shrines.

Infinite anticipation!

 
Stuck! Festival - Trailer 2012 from Stuck! Festival on Vimeo.

(Although I didn't really figure out, yet, how to finance this trip to Salzburg, but be sure I already took part in one or two competitions! Hrrhrrr.) In other news, I'm really pissed right now, because Purity Rings long awaited full-length album is not available on Spotify - probably only in my country. FTS!

Over and over and over again.

submerge.

Ugh, I give up being in time with that monthly review. Though the third day of the month isn't really belated, is it? It's just my high aspiration to perfection I need to overcome. Well I planned to write all the book and movie related reviews yesterday, but then I crawled into my bed exhaustedly and woke up around 11pm and no shit was done. I didn't even mind the two longlegged fellows hanging right over my head on the ceiling. (Yes, I'm talking about spiders, here.)

So what happened in June, you ask? I went to 5 live shows. That's usually a rate of 3 months or so, when you live in a musically frustrating city like I do. (I can't emphasize it enough, peeps!) Yet, I am glad there is this "new" club called KONG I'm having high hopes on. They hosted a show with my new found love BEAR IN HEAVEN..(Spoiler alert: Record of the year!) 

I didn't find much time reading or watching movies due to that thing called social life, I guess. ;) 

And...as I already mentioned in the previous post, I did my best being all clumsy and here we already come to the part that is related to the post title. I flooded my apartment (or at least part of it). Actually...it wasn't really me, but the stupid rainstorm that had to surprise me on that day I forgot to shut my windows before leaving for work. Astonishment accomplished, Petrus! Gladly nothing was damaged, considering the fact that my computer was standing right in the middle of the pool! You can imagine the shock and the pleasure, getting rid of the mess and all that water. But two hours later it already looked liked nothing had happened. I'm glad I didn't have had any plans for that evening. Also, I am surprised I didn't get sick standing in the water with bare feet for so long. 

Ok, so here are the things I enjoyed last month, starting with the (few) books I read.

THE BOOKS I HAVE READ:

THE GLIMPSE by CLAIRE MERLE

So, by now, thinking about that book, I probably already forgot half of what happened. I even had to revisit the résumé on goodreads to get started writing a few sentences about it. Basically this book is yet another dystopian setting, where people are divided in Pures and Crazies. The author draws a futuristic scenario where flawless human beings exclude allegedly mentally ill people from their society. And of course we have our 16-year-old heroine who starts realizing that a lot of things are going wrong in her world. And although the cover of the book seems to promise a decent amount of romance, this was, to my disappointment, a rather dry detective-like story. (3/5)

MATCHED by ALLIE CONDIE

I have been lurking around that one for a long time. Most reviews I read had been very positive, but I always feared this would be too gooey for my taste. Way off the mark! This one, contrary to "The Glimpse" stays with you for a while and makes you want to crave for the sequel (yes, we have another trilogy here) and I would have ordered the second book right away if wouldn't have to pay back a severe amount of money to my electricity provider. The synopsis is summarized quickly. Cassia is living in a perfect world. Literally. Everything is prescribed by law. The food you get to eat. The job you will take, the person you will marry and the day you will die. All for the sake of getting perfect results and getting rid of distractions that make people think too much and dysfunction. I thought this was a very interesting scenario and this series lines up easily with some impressive dystopia like "The Hunger Games" and "Divergent". (4/5)

I am also halfway through another book, which was a present from our a intern, whom I helped with her exam preparation. It is "Hunting and Gathering" by Anna Gavalda, and I can already say that I really love the humor of this author. With that book I also got the DVD from the screen adaption and I'm looking forward to this one. 

