Wien, wie wir es am liebsten haben - bitterböse, schwarzhumorig und politisch unkorrekt:

"Bitte zieh deine hübschen Stiefeletten an", bat er sie leise und reichte ihr die grasgrünen Gallianos.
Er muss sie aus dem Stiegenhaus geholt und unter dem Bett versteckt haben, als ich auf dem Klo war, dachte sie empört, sprang auf und versuchte, ihm ihre Schuhe aus der Hand zu schlagen. Der eine flog in hohem Bogen aufs Bett. Den anderen umklammerte er wie ein Äffchen.
Ihr Entsetzen schien er nicht wahrzunehmen. Verliebt starrte er weiterhin auf den Schuh und legte sich mit ihm aufs Bett. Seine Lippen schlossen sich um den stark verschmutzten Absatz. Genüsslich leckte er den Dreck der Stadt ab.
Show worshipping nennt man das, dachte sie. Und ihr wurde speiübel. Am liebsten wäre sie wieder auf die Toilette geflüchtet. Sie blieb jedoch wie angewurzelt neben dem Bett stehen.
Er schien inzwischen jedes Interesse an ihrem Körper, ja sogar an ihren Füßen verloren zu haben. Versonnen streichelte er den Schaft ihrer Stiefelette und bedeckte ihn mit leidenschaftlichen Küssen. Angeekelt sah sie zu, wie seine Zunge über die Spitze dieses John Galliano-Kunstwerks glitt, sie liebevoll umkreiste.
Sie versuchte noch einmal, ihm ihre Stiefelette zu entreißen. Wie zwei spielende Hunde zerrten sie beide an dem empfindlichen Leder.
Wenn die ganze Situation nicht so entwürdigend gewesen wäre, hätte sie sicher zu lachen begonnen. Momentan war ihr eher zum Heulen zumute.
"Du perverser Spinner", fauchte sie und überließ ihm das begehrte Objekt.
Mit einem glückseligen Lächeln auf den Lippen nuckelte er an der Schuhspitze wie ein Baby an einem Schnuller. Der Speichel sammelte sich in seinen Mundwinkeln, tropfte auf den Schuh, hinterließ dunkle Flecken auf dem zarten Rauleder.
Sie konnte den Anblick des saugenden und sabbernden Mannes nicht länger ertragen. Empfand seine so ungeniert vor ihren Augen ausgelebte Lust als persönliche Beleidigung. Während sie überlegte, ob sie barfuß die Wohnung verlassen oder sich einfach ein Traumpaar von Gucci oder Dolce&Gabbana aus seinem Schrank nehmen sollte, begann er heftig zu husten.
Die Stiefelette rutschte aus seinem Mund. Rasch schnappte sie danach. Sobald sie dieses schlappe feuchte Ding in der Hand hielt, wurde ihr bewusst, dass sie es nie mehr würde anziehen können, dass sie überhaupt keinen Schuh mehr tragen könnte, den er berührt hatte. Und plötzlich empfand sie so etwas Ähnliches wie Mitleid mit diesem armen Schwein. Sein hilfloses Stöhnen, das eher einem Grunzen glich, klang unerträglich.
Sie erbarmte sich seiner. Steckte ihm die halbe Schuhspitze in den Mund.
Er verschluckte sich. Versuchte zu spucken. Doch sie trieb ihr schmales elegantes Stiefelchen immer weiter und weiter in seinen Rachen.
Offensichtlich hielt er es für ein erotisches Spiel. Er wehrte sich nicht. Im Gegenteil, er streckte seine Arme links und rechts von sich aus und deutete ihr mit begeisterten Blicken weiterzumachen. Seine langen Haare hingen ihm ins Gesicht. Seinen Lippen entwich ein flehender Seufzer.
Sie ließ sich nicht ein zweites Mal bitten. Stopfte den Rest des weichen biegsamen Schuhs in den weit geöffneten Mund dieses perversen Germanistikprofessors.
Er schlug mit den Armen wild um sich. Traf mehrmals ihr Gesicht. Seine Beine begannen zu zucken, und sein Unterleib bäumte sich mehrmals auf, bevor er erschlaffte, völlig in sich zusammensackte.
Als sie ihre beschmutzte grasgrüne Galliano-Stiefelette wieder an sich nahm, machte er keinen Atemzug mehr.

aus: Edith Kneifl. Gnadenlos. 21 Kriminalgeschichten aus 21 Jahren.
Wärmstens zu empfehlen.

