The Siemens Sun Also Rises

© Joselito Briones

It's always nice that the Schlaffgutzimmer is filled with sunlight every morning, it's one of the things I like most about this apartment. Sometimes though, it gets confusing when, after leaving the sunlight-filled bedroom (photo, above), in the east side of the apartment, I see that the sun is shining just as brightly in the kitchen and dining area, west of the apartment (photo, middle).

© Joselito Briones

I've got Siemens to thank for it, of course, as the westerly sunlight in the morning is a reflection in their tallest building (photo, bottom).

© Joselito Briones

In the afternoon, it hailed. I was planning to go to Frankenlabor, I decided to just stay in. Goodbye golden October. Hello cold!


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How stupid of me

© Joselito Briones

...I just wade the tides that turned
Till I learn to leave the past behind...

...Press my face up to the window
To see how warm it is inside
See the things that I've been missing
Missing all this time...

-Beck Hansen, "Guess I'm Doing Fine"
(from "Sea Change")


How could I have mistaken this song for something from an eternal optimist? I guess it's not hard, if you just listen to it while doing something else, it's easy to see "It's only lies that I'm living, it's only you that I'm losing" as someone saying there's a lot worse that could happen, he could brave anything. I've been listening to this song for years without really knowing what it meant. Today I got tired of listening to my German Language audio lessons from my iPod and decided to switch to music, the song came up, I guess I was still in "pay attention" mode and heard differently from the other times I listened to it. It's sooooo depressing! How could someone who wrote such songs as "Sexx Laws", "Loser", and "Where It's At" write such a downer!

Hmmm... now that I think about it... maybe I just haven't been really listening to those other songs. I don't really want to find out later that they're just as tragic, so I'll just keep on listening to them while multitasking. Meanwhile I'll just keep on picking this one song apart, after all, who doesn't like lingering on miserable songs?


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P.S.

Googling Beck, I found out that he released a new album last month, "The Information"... and it's supposed to be as dark and moody as "Sea Change"... can't wait to get my hands on it!

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Golden Pond

© Joselito Briones

I always passed by this puddle in the middle of an empty construction site, on the way to Frankenlabor, here in Erlangen. There's something about it that made me keep looking at it, and I didn't know why, so I thought, I'll just take a digital snap of it and see what's in it. I picked the image apart and saw that there's actually plenty of color hiding behind the murky grayness of it, so I thought I'll just process it, turn it into something that resembles more a pond, sort of an hommage to Monet (pictured left is the result). I thought his paintings of ponds and water lilies were awesome, first time I saw them in Rouen, when I went there to study basic French many many many moons ago. I visited the actual garden that he painted, his own, in Giverny, just to see what inspired him to paint such wonderful pictures.


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