THE MOVIES I HAVE WATCHED:

JEFF WHO LIVES AT HOME

Ok, first of all, I am fond of Jason Segel. So my judgement might be a bit biased. Meet Jeff, who...uhm yeah, still lives at home, and is sort of seeking the true meaning of live and gets all superstitious when he get's a call from a stranger asking for Kevin (you might be right, if you guessed there is no Kevin living at his house). Jeff takes the next bus to the city, because he is confused and feels he needs to get out or something, and sees this guy sitting in fron of him with a basketball shirt and the name "Kevin" on it. That's when Jeff is finally hooked, and tries to convince his indigenous brother, who alongside is struggling with his wife, about his new found destiny, he isn't sure about himself, yet. All in all, a diverting comedy with a Jason Segel you will enjoy if you love him as much as I do. (6.5/10)

CONTAGION

Packed with so many hollywood allstars this movie mostly lacks of character development. Kate Winslet for example whose talent I appreciate a lot, doesn't get the slightest chance in a movie like this, to show what she is really good at. You might also want to take my advice and don't eat while watching this movie, especially not during the Gwyneth Paltrow scenes. It's for your own good. What do we learn from this contagious blockbuster? Uhm, exactly...nothing. (5/10)

TAKE THIS WALTZ

Seth Rogen and Michelle Williams playing that couple that seems to fit so well but, in the end, still gets eaten by daily grind and boredom. But that's not it, yet. It is more a portrait of a young and insecure woman who is constantly searching for a higher meaning of her life and struggles with a sadness that overwhelms her and seems to be incurable. I didn't like her character much until the point where she says "Do you have any idea, how much courage it takes to seduce you?" And that's where I found a part of my own past personality in her.  (7/10)

FISH TANK

Talking about past lives. Meet Mia in her Fish Tank desperately searching for a way out. Growing up in a likewise neighbourhood I could perfectly relate to this young girl who is so angry and yet so passionate and strong. In my opinion this young actress, Katie Jarvis, does a much better job than I hoped I would see from Mr. Fassbender. In it's realistic setting it also reminded me a bit to "Weekend" which makes me want to observe the british film industry a little more. This is how brilliant filmmaking is done. (9/10)

WITHOUT

This one was listed as one of the International Independents at the still ongoing Filmfest in Munich. It is about a young girl breaking with her everyday life while taking a job as a nurse for an elderly person. When the host announced, this will be an oppressive experience, I sank back into the seats, daunted. Having seen some emotionally disturbing shit, I actually swore to myself, not to consume much more of these kinds of movies. But to defuse this a little, it was, in the end, indeed rather innocuous. But still, while watching the movie, I always expected some unsettling things to happen. And infact, the movie was built to make the audience wonder, what the hell is actually going on here, which was one of the good aspects. And if you like movies, that leave you riddled about what really happened and what didn't, you will probably enjoy this one. (7/10)

glow.

Yet, another eventful week has passed, and I am going to share some impressions with you sweethearts. Saturday last week I spent some time with my BFF and her sister again. First we went shopping and afterwards we enjoyed the evening sun at the Isar. We had hoped that not many others would be there, since there was a football game taking place at the same time, but it was crowded as hell, with wannabe vikings singing Manowar songs and other rather unpleasant people. But still it was a nice atmosphere. 

Then on monday I got an invitation for a hiphop show, once again, one of my friends, Laura, won tickets and she asked me if I wanna come. Sure I do! I had lots of fun with the main act, Gonjasufi, the atmosphere was great with all those people celebrating one of their musical heroes which I had never heard of before (shame on me!) But I was even more intrigued by Sun Glitters, the guy from Luxembourg who played as support act. Very nice tunes. But then again, it was rather sad, that the audience seemed not to be open-minded enough to enjoy an artist outside their favourite genre. 

Then, I don't know why, but people keep bringing me awesome foods, like cake and stuff, and I just can't refuse their offerings, can I? Oh, and apparently, right now I am enjoying clumsy times, I'll probably report about a huge mistake I committed, in my monthly review in a few days, but here I show you what happens, when you live in a really small place and have no space to put things, and then you put them in dangerous places and then shit happens. So the only wine glass I had (which I, by the way, stole from a bar that sold me a ridiculously overpriced drink, so I suspected the glass was inclusive, uhmmm yeah) broke into a thousand pieces.   

And here is a picture of a littly buddy, who went astray in my hallway and was my guest for several days. He didn't move an inch the first 48 hours, and I got a little worried. I opened the windows and hoped he would fly away but then he just moved from one wall to another. But finally, today he found his way out. I named him George, by the way. Farewell, Georgie! 

hexagons.

