Das riesengrosse Dreieck auf dem Pazifik von Hawai bis zu den Osterinseln und Neuseeland heisst Polynesien. Ich dachte immer, das seien Inselgruppen, die gibt es zwar auch dort, aber es sind Tausende …
Allein die Philippinen bestehen aus Tausenden von Inseln!
Und als Outrigger Fan muss ich das ja wissen – google on YOUTUBE Outrigger Rennen Hawai, und du bist dabei …
Frohe Ostern und Frieden in der Welt – vor allem in der Ukraine, sofort!
PS: Ganz links die Ostkueste Australiens und Sydney etwa geographisch in der Mitte, wir wohnen etwa 1000 km nach Norden an der Gold Coast, Grenze NSW heisst Tweed Valley mit Mount Warning (nach Captain Cook). Oder auch Cloud Gatherer …
Vom Haus zum Hausbeach (Burleigh) nur 600 m …
Und meine Beach Walks pro Woche seit drei Jahren (covidbedingt und keine Flugreisen nach D oder EU) etwa 10 km von 7 bis 9 am …
Oft auch mit Kamera …| see Beach Walks | Navigation.
This post is about dreams & dreaming …related to the Song: Warum ist die Banane krumm?
Pack | Ron Mueck Encounter | Sydney Art Gallery | Credit phb
Der Mann, der immer Warum fragte
Ein Märchen für kluge Kinder und die wenigen Erwachsenen, die das Kind in sich nicht vergessen haben.
Nach Art des Holden Caulfield, notiert während des Redens, wie Kleist es in seinem bekannten Essay empfahl.
Die Wahrheit ist, dass mir in dieser Welt nicht zu helfen ist … (Brief an die Schwester vor seinem Suizid am Wannsee)
Also gut. Ich erzähl euch jetzt diese Geschichte, aber ich warne euch gleich: Ich weiß noch nicht, wie sie aufhört. Das ist nämlich das Ehrliche daran. Kleist — das war so ein Typ, der schon vor zweihundert Jahren draufgekommen ist, dass man beim Reden denkt, nicht vorher. Die meisten Leute tun so, als hätten sie alles schon fertig im Kopf, bevor sie den Mund aufmachen. Das sind die Phoneys. Die gibt’s überall, aber in New York City gibt’s davon besonders viele, das kann ich euch sagen. Einer wohnt ja im Trump – Tower in der besten Wohnung und schaut morgens ueber den Central Park.
Neulich wurde dieser Phoney erneut ins Weisse Haus gewaehlt, die Wohnung hat er fuer die huebsche Stewardess reserviert, wie heisste sie noch gleich, Melanie oder sowas, die Wohnung also nicht vermietet, die Kohle braucht er schlicht gesagt nicht (mehr), seit er POTUS ist.
Aber fangen wir an.
Es war einmal ein Mann in New York City — und wenn ich sage New York City, dann meine ich wirklich New York, nicht das New York aus den Filmen, wo alle in riesigen Wohnungen leben und aus dem Fenster auf den Central Park schauen und Dinge sagen wie “fabelhaft” oder “wir müssen das unbedingt tun, Schatz.” Nein. Ich meine das echte New York, wo der Dampf aus den Gullideckeln kommt wie aus dem Mund eines Riesen, der gerade aufgewacht ist und noch nicht weiß, wo er ist. Ich meine das New York, wo die Leute in der U-Bahn so tun, als wären sie allein auf der Welt, während sie mit dem Ellbogen in deiner Rippe stecken.
In diesem New York also lebte der Mann. Dann wohnen viele Maenner, weiss ich, auch Trump ab und zu, mit Melanie oder so.
Er hatte einen Namen, aber den hat er meistens vergessen. Nicht weil er alt war, obwohl er das auch war, so ein bisschen, sondern weil Namen ihm immer verdächtig vorkamen. Warum heißt etwas so, wie es heißt? Warum nennen wir einen Hund Hund und nicht Wuff oder DasDingnebenderCouch? Warum ist eine Tasse eine Tasse und kein Mund für Flüssigkeiten? Solche Fragen stellte er sich ständig, und deshalb vergaß er manchmal, wie er selbst hieß.
