Since ancient times the humanity has been wondering how the world we live in looks, operates and how big it actually is. Does it have boundaries? Today the population of Earth is developing steadily, opening up new horizons and discovering the unknown. Every mystery solved and every enigma revealed provide us with a variety of new possibilities, paths as well as the new questions that we do not yet have answers to.
The most interesting and exciting topics for us out of range of numerous mysteries of the Universe are the ones that we can’t explore and study by means of modern technology. Have you ever thought, for example, where the edge of our Universe could possibly be?
I guess the size of the Universe and the its scale, its infinity or limitedness are the things hard for us to imagine while keeping eyes open. We know for sure how a palm tree looks or for instance an eagle. Even though some of us may have never seen those in person, we can still see them clearly using the images received from different sources and of course our imagination.
When listening to this melody I usually think of the scale our Universe lies in, and the only limitation to it is my imagination. It is no doubt mathematical studies and research do exist, and even those not dealing with the related fields directly keep learning more about the scientific view of space. We’ve got a lot of popular films to see on that topic. It is helping and in the meanwhile preventing us from developing our own thought, shaping it into one universal image.
That might be because the human brain gets used to perceiving and visualizing things and sizes it can see. Regarding the size of our Universe – I imagine it as the information that has ever been put into print in shape of texts, books, speeches, conversations, films... There’s more adding up to it every second, and it never stops, it never ends. The amount of books, films and sources that provide us with any kind of information and that amount one can go through in terms of a human life equals in my imagination to what we now know about the world we live in, about our universe. The worlds you discover by reading a new book or watching something, or simply using your imagination are exciting to see, compare and explore further. There are things beyond any stretch of our imagination, understanding and awareness.
To conclude this reflection on looking for the edge of the Universe we live in, I can only say that the answer to how big it actually is would be: as big as our imagination can fit, and it stretches as far as our brain can lead us.
There are theories that prove immensity of space based on science and proven facts. However smart those could be, I believe that each one of us is a part of endless Universe somewhere in time and distance, each one of us is a universe. And the only way we can get closer to solving the mysteries of space is starting with smaller things and indulging ourselves in understanding the way they look, work and what more there is to discover about something we have always thought is already clear and bears nothing unknown to it.
Up here in the sky I can be whoever I want to be. No worries to drag me down. I can spread my wings and
BREATH, and laugh, and SCREAM. I jump from cloud to cloud. I bounce. I change my position, instead of on my feet, I land on my butt, and when I bounce back up, I spread out all my limps, and arch my back, and scream out: „Aoooooouuuuuuuuuuuu!!!!!“ I laugh, and I giggle, and let myself fall into this heep of fluffy fullness. I lie here in the clouds, ’cause
here I am free,
and here I am light.
Peace
I feel peace
and I feel calm
and I only feel that here.
I can breath
the fist around my chest, around my heart, lets up.
I can finally breath,
and I can only feel that here.
I feel pain,
I feel pain and it is back again.
I don’t feel painless, I don’t feel peace,
I feel empty.
I wish you were here.
I know, and I absolutely understand why you are not. It was for the best. Nothing better could have happened for and to you, but for me,…. It sucks. I hate it. Our collective, our circle, our network, our family, it is gone… and it crushes me. My heart is squeezed tight, it pains, I cry, It’s gone. Heavy
Although I feel light and weightless, although I float and my feet do not touch the ground, although my curls weightlessly dance around me and are smooth and even, although my body moves back and forth with the gentle drift of the waves, everything feels heavy and oppressive.
I open my eyes, and everything is dark and hazy. I open my mouth and take a deep breath, but instead of clear, refreshing air, only water fills my lungs and everything presses me down, I squirm back and forth and flail my arms around and I thrash. I kick and scream... but no noise comes out.
I am weightless, but I am heavy, .... so heavy, ....
It's as though I were drowning. I close my eyes and I just drift, in this infinite emptiness, in this eternal darkness, in this endless nothingness, and I sink.....
01. –at the very first blink of your eye in your mother's womb, chimes surrounded by saltwater lifeblood, the color of love carrying your everyday for months to end.