"La responsabilidad de toda escritora es precisamente convencer a sus lectoras de ese precepto fundamental: el príncipe azul no existe, no tiene materialidad alguna fuera de la imaginación, de la propia capacidad creadora. [...] Y aun cuando una vez en mil, el príncipe azul se personificara ante ella implacable y aterrador en su perfección, le sería necesario convencerse de que también a él lo ha inventado, porqué el precio que tendría que pagar por su sustantividad resulta sencillamente demasiado alto."

(Rosario Ferré, La autenticidad de la mujer en el arte.)

... ¿Pensamientos, alguien?

Out in the streets, it is Christmas already. A mantle of snow over distance and sight. Time dances. Gray skies. I watch my thoughts disappear through the window in their cherry-red boots and wish I could follow them.

Reading Star Dust is like watching the Wind blow-dry a stranger's laundry. A clothesline exposes characters, leaving the observer as naked as the observed. The act of noticing rather than overlooking the laundry in someone else's backyard undresses your own soul. The Wind, busy untangling the cord of his blow-dryer, is unaware of your presence. But for a moment's length, you stand naked before yourself.


LUGGAGE

You wear your body as if without
illusions. You speak of former lovers with some

contempt of their interest in sex.
Wisdom of the spirit, you

imply, lies in condescension and poise.

... Fucking, I can feel
the valve opening, the flood is too much.

Or too little. I am
insatiable, famished by repetition.

Now all you see is that I am luggage

that smiles as if it is moved from here
to there. We could have had ecstasies.

In your stray moments, as now in
mine, may what was not

rise like grief before you.

(Frank Bidart, Star Dust)

"Outside, a mound of garbage formed the border between Southland and the adjacent legal neighborhood of Langata. It was perhaps 8 feet tall, 40 feet long, and 10 feet wide, set in a wider watery ooze. As we passed, two boys were climbing the Mt. Kenya of trash. They couldn’t have been more than 5 or 6 years old. They were barefoot, and with each step, their toes sank into the muck, sending hundreds of flies scattering from the rancid pile. I thought they might be playing King of the Hill. But I was wrong. Once atop the pile, one of the boys lowered his shorts, squatted, and defecated. The flies buzzed hungrily around his legs.

When 20 families - one 100 people or so - share a single latrine, a boy pooping on a garbage pile is perhaps no big thing. But it stood in jarring contrast to something Armstrong had said as we were eating - that he treasured the quality of life in his neighborhood. For Armstrong, Southland was not constrained by its material conditions. Instead, the human spirit radiated from the metal walls and garbage heaps to offer something no legal neighborhood could: freedom.

'This place is very addictive,' he had said, 'It’s a simple life, but nobody is restricting you. Nobody is controlling what you do. Once you have stayed here, you can not go back.” He meant back beyond that mountain of trash, back in the legal city, of legal buildings, with legal leases, and legal rights. “Once you have stayed here,' he said, 'you can stay for the rest of your life.'"

Robert Neuwirth (Shadow Cities) about the shanty town of Southland, Nairobi.

'[...] De pronto una idea que cruzó por su mente la hizo levantarse a mirar al cielo estrellado. Ella conocía, pues lo había sentido en carne propia, lo poderoso que puede ser el fuego de una mirada.

Es capaz de encender al mismo Sol. Tomando esto en consideración, ¿qué pasaría si Gertrudis miraba una estrella? De seguro que el calor de su cuerpo, inflamado por el amor, viajaría con la mirada a través del espacio infinito sin perder su energía, hasta depositarse en el lucero de su atención. Estos grandes astros han sobrevivido millones de años gracias a que se cuidan de no absorber los rayos ardientes que los amantes de todo el mundo les lanzan noche tras noche. De hacerlo, se generaría tanto calor en su interior que estallarían en mil pedazos. Por lo que al recibir una mirada, la rechazan de inmediato, reflejándola hacia la Tierra como en un juego de espejos. Es por eso que brillan tanto en las noches. [...]'