Die Leute in seiner Straße nannten ihn einfach “den Mann, der immer Warum fragt.” Das klang nicht besonders freundlich, aber es war zumindest ehrlich. Und Ehrlichkeit, das muss man in New York schon sehr sehr hoch einschätzen.
Eines Morgens, es war so ein grauer Dienstagmorgen, die schlimmste Sorte Morgen, weil der Montag schon vorbei ist, aber das Wochenende noch kilometerweit weg, ging der Mann zum Kiosk an der Ecke 82nd und Columbus Street, um eine Zeitung zu kaufen.
“Drei Dollar fünfzig,” sagte der Mann am Kiosk. Er hieß Miguel und kannte den Mann schon seit Jahren. Er wusste, was jetzt kam.
“Warum?” sagte der Mann.
Miguel seufzte. Nicht unfreundlich, eher so wie man seufzt, wenn man eine schwere Kiste zum vierten Mal die Treppe hochträgt. “Weil das der Preis ist.”
“Aber warum ist das der Preis? Gestern war es drei Dollar zwanzig.”
“Inflation.”
“Warum?”
Miguel reichte ihm die Zeitung. “Nehmen Sie einfach. Heute ist sie umsonst. Ich hab keine Zeit für Warum.”
Das war das Problem, fand der Mann. Alle hatten keine Zeit für Warum. Die Leute rannten durch die Stadt mit ihren Kaffees in Pappbechern, Warum eigentlich Papier, warum nicht Glas, warum trinkt überhaupt jeder im Gehen, als ob Sitzen Versagen bedeutet, und taten so, als wären die Antworten auf alle Fragen schon längst irgendwo gespeichert, in einer Cloud oder in einem Harvard-Abschluss oder in den Augen eines sehr selbstsicheren Mannes im Fernsehen.
Der Mann setzte sich auf die Stufen vor dem Museum of Natural History. Das macht er öfters. Die Dinosaurier drinnen stellten ihm nämlich keine Fragen, und das fand er angenehm. Aber sie beantworteten auch keine, was weniger angenehm war.
Ein Kind, vielleicht sieben, acht Jahre alt, mit einem roten Anorak und einer sehr ernsten Miene, setzte sich neben ihn.
“Warum sitzen Sie da?” fragte das Kind.
Der Mann schaute das Kind an. Dann lächelte er zum ersten Mal an diesem Dienstagmorgen.
“Gute Frage,” sagte er. “Ich weiß es nicht genau. Ich glaube, weil die Welt von hier aus etwas übersichtlicher aussieht.”
“Tut sie das?”
“Nein, eigentlich nicht. Aber man hofft es.”
Das Kind nickte. Es schien das vollkommen vernünftig zu finden. “Ich frage auch immer Warum,” sagte das Kind. “Meine Lehrerin sagt, ich soll damit endlich aufhören.”
Und hier, hier müsst ihr jetzt gut zuhören, weil das der wichtigste Moment in dieser Geschichte ist, auch wenn sie so tut, als wäre sie noch mittendrin.
Der Mann sagte: “Deine Lehrerin ist echt phoney.”
Das Kind sah ihn an. “Was ist eine Phoney?”
“Jemand, der aufgehört hat zu fragen, warum er tut, was er tut. Und weil er aufgehört hat, kann er nicht mehr ertragen, wenn jemand anderes nachfragt.”
Das Kind dachte eine Weile nach. “Aber warum hören die auf?”
“Weil es ihnen jemand beigebracht hat. Dem jemand vor ihnen hat es auch jemand beigebracht. Das geht so weit zurück, dass niemand mehr weiß, wer damit angefangen hat. Irgendein Erwachsener, der selbst sehr müde war und sehr beschäftigt und dem das Warum des Kindes das Schlimmste schien, was man ihm antun konnte.”