02. This feeling which embraces you, like the recurring resound of feet tapping keys down the hallway when you are supposed to be asleep but are not quite awake, having been torn out of your dreams.
03. This feeling which embraces you, during your first round of hide and seek, as it dawns on you that the less you seek the more you are exposed to the demons in your wardrobe–
04. This feeling which embraces you, in the icy pool water, as you’re thrown into the unknown, unprepared and now nearly unconscious to register another hold bringing you back to the living.
05. This feeling which embraces you, by every arm ignoring your lack and lack of strength to fight unfamiliar affections attacking your smallest frame unwanted, for far too long–
06. –with wonder as you sit in your father’s car surrounded by the comical colors and alarming noises of the car wash turning your awe into horror with each passing roll and thrum of the brushes.
07. This feeling, this feeling, this feeling which embraces you, it embraces and embraces you, in each space moving from A to B, elevating from main to top, spinning erratically like a giant tea cup, stirring your cells with drumsticks until you see stars casting regret in your heart.
08. This feeling which embraces you, as your pulse aligns with the beat of the ride-cymbal while the marching band blinds your eyes–
09. This feeling which embraces you, when the masses become strange and stranger with every step extending the distance between you and those close to you wherever you are; un-remembering your home address.
10. –with every drop of your heart, pulled apart by violin bows, tossed in octaves from stair to stair, in turns–
11. This feeling which embraces you, when a quietness impends like a giant metronome counting the moments before your demons return–
12. This feeling which embraces you, akin to black rubber tires interrogating your consciousness, bulldozing their profile in between your strongest fears–
13. –as your body lies in a tube, bronzing your skin. And you evaporate–
14. –with the scanning of your marrows and your decisions unpacking their consequences at your doorstep and every premonition dwindles like a wailing violin in your hands.
15. –at last, decomposing your bones, a companion into a perpetual vacuum.
The year is 1998. Techno music has long made its way from Detroit all across the Atlantic to fill European clubs and streets with strange, beautiful electronic noises. Machines have taken over, in everyday life, but also in music.
Four years ago, Kurt Cobain left a heart-shaped hole in many of us. With a bang and no one to blame, white guy guitar music ended overnight. We drowned our sorrows in machine-made sounds, caught between Bristol Trip Hop and The Prodigy’s ElectroPunk. For the first time since The Beatles and The Stones, pop music was British again, and it was dangerous and expressive and mesmerizing.
Suddenly, white guy guitar music was back, at least for the media. Britpop had arrived and left some of us dazed and confused, asking the wrong questions at the wrong time. What is a “Wonderwall” and where do I get one? Even before Madonna killed “American Pie,” it was the day the music died. We needed a savoir, and in his basement beneath the bright beaches of Brighton, we found Norman Cook. He invented his own version of time travel and subsequently became the oxymoronic Fatboy Slim, Fat enough to be a reminder that obvious is harder than subtle, Slim enough to fit through the cracks of time and space and collect sonic adventures from dusty thrift stores all across the country. Suddenly, the future and the futuristic past were Right Here, Right Now.
Before he ascended to superstardom, Cook was a bass player in The Housemartins when his musical career unexpectedly peaked as a singer, as he a-cappellaed his way through “Caravan of Love,” the band’s biggest hit. Trading lyrics for soundscapes as the expressive core of his music, he became a DJ and quickly followed a formula made fashionable by Manchester’s The Chemical Brothers: Big Beat, dance music making the indie crossover at its most accessible point, a pop hook on a hip hop beat with an acid house sensibility.
Fatboy Slim did not want to be Indie. He created hooks as flamboyant as a dance-world denizen possibly can. After all, when moving through sonic space, we move best in multiples of four. For his tracks, Cook relies on sampling, but not the kind of megaplundermorphonemiclonic mayhem of John Oswalt’s Plexure. Cook’s plundering exposes him as a record geek with extensive knowledge and eclectic taste, a real rhythmatician. He is armed with a 1985 Atari ST, a machine so outdated even in 1998 that its mere existence in Cook’s basement feels like an affirmation that time travel really exists. By chopping up vinyl tracks into floppy-disk-sized chunks, he summons American artists of the 1970s, calling them over through a four-dimensional sonic space, reincarnating them in a futurhythmic machine from the past. “Praise You” is a prime example of his meticulous attention to detail.
