der mann ohne eigenschaften

I hesitated to post this for two reason. One, the quote I use mention the word “dildo”. But we are not that prudish. Two, I’m afraid of being too “lecturing”. But that’s my style. So being a European patriot - don’t worry, this isn’t about politics - is kind of hard in this era of nationalism. Then I read some lines in Douglas Couplands novel The gum thief that tells me how cool it is to be an European. This is how a character in the book describe Europe:

“Welcome to my chateau. We'll dine on peacock liver on toast [...] After that i'll ravage you with an heirloom jewel encrusted dlildo from the Crusades, and we will discuss the social beneficial effects of government sanctioned drugs injection site. “

Yep, well that's exactly how it is. I just have to add that I live in a castle ruin. Because ruins gives the landscape a romantic shimmer. When it gets cold we sit in front of the fire, vaped in animal fur and drink mulled wine made from 55 Bordeaux wine and lots of exotic spices plus some Mala punica juice. The modern latin name for Pomegranate is Punica granatum, but I use the antique latin name Mala punica. Also we treat our illnesses with Traditional European Medicine, like Emplastrum cantharidis. That was a bandage with spanish fly in it, and it might be places in Europe there you still can buy it from a Pharmacy. And no, spanish fly was not supposed to have worked at that way. Its irritate the skin and the skinirriation “diverse” other pain. “I have stomach cancer and now the irritated skin on my arm makes me forget the pain in my stomach”. Or wait, against cancer pain we actually use injections of drugs.

Thinking back of the summer. I’m in love with Venice. Maybe I will visit Venice one time every year for the rest of my life. Random thought, historically, like on the days of Casanova, Venice seems to have been a playhouse of pleasure and entertainment. Does that mean Venice was the Burning man of the 18-century? Now I don’t know much about Burning man, nor 18-century Venice so I should not say more about that.

More memories from last summer. I have ended up having a romantic view of Munich. That’s weird since I didn’t really liked the city when I was there. I was not impressed by seeing the beer halls with their old men with large beer mugs (Tankards?) and their tobacco pipes. I remember seeing a girl with a t-shirt with the text “Munich cozier than Berlin” (but in Deutsch, the word used was  “gemütlich” as far as I know “cozy” is a good translation). The rebellious guy inside me thought: “F**k cozy! I’m of to Berlin”. Still the romanitic guy inside me apperently likes Munich.

You might not know that it was the Europe day yesterday. I write that since I almost missed it. It doesn't look like it's famous, for example english wikipedia didn’t mentioned it. EU has been called “a state under construction”, or “a high function non-state”, or “The invisible Superpower”. To be more down to earth it has also been said that EU is far from perfect but the EU is the largest cooperation between democracies in the world, and it’s based on laws and human rights. Plus it got the Nobel peace prize for keeping the peace in Europe. It doesn’t need to be a superpower or a state.