Jetzt muss ich kurz was erklären, sonst verlier ich den Faden. Kleist, den ich schon erwähnt habe, und den kaum jemand kennt, was typisch ist fuer deutsche Schulen, der hat mal geschrieben, dass man mitten im Reden denkt. Nicht vorher. Man fängt an, und der Gedanke entsteht beim Sprechen, wie ein Weg, der unter den Füßen erscheint, während man geht. Das Maul ist dem Verstand immer eine halbe Sekunde voraus, und der Verstand hechelt hinterher und tut dann so, als hätte er das die ganze Zeit so gewollt.
Das ist eigentlich wunderbar, wenn man’s bedenkt. Es bedeutet nämlich: Du weißt nie genau, wohin du gehst, bevor du losgehst. Das klingt nach Chaos, aber es ist in Wahrheit das Gegenteil von Phoney. Phoneys wissen immer schon, was sie sagen werden, bevor sie es sagen. Deshalb klingen sie so glatt. Deshalb ist man hinterher so leer. Sie sprechen eigentlich nur noch in diesen Bubbles ohne jeden Sinn. Finde ich jedenfalls. Mein Vater sagt bei den Nachrichten immer: Einfach Bullshit …
Der Mann auf den Stufen haette das nie so formuliert oder sagen koennen, aber er lebte geanu so. Er dachte lamge nach.
“Kommen Sie manchmal ans Meer?” fragte das Kind unvermittelt.
“Ich wohne nah am Meer,” sagte der Mann. “Also, ich wohnte nah an einem. Jetzt wohne ich hier in dieser Stadt.”
“Vermissen Sie das Meer?”
“Ja.”
“Warum sind Sie dann hier?”
Der Mann dachte lange nach. Das war eine gute Frage. Eine sehr gute. “Ich glaube,” sagte er sehr langsam, und ihr merkt, er denkt beim Reden, genau wie Kleist es beschrieben hat, “ich glaube, weil ich dachte, New York hätte die Antworten auf meine Fragen. Alle großen Städte sehen aus, als hätten sie Antworten. Alle diese Gebäude, alle diese beschäftigten Menschen, das sieht nach Wissen aus. Nach Richtung oder Orientierung.”
“Hat die Stadt die?”
“Nein. Es hat sehr gute Restaurants und sehr laute U-Bahnen und Menschen, die so tun, als hätten sie Antworten. Aber das ist was anderes.”
Das Kind aß einen Keks. Es hatte ihn aus der Tasche gezogen, ohne dass der Mann es bemerkt hatte. Ein Kind mit Keksen in der Jackentasche ist ein Kind, das Vorsorge trifft. Das fand der Mann sehr bemerkenswert.
“Was wäre die Antwort?” fragte das Kind, den Mund halb voll.
“Auf was?”
“Na, auf alles.”
Der Mann lehnte sich zurück. Über ihnen schrie eine Möwe, was in dieser Entfernung vom Wasser eigentlich unmöglich war, aber trotzdem passierte, weil Möwen sich um Wahrscheinlichkeiten nicht scheren.
“Ich glaube,” sagte er, “die Antwort auf alles ist: Frag weiter. Das ist unbefriedigend, ich weiß. Man will, dass die Antwort lautet: Liebe oder Gott oder Achtstunden Schlaf und ausgewogene Ernährung. Aber in Wirklichkeit ist das Fragen selbst die Antwort. Wer aufhört zu fragen, hat aufgehört zu leben. Der tut dann nur noch so.”
Jetzt kommen wir zu dem Punkt, wo andere Leute, die solche Geschichten schreiben wie E E Cummings, den Mann auf den Mond setzen würden.
Ihr wisst schon, der Mann, zu schön für diese Welt, zu weise, zu sehr Kind im Herzen, sitzt am Rand des Mondes, die Beine baumeln ins Nichts, und lächelt so ein Lächeln, das bedeutet: Ich hab’s verstanden, was ihr alle nicht versteht. Das ist sehr malerisch und auch romantisch. Das ist auch, wenn ihr mich fragt, eine ziemliche Sauerei.