As the song begins, the piano sample is the first sound to arrive in the future. Recorded in 1973 in Santa Monica, it is not a song; Barely a song idea; Mostly some guys having fun before a recording session. Eight minutes of hanging out in the studio, before the real work starts. Chatting, tuning, warming up. Balance and Rehearsal. The room is crowded, way too crowded for a Fat man to stay unnoticed. Luckily, he is Slim enough to hide. At two minutes and fourty seconds, a chord progression appears out of nowhere. Left channel microphone guy, whoever he is, hums the chords, and the pianist plays along. F#, C#, G#. Someone comments underneath, incomprehensible. He is there, but also not there. For a brief moment in this chaotic environment, accompanied by the warm familiar crackle of a vinyl record played once too often, only this piano matters. Three chords and the truth. In this instant, a classic hook line is born. The time-travelling man grabs it and sends it to the future.
In 1975, two years after the piano sample sees the light of day, Camille Yarbrough starts her strenuous journey to the Brighton basement. Yarbrough is a street poetess, a rapper before there were rappers, setting the scene for Erykah Badu and Lauryn Hill alike, an empowering vision of a black woman spreading her message on her first and only album, The Iron Pot Cooker. Its scarce instrumentation balances the songs between funk and R&B, but the time traveler is only interested in her voice. On the fourth track, “Take Yo’ Praise,” it is finally up for grabs. An a-cappella opening is all it takes for the seasoned veteran of a-cappella smash hits. The words she sings do not matter much. For the traveler, her voice, its timbre, its fullness, its rough smoothness, is just another cog in the mix. He invites her over, and twenty-three years later, right after the hook line repeats for a fourth time, she finally arrives, fifteen bars into the song. She hurries in on the preceding upbeat and stays there for all her lines, as hook and vocals share a verse of syncopated cross beats.
Percussion and bass line join, only getting a shortened introduction of eight bars each. This is the sample with the longest journey, at least for now. Recorded in 1971 by Rare Earth, this first all-white band signed to Motown feels out of its own time already. The sample stems from a cover of Ray Charles’ classic What’d I Say. Congas and cowbells add a Caribbean lightness to “Praise You.”
Taking over bass duties himself, Norman Cook sheds the Slim Fatboy suit and becomes a Housemartin again, circling around the chords’ base notes without adding too much fuzz. This might be his party, but he is an obliging host.
A short build up follows, as quarter notes make way for eighths and sixteenths while Yarbrough’s last sung phoneme is stretched out and repeated, turning her singing into a mono-melismatic stuttering, the sonic version of a document unsuccessfully printed a gazillion times only to spill out of the overwhelmed printer all at once. The crescendo finally gives way to the Big Beat as the second verse starts.
A twangy funky surf guitar riff, ripped straight out of a Mickey Mouse Disco compilation, is sent to the future. It is better suited for a sunny nineties Brighton beach day than a sticky seventies Burbank recording studio anyway. It joins a full-on rock drum break beat, courtesy of the 1976 song “Running Back to Me” by Tom Fogerty. Finally, the gang’s all here, the rhythmachine is up and running. Even though Mickey Mouse and John Fogerty’s little brother seem to be the star guests, this remains Camille Yarbrough’s show. She quickly recovers from her terrible stutter and takes the reigns again, as she repeats her Techno lament to a full band backdrop.
The song reaches a kind of chorus, even though there is not much more to reach. Yarbrough’s vocals are condensed to a Mantra, accompanied by herself in a higher octave repeated four times, creating her own version of a call and response.
It is breakdown time, and a special guest appears: Steve Miller. Arriving all the way from 1968, the space cowboy some people call Maurice sends a sampled keyboard interlude in D#7 thirty years into the future, a much needed break, albeit a short one. After only eight bars, drums and funk guitar return and soon, we are back in the original key, bouncing in fours with the hypnotizing piano hook line, back in chorus formation. Suddenly, the drop. There is no time to waste here, this is a pop radio single after all, and Wonderwall’s radio edit is less than four minutes long. Competition is tough.
