed It-Grill, downtown. After having let the usual small talk behind us the father started to test me an my psychological awareness by talking rather direct and sarcastically to me about some issues concerning the future. Certainly I could have answered overreacting by understanding his way of talking more offensive and personal like, but I simply shared his game and answered - at least I think I did - quite full of animating spirit. The conversation thus turned out as great fun with more than a plenty of ironic comments about a diversity of rather less actual topics.

While I was walking home through the crowded city, full of weekend tourists and shopping victims I began, inspired by this exceptional get-together, to think about what reaction actually is about. I mean why do people often react this different to issues, which may seem clear to your very self? One single sentence to two different characters might provoke two different viewings or even worlds. Strange as I would claim that we should react on a scientific level all the same, but we actually don’t! Is it really a matter of origin, education or simply ones nature to let us assimilate things that various? Action and reaction – two deeps so close and therefore so far in their actual motivation, as reaction is nothing but a consequence on someone’s action. But isn’t every action a reaction on an action before? Both are equal and opposite at the same time – confusing though.

I often wonder how people do react from time to time on some weird word, an attentive glance or a slight, uncareful touch. All attributes of flirting though, the misunderstanding, which appears in very many cases is often hardly to get, as the intention of someone’s appreciation might simply have been out of an random level of sympathy and nothing further more. Why do we have to take ourselves this lot too serious and can’t even accept, that there mustn’t be this regular an superior being of human relation? Sometimes we should agree that great Amy Winehouse was right by singing her famous words of love as a losing game, simply because people will in most cases react rather unexpected ways.

Later that week I was waiting for a cab after a very late aperitif, in front of the Charles Hotel, where the reaction topic didn’t literally get of my back, as I had to overhear a rather heated discussion of one of those typical fashionable couples about some childishness. For me as a spectator it seemed kind of obvious, that the she was overreacting in an exaggerated dimension, as the issue of dispute concerned their simple should we take a cab or the subway planning. The he stayed amazingly cool, letting her totally blow off. In such moments my curiosity would love to lead an interview with the minds of the presented show, in order to better understand why such a situation is even possible to provoke: How is their private actual situation? Did he cheat on her? Is she giving him a second chance out of the angst no one better could even want her? Or is she simply a cow he is the only one to handle the best? And probably most important; is her way of reacting even justified? Funny as I would say that we often are able to handle situations, which are highly out of our business with absolute objectivity, but are on the opposite hardly capable to arrange our own situations like a somewhat clear-thinking being - is reaction hindering ratio? Maybe it isn't that easy as we should never forget that emotions are the ratio's biggest enemies and will never let it get in touch concerning the very own reaction issues. So what is the clue about action and reaction? I mean without darkness, there wouldn‘t be stars, so therefore they are nothing but a consequence of a natural phenomenon and that's why we might compare stars to reactions; simply fascinating and depending on someone‘s mood - or the weather.

Cheers

Lorax

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FEEL IT

Call it crazy – while I was walking home from a totally random evening through the first summer rain with my new Saint Laurent sunglasses on at 2.30 am, I was holding on for some minute, simply to feel this very special drops of water flowing down my skin. I felt the rain. This first forerunner of some steamy, hot days in July smelled like fresh and new life – the heated asphalt, the dry soil getting wet and fulfilling the city with a gorgeous scent of summer. So I was standing in the middle of somewhere in this city, as some issue came up my mind: why do we always have to run? I mean literally rain by itself is the best example showing us, that we are hardly able to sustain even the mightily simplest situations without running. Is it again a primary instinct everyone is with or are we always trying to break out of something, somebody supposes us to stand inside?

To get craziness a bit further I sat down on a park bench, to watch people chasing through the night and escaping the wet weather. Running might be actually one of the rather few things people are still capable to do perfectly it does not matter where or when. For some, the special something our lives hold back for us will never be even attainable, as they find themselves on a steady marathon from one stage to the next: High School – College – Job – Career – Death. Where is the space for some experience left? When do we ever have the fortune to get what we want ourselves to be?

A rather wise man once gave me great advise by telling me: Darling. Stay young as long as you have the chance to be – than this is the only and single time in your life, in which your experiences are still able to form you and your style. What if every single raindrop I felt during this night represents some piece of experience and what if I would simply rush through the summer storm, driven by the basic thought of being successful some when in my future thereness? What if I would miss every single of that drops, because I thought of something pathetically more important? If I run right now, will I be happy at an age of forty-something or will I finally decide to run away to live a life I always wanted to? Running again? Tragic, as we often even cannot recognize, that it stays basically in our hands to pattern a life the way we want it to be, ahead a view of expectations. Maybe we should start to feel the rain, instead of getting wet.

Cheers

Lorax

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SAME SAME

I am convinced that there is a point in everybody’s entity, in which a deadly stuffiness about the circumstances of life in a city, where everything is already known grows up. Why are we bored that easily from things, that may be even unreachable for many of our fellowmen and why are we that thankless to gather them the best as they are? I had exactly this reasoning the past weekend as I was consternated about the fact, that in a rather sprawling city, like Munich loves to demonstrate itself, it is even not possible to vary among a choice of evening locations satisfactorily – but why? Do we actually have to do things quickly in order to never get bored? Is it really same like same, day after day with the hundredth and identical Carpaccio you will get at every random and more or less fashionable Italian restaurant, or is it ourselves, which are to convenient to creak out of our comfort zones and get new experiences in maybe undiscovered quarters? I mean in an assimilable media world like we rediscover our selves within, we aren’t even capable to define what we want and search for in a rather personal context and often try to escape to a parallel tier, which seems restless simply in order to never be in the tight spot to confront us with our actual needs – or why do you think a phenomenon like metro sexuality is even attainable? But what do we expect? Endless entertainment?

