Author: Bert
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Jetlag
So I’m back from the USA. “(AUDIENCE (Jeering) You’ve already told us that!”)
Anyway.
I had never traveled across the Atlantic in my life. Sure, I visited Iceland and went to Uganda, but those places were all in relatively cutesy time zones (there were other issues, with Uganda having no Winter, though, and Iceland nothing but).
So then I went to Colorado. Smack in the middle of the US of A. At first I thought: Awesome! This is like some sweet time machine thing, where I get to extend my life by seven hours! Then I lay awake at night worrying for what seemed like an eternity. I worried about my job, my holiday, that cricketlike noise outside that turned out to be crickets. Was this what being immortal felt like, I wondered. And: How can I undo it?
So after that we went to the West Coast. And then we came back. Suddenly, time snapped nine hours into the future. Nine hours! What a random number of hours! When I landed, apparently there was a new iPhone, wristwatches were back in fashion and the ice bucket challenge was over. It truly was the future!
So now I lay awake in this so-called future, a Germany lost in time, where everything is the same yet somehow different. I lay awake and I worry. Only there’s no more holiday and no more crickets to worry about.
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Books!
I’m back from the USA — and apparently people want me to list books or else I’ll face the wrath of some sort of a bucket of ice or books or whatever. (I feel so out of touch with the internet.)
In no particular order:
– 1984: I read this on a long train ride and was so immersed I cried out when the conductor suddenly asked for my ticket.
– The Stand (Stephen King): Read this sitting under a tree in Bourgogne, France, instead of getting drunk on awesome wine. While the ending is kind of meh, the first 700 pages are the best set-up to an apocalypse I’ve ever read.
– Watchmen (Moore & Gibbons): The first time I connected fascism and superheroes. My world has never been the same since.
– 20th Century Boys (Naoki Urasawa): My great obsession during university. Funnily enough, I cannot for the life of me remember who the enigmatic “Friend” turned out to be in the end, but the constant tension in this manga was awesome enough to make it on a list comprised of books.
– Vallen (Anne Provoost): I read this for Dutch class when I was 14 and I still consider it one of the best Dutch books I’ve ever read. Oddly enough, when I read it nowadays it’s a completely different novel – I must’ve ignored the political side of the story back then.
– Momo (Michael Ende): First book I read in German. It’s awesome (and so much better than the never-ending story – sorry!)
– The Golden Compass (Philipp Pullman): While I think The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass veer too much into philosophical discussions, the Golden Compass is to me the perfect mix between religious critique and pulpy fantasy.
– The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (Michael Chabon): I think this is the best book I’ve ever read. Also it makes me feel smart because it won a Pulitzer.
– Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (J.K. Rowling): What can I say? I love pulp! The moment Cedric Diggory dies was one of the greatest in the series – in two sentences, child literature grew up, with no forewarning. All the impactful plot twists of the later books never achieved the pure shock this moment caused.
– Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom): Of all the books listed here, this one connects most to me personally. There’s something about the intimacy of Morrie’s slow descent that gets to me everytime. Together with Kavalier and Clay, this is the only book ever to cease to be fiction and to just turn real.So there you have it. You can put your buckets away.
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Train
Two jolly old women enter the overfilled train.
“I’m going to sit here”, says the fat one, poking a guy with a huge suitcase.
“I’m going to sit over here”, answers the one with the glasses and motions a tiny Filippina.
The train rearranges itself. They sit. The train settles down.
They look at each other through the aisle. Inconvenient.
“Or maybe we can ask that man?” asks the one with the glasses to both the fat one and due to loudness the man.
“Maybe he’ll let us sit together?” asks the fat one, only with a period instead of a question mark.
They look at the man. The man looks back. They open their mouths. “Excuse me sir, are you a christian man?”
“I’ll get up”, says the man, only without words but just by removing his butt from his chair and, weirded out, moving up the aisle.
The women sit next to each other and they will live happily ever after, though they never will get answer to their question.