Denn das ist der Trick der Phoneys: Sie romantisieren das Nicht-Dazugehören. Sie machen ein Poster draus. Der Träumer. Der Weise Narr. Der Außenseiter mit dem goldenen Herzen. Und dann kaufen ganz normale Phoneys dieses Poster und hängen es sich ins Büro, zwischen den Motivationskalender und das Foto vom Teambuilding-Ausflug, und fühlen sich eine Minute lang irgendwie tiefer als sie sind.
Nein.
Der Mann auf den Stufen des Museum of Natural History saß eben auf den Stufen. Er saß nicht am Rand des Mondes. Er roch nach Kaffee von vorhin und nach der U-Bahn von heute früh, und sein linkes Knie tat weh, wie es das seit Jahren tat, und er hatte keine besondere Erleuchtung erlebt, keine Vision, kein Licht vom Himmel.
Er hatte einem Kind zugehört.
Das ist alles.
Das Kind stand auf. “Ich muss rein. Meine Mutter wartet.”
“Natürlich.”
“Werden Sie morgen auch hier sein?”
“Vielleicht.”
“Ich würde gern noch mehr fragen.”
“Ich auch,” sagte der Mann.
Und das war die Wahrheit. Das war der ganze Kern davon, wenn ihr unbedingt einen Kern haben wollt, was ich verstehe, weil alle immer einen Kern wollen, weil die Schule uns beigebracht hat, dass jede Geschichte eine Moral hat, was meistens eine Lüge ist, aber hier ausnahmsweise stimmt:
Der Mann, der immer Warum fragte, war kein Heiliger und kein Mondkind und kein Weiser in der Einsamkeit. Er war ein Mensch, der sich geweigert hatte, mit dem Fragen aufzuhören, nicht weil er die Antworten nicht wollte, sondern weil er wusste, dass die Fragen das Leben sind. Nicht das Davor und das Danach. Der Moment, wo das Maul dem Verstand vorausläuft und man selbst nicht weiß, was als nächstes kommt.
Wer aufhört zu fragen, wird erwachsen.
Wer erwachsen wird, hört auf, sich zu wundern.
Wer aufhört, sich zu wundern, wird ein Phoney.
Und die Welt hat schon zu viele Phoneys. New York City allein hat mehr davon als jede andere Stadt der Welt, obwohl Zürich da eng aufholt, wenn ihr mich fragt. Und Berlin? Naja, einige dort sind wohl ganz ok, aber die meisten sind nach meiner Meinung auch Phoneys.
Der Mann blieb noch eine Weile sitzen. Die Möwe war weg. Der Dampf stieg noch aus den Gullideckeln. Ein Typ in einem sehr teuren Mantel lief vorbei und redete laut in sein Telefon über etwas, das sehr wichtig klang und es wahrscheinlich nicht war.
Stock Exchange, vermutlich.
Der Mann fragte sich: Warum haben wir Mäntel eigentlich mit so vielen Knöpfen gemacht, wenn wir sie nie zuknöpfen?
Und weil er keine Antwort wusste, und weil das gut war, stand er auf.
Er ging zurück in die Stadt.
Er fragte weiter.
Immer noch.
Das Märchen ist hier nicht zu Ende. Es hört nicht auf. Es geht weiter in jedem Kind, das seine Lehrerin damit in den Wahnsinn treibt, in jedem Alten auf Museumsstufen, in jedem Gespräch, das beim Reden denkt statt vorher. Das ist kein Happy Ending. Das ist besser als ein Happy Ending Das ist das echte Leben, und das fragt immer weiter.Und es fragt auch immer: Cui bono? Wer profitiert am meisten?
P.H. Bloecker · Gold Coast QLD Australia, 30 Mar 2026 · nach Art des Holden C und Salinger, in Erinnerung an Kleist und sein Grab am Wannsee zum Trotzaller adults, mostly phoneys.
Young Couple | Ron Mueck | Encounter | Sydney Art Gallery | Credit phb
Peter H Bloecker lebt mit seiner Frau Maria Ines seit 2015 an der Gold Coast in Queensland Australien.
