Have you seen Into the Wild? Have you read the book? It’s both my favourite film and my favourite book. To my absolute surprise, one of Pádraig’s friends who had staid with him from the very day of the accident till we left was reading it to him in Cape Cod. Turned out that the two had planned to follow the journey of Christopher McCandless through America. Since we came back from Hyannis, I have been telling Pádraig that he will be going to do this trip, up to Alaska, once he is well enough, with his friend (and me, if they take me with them). Today I asked him whether he would like to go on this trip. The answer was inconclusive, the tongue kinda staid in the middle. I’ll keep asking.

What do you think about the following? –

“… Make a radical change in your lifestyle and begin to boldly do things which you may previously never have thought of doing, or been too hesitant to attempt. So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservation, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The very basic core of a man’s living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun.”

Pádraig is one of the most sensitive, caring people I know when it comes to languages. He taught me how important it is for your identity, for your ‘self’ to be firmly rooted in your language, while being really respectful of the languages of others. He insists in the use of and his right to use Irish, his language, where it matters, and he makes a real effort to speak German to me even when it would be easier for him to speak English. It is really brilliant to see that he has maintained his ability to understand all the languages that he grew up with, after the accident. The nurses and I speak German to him, Pat speaks English, and his Irish friends continue to communicate with him in Irish. He even invented another tongue, literally.

This week, we changed our routine a little (because of visitors) and went to Tating a day early. We stopped by our local in Garding to show this incredible place to our cousin from Australia and an Irish friend. As always over the weekend, there was live music, people having a drink, smoking (!), in this tiniest of places, the music was free (they collect whatever you want to contribute by passing ’round a hat), and loud. Last night’s band played Rory Gallagher, T Rex, and the Doors. The Roadhouse Blues almost lifted the roof off the place. I had to pinch myself to remind me that this was now and not then.

Over the past years, each time I’ve been listening to an English song, I understood it a little bit better. This morning, though, I had to check the lyrics online for some words I never quite got – even after almost 30 years of learning English, of the Roadhouse Blues. When I did, I wondered how it ever got air time on commercial mainstream radio. There is the ok Road Safety Authority – type tag line we all sang on top of our voices, ‘Keep your eyes on the road and your hand upon the wheel’, but there are also lines about the bungalows behind the roadhouse and other not really sufficiently ambiguous things going on. My favourite, kind of existentialist line probably is about the future being uncertain. Thinking about it – this is nothing, considering that Frank Zappa’s Bobby Brown made it to No. 1 over several weeks when it came out and even the German DJs playing the song were wondering whether people buying and listening to the song understood what it was all about. You know what I mean if you check out the lyrics. Turned out that in this case content did not matter, nobody cared, the German’s loved the music and Zappa’s voice. And that was that.

You don’t have to go Into the Wild on your own. Right?

Today’s (German) Music Tip
Mercedes Sosa, Konstantin Wecker, Joan Baez, Ich singe weil ich ein Lied habe (2009, live in Xanten). This must have been some concert: the three greatest (protest) singers of all times, from Argentina, Germany, USA. ‘I am singing because I’ve got a song, not because you like it, not because you commissioned it or because you pay’.
What’s hot
Indoor ‘Bad’
What’s cold
The North Sea – even during the summer
The German word/phrase/verse of the day
Bad – it’s a bit like Rathaus, not ‘Bad’ at all, but a ‘bath’:)