(Laura Esquivel, Como Agua para Chocolate)

... denn Lesen ist atmen. 'Outside a dog, a book is a man’s best friend. Inside a dog, it’s too dark to read.' (Groucho Marx)

I guess that all of you interested already know... However: John Siddique is coming to Austria again. From the 20th to the 27th of May, he is touring Vienna, Graz and Salzburg, doing various readings and workshops. I am going to miss it, but all of you literature lovers back home should go. It´s not only words that make poetry. It is people. People who don´t write for profit or fame, but for writing as such. For saying something they truely believe in. Something making you smile. Something making you think. Something making your day.

Here is my favorite, YES, once again (this is the ´G-rated´ version; I can´t publish the original one now as I don´t have the book with me and it is not on the internet); klick on the poem to hear the mp3.

Yes to the Martian canals that run the length of me.
Yes to the frozen lakes beneath my fields.
Yes to yes.
Yes to my atoms.
Yes to love.
Yes to the fool with the serious face I sometimes am.
Yes to believing that this means something.
Yes to stardust, I am fleshed by you.
Yes to sweat, labour, working with my hands.
Yes to the dancing self that gets dizzy and falls over in the long grass,
writing my name in the snow.
Yes I am the same dust as you.
Yes to my soul.
Yes to my death, I hope I never lose sight of you so I can live brighter now.
Yes to breathing which makes my dust a body,
so I can hate & cry & love & live, live, live.
Yes to falling on the floor crying my heart out.
Yes to having a heart to cry.
Yes to the hand that can write yes.
Yes to yes.

(c) John Siddique

He followed her out of the room, his back obscuring her departure for those who watched.

Their steps, if not their voices, were mingling through the empty streets of the dead town. Iron lace hung from dark pubs, and the heavy smell from spilled beer. Dreams broke from windows. And cats lifted the lid off all politeness. […]

“Anyway,” said Amy Fibbens, “We have had a talk. About a lot of things.”

It was quite right. They had talked about almost everything, because words occasionally will rise to the occasion and disgorge whole worlds. Just as the darkness will disgorge a white face under a dusty tree. [...]

Patrick White, The Tree of Man

To everybody I didn't already invite personally: Thursday, the 12th of October, is going to be the opening night of Vienna’s first ever Festival for English Literature!

There will be events on the 12th, the lucky Friday the 13th, the 14th and the 16th. Check out the detailed program at viennalit.at.

There will be heaps of events you certainly do not want to miss: To mention only a few, Lionel Shriver, winner of the Orange Prize for Fiction, will read from her latest novel We need to talk about Kevin (I read it, you will like it. Trust me.) on Thursday, 12th of October, 8.30 pm at replugged vienna.

At Vienna Lit School Slam ! on Saturday (8.30 pm, replugged), there will be a performance of the best counter-poems to John Siddique’s YES.

Right afterwards (9.30), The Fugitives will present their thrilling mix of poetry, music, storytelling and song.

And. Finally. An exercise to start on right now: Do not miss the last opportunity for handing in your self-written haiku to our haiku competition! The best haiku wins a crate of beer! Just mail your masterpiece, which should be related to the topic "Vienna", subject line "haiku".

So, that's it for now. See you all at the weekend!

"Well," he said, "as a matter of fact I sort of need you; right now. I mean I need - what I need is some ironing. I've just got to iron something and I've already ironed everything in the house, even the dishtowels, and I sort of wondered whether maybe I could come over to your house and maybe iron some of your things."

[…] "Maybe I'd better bring some things to your house," she said.

"Actually I'd prefer that. It means I can use my own iron; I'm used to it. It makes me uncomfortable to iron with other people's irons. But please hurry, I really do need it. Desperately."

"Yes, as soon as I can after work," she said, trying both to reassure him and to sound, for the benefit of the office, as though she was making a dentist appointment.

Margaret Atwood (yes, again) – The Edible Woman.

I can't stop quoting. No way. So much things that need to be written down - just for myself. To remember.

"The eye creates the horizon,
The ear invents the wind,
The hand reaching out from a parka sleeve
By touch demands that the touched thing be."

Gwendolyn MacEwan, Afterworlds

(He writes about the Franklin expedition, telling Franklin that it was not geography that created the passage he explored but Franklin himself. Therefore, the reason the whole expedition failed was not lead poisoning or scurvy but a mistake he made in thinking his way through the North.)