A fairy tale for smart children and the few adults who haven’t forgotten the child inside them.
In the manner of Holden Caulfield, noted down while speaking, as Kleist recommended in his well-known essay.
The truth is that there is no help for me in this world … (Letter to his sister before his suicide at the Wannsee)
All right then. I’m going to tell you this story now, but I’m warning you straight away: I don’t know yet how it ends. That’s the honest part of it. Kleist — he was one of those guys who figured out two hundred years ago that you think while you’re talking, not before. Most people act as if they’ve got everything ready in their heads before they open their mouths. Those are the phoneys. They’re everywhere, but in New York City there are more of them than anywhere else, I can tell you that. One of them lives in the Trump Tower in the best apartment and looks out over Central Park every morning.
Recently this phoney got himself elected back into the White House. He’s kept the apartment for the pretty stewardess — what was her name again, Melanie or something like that — hasn’t rented it out, he simply doesn’t need the money anymore, not since he became POTUS.
But let’s begin.
Once upon a time there was a man in New York City — and when I say New York City, I mean really New York, not the New York from the movies where everyone lives in enormous apartments and looks out the window at Central Park and says things like “fabulous” or “we simply must do that, darling.” No. I mean the real New York, where steam rises from the manhole covers like the breath of a giant who’s just woken up and doesn’t know where he is. I mean the New York where people on the subway act as if they’re alone in the world while their elbow is stuck in your ribs.
That is the New York where the man lived. Plenty of men live there, I know, Trump too, from time to time, with Melanie or whatever.
He had a name, but he’d mostly forgotten it. Not because he was old — although he was that too, a little — but because names always seemed suspicious to him. Why does something have the name it has? Why do we call a dog a dog and not woof or thatthingbesidethecouch? Why is a cup a cup and not a mouth for liquids? He asked himself questions like these constantly, and that’s why he sometimes forgot what he himself was called.
The people in his street simply called him “the man who always asks why.” It didn’t sound particularly friendly, but it was at least honest. And honesty, you have to rate that very, very highly in New York.
One morning — it was one of those grey Tuesday mornings, the worst kind of morning, because Monday is already over but the weekend is still miles away — the man walked to the kiosk on the corner of 82nd and Columbus Street to buy a newspaper.
“Three fifty,” said the man at the kiosk. His name was Miguel and he’d known the man for years. He knew what was coming.
“Why?” said the man.
Miguel sighed. Not unkindly — more the way you sigh when you’re carrying a heavy crate up the stairs for the fourth time. “Because that’s the price.”
“But why is that the price? Yesterday it was three twenty.”
“Inflation.”
“Why?”
Miguel handed him the newspaper. “Just take it. Today it’s free. I haven’t got time for why.”
That was the problem, the man thought. Nobody had time for why. People rushed through the city with their coffees in paper cups — Why paper anyway, why not glass, why does everyone drink on the move, as if sitting down means failure — and acted as if the answers to all questions had long since been stored somewhere, in a cloud or in a Harvard degree or in the eyes of a very self-assured man on television.
The man sat down on the steps in front of the Museum of Natural History. He does that often. The dinosaurs inside didn’t ask him any questions, and he found that pleasant. But they didn’t answer any either, which was less pleasant.
A child — perhaps seven, eight years old, wearing a red anorak and a very serious expression — sat down beside him.
“Why are you sitting there?” asked the child.
The man looked at the child. Then he smiled for the first time that Tuesday morning.
“Good question,” he said. “I don’t know exactly. I think because the world looks a little more manageable from here.”
“Does it?”
“No, not really. But one hopes.”
The child nodded. It seemed to find this perfectly reasonable. “I always ask why too,” said the child. “My teacher says I should finally stop.”
And here — here you need to listen carefully, because this is the most important moment in this story, even though it’s pretending to still be in the middle of itself.
The man said: “Your teacher is a real phoney.”
The child looked at him. “What’s a phoney?”