What an exhausting but awesome weekend that was! I had been looking forward to this for a while. Been excited since the day I heard of munich's light installation artists from Lunaland, planning their anniversary party in a special location, a factory where sleeping cars once had been built. (Among these, the famous Orient Express!) And I shrieked a little when I heard that ESBEN AND THE WITCH would be the headlining act to play on friday night. Some of you might remember that I declared their gig last year at Atomic Café in Munich as concert of the year.  And with this kind of venue and all the light effects I wouldn't have been surprised if that concert would be even better.

Another surprise was, that the band played lots of new tunes for the first time ever. There were three more bands this evening, all more or less from the shoegazer faction, but my attention was rather limited to EATW, I have to confess. 

While friday was pleasure for your ears, saturday was dedicated to the visuals senses. Next to two dancefloors there where lots of exhibitions by several local artists in the different parts of the factory. Among these were some psychologists who introduced a light therapy that was supposed to dissemble the perceptions of a mind under the influence of LSD. I tried an innocuous demo of 2 minutes (on friday), but I thought it was rather unspectacular. I wanted to try the longer and more intense version a day later, but the room was flooded with people and I couldn't imagine all of them watching while making this new experience. All in all I thought it was more amazing to watch, then to actually sit on the chair and have this extremely bright and flickering stroboscobic-like light on your eyes. And watching other people sitting there with that light just felt like you are right inside of a Lynch movie. Crazy shit. 

On sunday it was time for some music again. A little bit more quiet, this time. The team from innen.außen.raum invited three solo musicians, Woodpigeon from Canada, Halo of Pendor from the Netherlands (former Sweden) and dear Carlos Cipa from Munich. Carlos opened the evening with a simultaneous record release party and was stunned when people asked him to sign their copies. I also thought it was kinda sweet that his parents came to see him play. 

Then the swedish (dutch...whatever) guy played his sad songs, and messed up a little, with his loops but it was pretty easy to forgive him due to his cuteness. ;)

And the canadian guy was a little tired, and I still don't know why he kept checking his iPhone after every song, either was he checking the results of the football game that was running at the same time the concert took place, or he had his setlist on his phone, I dunno, but it didn't make a good impression.

Anywho! Here are some impressions of the weekend. If you weren't there you are probably a square, but at least you can imagine what you were missing! :P

To see more and fullsized images check this. All the images tagged with lunastrom10 are relevant.

requiem.

Farewell, my dear friend.

In the last days I have had some struggles with my longtime companion. Yesterday it displayed this "technical support" warning. I've seen this before, two years ago, but managed to restore the hard drive.

But since I had already planned to change my spotify account from unlimited to premium, and therefore be able to listen on the go via phone, I decided to leave it at that, and pay my last respects to Mr. Ipod. 

First, I had some doubts about spotify premium, because I thought, I would need a huge data flat to stream music on the move, but a friend reminded me, that you can create offline playlists and sync them to your phone. That made my decision pretty easy an from now on Spotify will be my daily attendant!

surprise.

Now that I am highly addicted to instagram I want to share some photos on a weekly basis with you.

Up there you see the kitteh of my housemate who visited my apartment because obviously it was no good weather for playing outside.

Also, I ate a lot of cake this week. There was even a third piece I didn't take a picture of. Just for the record, it was a walnut tarte.

On tuesday, I went to the BEAR IN HEAVEN concert, which was, of course, amazing. I must be on a winning streak, I dunno, but again (as for the last concert with OBERHOFER & WHITE ARROWS) I won tickets for the show, very last minute style. More by accident, I found a contest online and wrote an e-mail, and 15 minutes later I got a notification, that I had won the tickets. That's pretty convenient considering all the upcoming shows in june (What's going on anyway, Munich?). So, because I saved some money with the tickets, I thought I could invest in the sweet bag shown above. 

And then yesterday, I had a suprise day off. I didn't know there would be yet another bavarian feast day as there already had been lots of them the last weeks. So I fixed a date with my BFF and her sister, and we spent some time in Munichs famous recreational park, the english garden, with it's surfer boys, some unbelievable red trees and a satisfying amount of FroYo.