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On the 18.2.1998, I put two series of pictures on the net. The first one is dealing with melancholie, the second one with early spring.

I am not able to translate the poems going along with these pictures, but I can give you some word-by-word represantation, to give you some ideas of them (I hope it's better than babelfish automatic translation). First, the poem about melancholy. Please note that this can give only a hint about the poem: the very rigid structure of the poem (the eight-fold rhyme, the strict metre and the alliteration) is an essencial part of it, and it becomes quite senseless without them.

melancholy

silence i have to carry again
heavily despair is taking on me
dizzinesses are harassing my mind
black bile, stomach disconcerted
swords through my brain
weekness and failures everywhere
pinions flutter insane
disgrace and defeats everywhere

written 7,8.11.1997 (ugh, horrible. The next poems will suffer less from translation)

The first four poems about spring are wakas (or "tankas"), that means, poems divided into 5+7+5+7+7 syllables (more about wakas, in german, on my contribution to the ZEIT-IBM-Internet-Literature-Contest). This will be left out in my translation, except for the first one:

spring

tired sloping light
which the sun sends through the air
warm it is and cold
girls are wearing thin cloth
with nipples stiff with coldness

written 17.2.1998

The next three are taken from the poems-collection Manyôshû, translated from Japanese to German by Jan Ulenbrook, and now transported into English.

On my hill
are now in full bloom
the plum blossoms
taken for snow, still staying,
easily.

written by Ôtomo-no-Tabito.

After a long time now
in starlit night in moon beam
the plum blossom
the heart stand wide open
for the longed friend.

written by Ki-no-Iratsume

On my door
the plum blossomed
in most lovely moon night -
I would like to show it night for night:
O, how I wait for you.

written by an unknown poet.

The last one is no wake:

the girl

let us go buying a brown pair of trousers,
and my earthly happiness will be perfect
let us go buying a brown pair of trousers,
if nobody else loves me.

written 17.2.1998

This is based on a 30x40 cm drawing I did on 12.6.1995, and its called "sexangles". I did redraw the girl in a smaller picture (on a 20x30 paper not full used) on 20.3.1998 and then copied the new girl into the old sexangles. It is one of my few pictures based on a pun: showing 29 sexangles and a sexy girl with angel wings. I tried to draw all sexangles somewhat different in a topological meaning, and these 29 versions are all I could think of (I did not count mirror images twice, first since that would be boring, and second since mirror images are topologically aequivalent. Nevertheless, not all my sexangles are strictly different: for example, there are two versions of four triangles in a row [and one version of four triangles not in a row], and those two versions are, strictly spoken, aequivalent, but it is impossible to transform the one into the other by slight transformations without leaving the plane. Of course you have to count the vertices as special areas [like replacing the vertices by small dots], otherwise most of those sexangles are aequivalent). But surely you are not interested in the 29 sexangles, but in the one sex angel. Well, dear male (or lesbian female) reader, certainly you were wondering why the world is so cruel and unfair, especially towards you. The gods asked themself the same question, and so they decided to do you a favour: they created a special sex angel only for you, which can turns shit into gold, is never aging, can defeat all your enemies and will fall in love for you as soon as she will see you. Right now, she is traveling through all the 2000 heavens parting the gods from you, and she will arrive just tomorrow.

I didn't draw a male sex angel, since that would have been twice as much work, and since I suppose my female readers to be more intelligent and sceptical than my male readers, not believing in tales.

This picture is rather old, as old that I do not know how old it is; I guess it dates from about 1992 plusminus two years. The text, unfortunatly not very clearly in the computer map, runs like this:

,,Da König Minos nicht, wie er geschworen hatte, seinen wei?en Stier dem Poseidon geopfert hatte, ließ Poseidon als Rach Minos Gattin Pasiphae wahnsinnig werden. Pasiphae verliebte sich in den Stier und verbarg sich in einer hölzernen Kuh, die ihr Dädalus gebaut hatte. So wurde sie von dem Stier geschwängert und gebahr den Minotaurus, den dann Theseus erschlug, und Dädalus mußte zusammen mit seinem Sohn Ikarus auf dem Luftweg fliehen, wobei letzterer starb.''