“Someone who has stopped asking why they do what they do. And because they’ve stopped, they can no longer bear it when someone else keeps asking.”
The child thought for a while. “But why do they stop?”
“Because someone taught them to. And someone taught that someone before them. It goes so far back that nobody knows who started it. Some adult who was very tired and very busy and who found a child’s why the worst thing that could be done to them.”
Now I need to explain something quickly or I’ll lose the thread. Kleist — who I’ve already mentioned, and who hardly anyone knows, which is typical of German schools — once wrote that you think in the middle of speaking. Not before. You start, and the thought comes into being while you’re talking, like a path that appears beneath your feet as you walk. The mouth is always half a second ahead of the mind, and the mind comes panting after it and then acts as if it had intended that all along.
That’s actually wonderful, if you think about it. Because it means: you never know exactly where you’re going before you set off. That sounds like chaos, but it’s really the opposite of phoney. Phoneys always already know what they’re going to say before they say it. That’s why they sound so smooth. That’s why you feel so empty afterwards. They basically only speak in those bubbles without any meaning at all. I think so anyway. My father always says when the news is on: Just plain bullshit…
The man on the steps could never have put it that way or said it like that, but that’s exactly how he lived. He thought for a long time.
“Do you ever go to the sea?” the child asked suddenly.
“I live near the sea,” said the man. “That is, I lived near one. Now I live here in this city.”
“Do you miss the sea?”
“Yes.”
“Why are you here then?”
The man thought for a long time. That was a good question. A very good one. “I think,” he said very slowly — and you’ll notice, he’s thinking while he talks, exactly as Kleist described — “I think because I thought New York had the answers to my questions. All big cities look as if they have answers. All those buildings, all those busy people — it looks like knowledge. Like direction. Like orientation.”
“Does the city have them?”
“No. It has very good restaurants and very loud subways and people who act as if they have answers. But that’s something else.”
The child ate a biscuit. It had pulled it from its pocket without the man noticing. A child with biscuits in its jacket pocket is a child that takes precautions. The man found that very remarkable.
“What would the answer be?” asked the child, mouth half full.
“To what?”
“Well, to everything.”
The man leaned back. Above them a seagull cried — which at this distance from the water was actually impossible, but happened anyway, because seagulls don’t care about probabilities.
“I think,” he said, “the answer to everything is: keep asking. That’s unsatisfying, I know. You want the answer to be: love or God or eight hours’ sleep and a balanced diet. But in reality the asking itself is the answer. Whoever stops asking has stopped living. They’re only pretending after that.”
Now we come to the point where other people who write these kinds of stories — like E.E. Cummings — would put the man on the moon.
You know the type — the man, too beautiful for this world, too wise, too much of a child at heart, sitting at the edge of the moon, legs dangling into nothing, smiling a smile that says: I’ve understood what none of you understand. That’s very picturesque and romantic too. That’s also, if you ask me, a complete swindle.
Because that’s the phoneys’ trick: they romanticise not-belonging. They turn it into a poster. The Dreamer. The Wise Fool. The Outsider with the Golden Heart. And then perfectly ordinary phoneys buy this poster and hang it in their office, between the motivational calendar and the photo from the team-building day out, and feel somehow deeper than they are for one minute.
No.
The man on the steps of the Museum of Natural History was sitting on the steps. He was not sitting at the edge of the moon. He smelled of coffee from earlier and of the subway from this morning, and his left knee hurt the way it had for years, and he had not experienced any particular enlightenment, no vision, no light from heaven.
He had listened to a child.
That’s all.
The child stood up. “I have to go in. My mother is waiting.”
“Of course.”
“Will you be here tomorrow too?”
“Maybe.”
“I’d like to ask more questions.”
“So would I,” said the man.
And that was the truth. That was the whole core of it, if you absolutely must have a core, which I understand, because everyone always wants a core, because school taught us that every story has a moral, which is mostly a lie, but happens to be true here:
The man who always asked why was no saint and no moon-child and no wise man in solitude. He was a person who had refused to stop asking — not because he didn’t want the answers, but because he knew that the questions are life. Not the before and the after. The moment when the mouth runs ahead of the mind and you yourself don’t know what comes next.