For myself this is a fact to begin with, completely converse. It was gorgeous John Cage, one of America’s most famous composers to state the right words against boredom: If something is boring after two minutes, try it for four. If still boring, then eight. Then sixteen. Then thirty-two. Eventually one discovers that it is not boring at all. Is it our absolute flight instinct detaining us from something new by keeping us from giving things a chance to last?

Later that week the first sights of summer appeared as the sun decided to get finally it’s great revival - those slightly warm days when after a decade of depressing and freezing weather in a never ending winter, the only thing you actually think about when you get up in the morning is to unpack the new pair of Tod’s loafers you bought during a mental derangement on an irritating warm day some when in February. It is always amusing to observe people and their positive changing of mood on such a day by wearing the new Burberry trench, of course some sunglasses or as seen on a few ladies a very optimistic skirt. I decided to pass this phenomenal first day of Italian summer feeling together with some friends on one of Munich’s unfortunately few rooftops to get the first sun burner of the year – it felt like holiday! Recapulating the afternoon rather drunk in my bed later that day I arrived to the conclusion that it must be our very own to shape the every day it doesn’t matter how hard it may get, as a holiday. It stays in our pockets to make our journey a thrilling one – but maybe sometimes it is not the journey, but it is about the destination.

Cheers

Lorax

FRIDAY FREAK SHOW

I adore Fridays! I will never completely understand what this feeling is about on a Friday afternoon. Where comes this matter of freedom and lightness from and why is everybody in such a good mood – just because weekend is within grasp? Sometimes I can’t leave the intuition that we organize our lives from Friday to Friday letting all those fabulous things, which could happen from Monday to Thursday pass by, focused in such a way on some free hours. Anyway. Fridays are great! By the way: Urban dictionary declares Fridays as a great feeling. Happy. No more shit for two days! Is it this easy? Actually I declare for myself Friday evenings as the beginning of a marathon of social debates about everything. It is funny as though to the hilarious spirit, spread by everyone, conflicts with your closest friends are hardly to avoid either. Anyhow!

This weeks Friday started with one of those fancy restaurant openings the city of Munich is favored with more than ten times a month – concerning my feeling so far! Munich is one of those typical spots, which will never loose its spirit in being thus over the top and that’s exactly the attitude its citizens display; but back again to our opening. So – a new location, absolutely needed in the city’s club landscape and nevertheless just a further average hot spot among a variety. Actually the club itself is not the main topic. It’s the folks visiting it. One of my dearest hobbies is the random observation of my surroundings. It is one of my biggest pleasures studying society. There is probably no other city in the world in which people move with such certainty through the night. Everybody is rich, has nothing to worry about and holds this phenomenal film-star-attitude. Maybe that is one of those reasons why really famous guys enjoy living here. They willnever be bothered by anyone just out of the reason that the any ones consider themselves at least equal to the spotted celebrity. Hilarious!

Besides the species of IIPs (imagined important persons) there is a further type of human beings: the Munich diggers! Preferably coming from one of the sub-sub-urban-areas this species specialized themselves on daggering for social rise. In most cases it shouldn’t be that difficult as lower-minded people are in most cases pleased with small chucks but in some special issues the case gets a hardship one. No – it’s not me who is resentful! Take a lookaround and you will agree! A girl who is having a crush on me over more than eight weeks now may be a very pleasant example. She tried that hard I lost interest after a couple of clashes in the places to be, what finally ended in a big showdown in the early Saturday morning – at the bar – drunk – in a club. Not even the best conditions in order to maintain a probable friendship. Actually I think that wasn’t her aim. She desperately tried to achieve a sort of relation by pushing it way to hard. Error number one this species does – every time. You may ask was she that bad to push her away like some Prada Brogues gone out of fashion? Maybe not – but that is the Munich digger girl’s problem. I will never get the, let’s call it thing this sort of women are working for. Money may be one out of a hundred reasons but what they really never get is, that some guys are born with a natural fugue! Never try to constrict them. Where does this claim of ownership come from? Is it human’s nature to hog everything emotionally likeable around and why? Are we victims of the relationship-compulsive-hoarding-syndrome? I will never get this anyway.

Later in the night I had one of those drunken conversations with a friend of mine who’s working as a doorman at one of the city’s hottest clubs. After the obligatory and random small talk we came to the point what going out is ultimately about? What are we all searching for by pulling out-nighters week per week? Are we escaping our single lives afraid of maybe dying alone on the sofa? In a certain way we are all a kind of freak. Obviously it stays a rule of our twenty something existence going out and experiencing life in an unconditional manner, but anyhow in a wide range of cases it stays a diversionary maneuver. Are we living the freak in us to burst mainstream?

The interesting thing about freaks is that they mainly think they may be sort of special but are even not at last, as they will rediscover themselves among their sort automatically. A freak among freaks is nothing than mainstream again. So maybe let us just celebrate our visionary individual entity and start into another phenomenal night! Bring the bottle!

Cheers

Lorax