We are back where we started. Vocals, the hook line, percussion. Yarbrough’s words become syllables, syllables again disintegrate into phonemes. The final crescendo, as the funky guitar distorts into another dimension, turning into an electro-funk synthesizer, a laser cannon reminiscent of a galaxy far, far away. Suddenly, it’s all over. A single piano note echo-loop-fades into the distance.
The year is 2002. Fatboy Slim has used his time machine time and time again to great success. His Brighton basement is crowded with time travelers eagerly waiting for their 15 minutes of retrofuturistic fame. Oasis are in shambles, on the verge of a breakup. Liam Gallagher hates to sing “Wonderwall,” so they hardly play it anymore.
Norman Cook sends an invitation to a free outdoor gig at Brighton beach into the ether. 60,000 people are expected to attend. When Fatboy Slim and his fellow time travelers finally take the stage, a quarter million people have shown up. It is the biggest single day event crowd in British music history.
Departure. Heading
into class. Arrival. Going
out of class.
Attending classes in college can be
stressful. Heading into class. There are to-do’s almost every day, every week
of the semester which makes a regular schedule appear packed. Going out of
class.
Managing one’s work life in aviation
requires planning and flexibility. Departure. Working in a high-risk
environment and being dependent to a duty plan can be stressful. Arrival.
The semester starts with a week of
talking about the syllabus and the course requirements. Departure. As a
student, you ask oneself during that time of the semester, what is the workload
going to be. Seeing what is required for the next three months can leave you
feeling overwhelmed in the beginning. Arrival. Additionally, as a sports
student, there are mandatory classes you are required to take practicing
various sports. Which means you are sore the next days because you are not used
to the activities doing sports you have never done before. Departure. Still, it
may seem exhausting, but it is fun. Arrival. After the classes, you can spend
time with other students on campus while doing even more sports on the beach
volleyball court for example. Departure. Arrival.
It’s the 23rd of the
month. You are patiently waiting for the duty plan to be published to see what
the next month holds for you. The first day of work could be the 1st
which is in seven days, and you still have no idea of how this could look like.
Heading into class. When is the wake-up call in a week going to be? Where are
you going to spend your layovers? You cannot stop refreshing the page. Nothing.
Going out of class. Finally, it is published, and you can plan your next month.
After looking at the duty plan, you realize that your flights for the months
collide with 2 group meeting, 1 seminar and 2 parties…
Departure.
Arrival. Departure. Arrival. Heading into class. Going out of class. Departure.
Arrival.
Heading into class. Going out of class. Heading into class. Going out of class.
Departure.
Arrival. Heading into class. Going out of class. Departure. Arrival.
The first weeks are behind you. Now,
you know how the semester has impacted your life so far. Luckily, you get to
spend time with the other students that became your friends over the past
years. Departure. Still, there’s much reading or practice needed to fulfill the
requirements of all classes. Which means your afternoons are packed with work.
Arrival. Departure. Arrival.
Heading into class. Going out of
class. Departure. Arrival. Heading into class. Going out of class. Heading into
class. Going out of class. Departure. Arrival. Heading into class. Going out of
class. Departure. Arrival. Heading into class. Going out of class. Heading into
class. Going out of class.
It’s Saturday, 1:55 a.m. and your
alarm goes off. Now you have one hour and 15 minutes to get to the airport. You
are walking into the bathroom, put some make-up on and get dressed. Luckily,
you prepared your flight kit the day before, right before you went to bed at
8:00 p.m., to get some sleep before heading to Spain and back. Your friends are
sending you pictures of them being out in the bars wanting you to join them.
But instead, you’re having breakfast in the car while driving to the airport.
Its 3:25 a.m. and the briefing begins. Departure. Arrival. Its 1:15 p.m. and
you can drive home. The second after you entered the apartment and took a
shower, you fall into bed and sleep till 5:00 p.m. You planned a meeting with
your presentation group at 6:00 p.m., so that is what comes next today.
Heading into class. Going out of
class. Heading into class. Going out of class. Heading into class. You managed
to prepare your first presentation in one class. You feel relieved after
finishing it. Going out of class. Departure. Arrival. Heading into class. Going
out of class. Departure. Arrival. Heading into class. Going out of class.