["Since King Minos did not, as he had promised, offered his white bull to Poseidon, Poseidon did let become Minos' spouse Pasiphaes insane as his revenge. Pasiphae falled in love with the bull and hide herself in a wodden cow created for her by Daedalos. So she get pregnant by the bull and gave life to the Minotaurus, who was later killed by Theseus, and Daedalos together with his son Icarus had to escape via air, with the last one dying on that occasion."]

For further information see my ,,Einführung zu Homer''.

This is from 3.4.1998, it is 19,9x27,1 cm large (only slightly smaller than my usual DIN A4-format). If the file this thumbnail links to with its 787x1030 pixel and its 166 KB seems to be too large to you, I made a second file, only half as large and 36 KB. It has no title, but can be refered as "velvet". If you want to print out the picture and put it on your wall (which is of course illegal, since I hold the copyright of this picture), you should use the larger file (and add a small black or at least dark frame, to do me a favour).

Most self-portraits (and most portraits) are made with front view. Mainly for technical reasons, I assume: the only way to make a self-portrait is to use a mirror or the pictures made by somebody else: a drawing made by somebody else, or a photo. Making a drawing of a drawing is usually not thought to be very interesting, and photos do exist only since the later half of the last century. So most of the time, artists had to use mirrors.
It is possible to have a side view on yourself if you are using two mirrors (you can even see the rear view of your head), but you have to consider that the mirrors used some centuries ago were not at all comparable to the mirrors used today. The mirrors used by Dürer to draw his self-portraits most likely showed only a small part of his face, in a convex distortion, and he had to reconstruct his picture with this limited data.
So I am in a priviliged position: if I prefer to draw side views, I can do so by using some photos. "How science changes our lives..."

,,Ein segmentartiges Stück ist ihm aus dem Hinterkopf herausgeschnitten. Mit der Sonne schaut die ganze Welt hinein. Ihn macht es nervös, es lenkt ihn von der Arbeit ab, auch ärgert er sich, daß gerade er von dem Schauspiel ausgeschlossen sein soll.''
Franz Kafka, Tagebücher 9.1.1920

["A segment-like piece has been cut out of the back of his head. Together with the sun the whole world looks in. Him it makes nervous, it distracts him from working, also it ennoys him that just he should be excluded from this spectacle.
Franz Kafka, Diaries 01/09/1929]

I was reading a catalogue of Folkmanis, a company making hand puppets (it is an american company, but I know only the addresss of a german vendor: Olaf Matthies/ Billgrabendeich 41/ 21035 Hamburg), and there I found two puppets of a different company, Spielko, a wizard and a fairy, and the fairy had beautiful shoes, see above. Than I tried to imagine how a dress could look like to fit with this shoes, and after some sketches -see above- I had the final sketch -see above- which I copied and coloured, with the result you can see below; dates from 7.4.1998. Usually, I prefer comfort shoes, and it is very unlikly I will ever dress like that.

This picture dates from 30.4.1998, the title is ,,Als kapitolinische Venus'' ["As capitolian Venus"] and is based, as the title suggests, on the capitolian Venus. There is also a story (in german) based on this picture.

Another picture with an ancient subject showing a recent woman is the following, made 7+8.5.1998, and the title is "Madonna & Child (based on a photo of Mario Testino, Exclusivly for Vanity Fair)".

10.5.1998; the title is ,,Warum ein Body einem BH vorzuziehen ist/ Kontrapost/ Blume/ Auf den Zehenspitzen stehende junge Frau mit einer gemalten Sonne auf dem Hemd/ Bogen/ Licht'' ["Why a body suit is preferable compared to a bra/ contrapost/ flower/ young woman standing tiptoe with a painted sun on her shirt/ arc/ light"]; you see, I had some problems to find a fitting title.

The same is true for the following picture: it is untitled (and the date is 12.5.1998).

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