Heading into class. Going out of class. Departure. You’re finally heading to
your favorite destination for the first time this year. You couldn’t be in a
better mood to spend some days at the beach. Arrival. Heading into class. Going
out of class. Heading into class. It is hot today, and you are out on the
running court to practice for your 1.5 km run. This day is going to be
exhausting. Going out of class. Heading into class. Going out of class.
Departure. Arrival. Heading into class. Going out of class. Departure. Today,
your fight has a three-hour delay because the ground staff is fighting to receive
more money, but the guest want to get to their destination. Arrival. Heading
into class. Going
out of class. Heading into class. Going out of class. Departure. Arrival.
Luckily, you were able to receive
the vacation you requested to focus more on the final weeks of classes. You
have two weeks off which makes you able to focus on the final exams,
presentations, and papers. Heading into class. Going out of class. Heading into
class. Going out of class. You receive multiple calls from the scheduling team
asking you if it is manageable for you to work tomorrow because the summer
months are the ones that are the most stressful in aviation and they need their
staff. Due to the fact that your schedule is packed at the end of the semester,
you have to refuse all calls. Heading into class. Going out of class. Heading
into class. Going out of class. Heading into class. Going out of class.
Finally, it is the last day of the
semester, and your last exam is over. Heading into class. Going out of class.
You’re looking forward on more than two months of vacation. You check your duty
plan and ask yourself, what’s next. Departure. Arrival. Summer is the most
stressful time in aviation, so you’re working more than you are, due to your
contract, required to. Departure. Arrival. Departure. Arrival. Departure.
Arrival.
As soon as the summer fades into
fall and aviation starts to relax a little bit – the new semester starts.
Welcome to my life as Katrin Latza. Departure.
I'm out of breath. The beautiful big
mosque with golden and blue details lights up the dark night with its
surrounding light chains. It takes my breath away. Why can't I enter and tell
all my worries? My soul is heavy. I'm out of breath.
An old, slow car passes me on the
main street. The monotonous sound becomes louder than my thoughts. Even though
it is slow, it causes the plastic bags hanging out of the trash container to
vibrate, reminding me of the idiophones played at weddings, where people dance
until they're out of breath. Just like me now, because of the released carbon
dioxide of the car.
My thoughts and worries get louder in
my head, louder than the sound of the car being more and more swallowed by the
darkness of the night. I think of my sister. At her wedding, she wore the
shiniest golden bracelets and necklaces surrounded by 1001 people, yet she
smiled only at me. We share joy just like sadness. Together. Our bond is
breathtaking.
We dance together. We sing
together. We cry together. We win
together. Step by step. We overtone male opinions saying we cannot do things.
We are above them. They are below us.
Now I see another mosque on the
parallel street. A round blue roof and white walls. It reminds me, that I need
to forgive. I need to forgive myself for having hate in my heart, I need to
forgive my sister for sharing that hate and I need to forgive men for
projecting hate.
Together we are stronger. We can
overcome pain and we can share celebrations. We can forgive and we can be
forgiven. It makes us stronger, and we can move forward as a community. Please
forgive me.
I need a break from my thoughts. I
see my shadow in front of me, moving elegantly and slowly to the right. I feel
like I am not alone. But did she hear my thoughts? Would she forgive? Wait, I
wanted a break. I hear someone behind me. Footsteps getting louder. I am not
alone. A man is walking behind me, smelling like he showered in Kolonya. The
smell reminds me of hospitality, family gatherings, and warmth. My heart is
full of joy. He passes me. The air behind him gets replaced with Kolonya. I
need to hold my breath. I cannot breathe.
Again, I cannot breathe. How long can
I hold my breath? Each time I try to open it Kolonya fills up my mouth. How can
such a loved smell become so suffocating? Was my sister out of breath when she
opened the bottle of Kolonya each time a guest arrived at her wedding? She
probably did. We share everything.
This man seems to be egoistic.
However, I forgive this man. I need to forgive. I hope he forgives my short
hatred towards him as well. Only forgiveness makes us stronger and louder. It
moves us forward step by step.
Everyone is gifted with strength and
mind, sometimes we don't share the same opinions, but we need to forgive.