Whoever stops asking grows up.
Whoever grows up stops wondering.
Whoever stops wondering becomes a phoney.
And the world already has too many phoneys. New York City alone has more of them than any other city in the world, although Zurich is running a close second, if you ask me. And Berlin? Well, some people there are probably quite alright, but in my opinion most of them are phoneys too.
The man stayed sitting for a while longer. The seagull was gone. Steam was still rising from the manhole covers. A guy in a very expensive coat walked past, talking loudly into his phone about something that sounded very important and probably wasn’t.
Stock Exchange, most likely.
The man asked himself: Why did we make coats with so many buttons if we never do them up?
And because he didn’t know the answer, and because that was fine, he stood up.
He walked back into the city.
He kept asking.
Still.
– End of the Fairy Tale –
Reading grows wings.
Nota bene:
Salinger spells it without the ‘e’: phony. It is arguably the single most important word in the entire novel, Holden’s ultimate verdict on the adult world.
A note for readers who don’t know the word — and why they should.
Phony is Holden Caulfield’s word. He uses it on nearly every page of J.D. Salinger’s novel The Catcher in the Rye (1951), and it means something very precise: a person who performs a life instead of living one. Someone who says what is expected, does what is required, and has quietly stopped asking whether any of it is true. Holden sees phonies everywhere — in his school, in the theatre, at parties, in the mirror. He is sixteen and furious and not entirely wrong.
Salinger’s novel was banned in schools across the USA for decades. Which tells youa lot.
If you have never read it: do. Not because it will make you young again. But because it will remind you what it felt like to be young enough to still find the phoniness of the world genuinely unbearable, before you learned, as most of us adults do, to call that unbearability normal and move on with theirr life.
The man on the museum steps never moved on: He mostly talked to himself only, if at all. The rest was simply Silence.
That is his whole story.
US and British English:
Salinger writes: phony · phonies · phoniness
That is American spelling throughout the novel. No ‘e’ anywhere.
British and Australian English write: phoney · phoneys · phoneyness
Outside Trump Country and his POTUS world phoney / phoneys is my personal stylistic choice — and it is actually how the word entered most non – US – American dictionaries.
While Salinger spells itphony / phonies / phoniness, my own preferred version in this tale is phoney / phoneys.
Sydney Harbour | Credit phb
The phoniness of the adult world is exactly Holden’s central diagnosis in his asylum.
While the abstract noun phoniness is the condition; phoneys are the carriers; and growing up, in Salinger’s brutal little novel, is essentially the process of becoming one. The metapher of the Catcher in the Rye is worth another full essay.
USA classics
Salinger: The Catcher in the Rye. Banned in the USA for a long time, the only classic novel in West German High Schools that could not be replaced. Hundreds of thousands of young German High Schools (Gymnasien) loved this rather short novel. For some of them the only book they will never forget.
Lesen und das Lesen lernen
Deutsch:
Lesen lässt Flügel wachsen
Das ist nicht nur mein persönliches Motto. Es ist die stille Überzeugung, für die die Stiftung Lesen in Mainz seit 1988 kämpft: dass jedes Kind, unabhängig von Herkunft, Geld oder sozialem Hintergrund, das Recht auf Lesekompetenz hat, und auf die Welt, die sich dadurch öffnet. Wer wissen möchte, wie es um das Lesen in Deutschland wirklich steht, sollte einen Blick auf ihre Arbeit werfen: www.stiftunglesen.de. Die Zahlen sind ernüchternd. Die Arbeit ist wichtig. Und der Mann auf den Museumsstufen würde vermutlich fragen: Warum wissen das nicht bereits alle?
English:
Reading grows wings
That is not only my personal motto. It is the quiet conviction that Stiftung Lesen in Mainz has been fighting for since 1988: that every child, regardless of background, money or social circumstance, has the right to reading competency, and to the world that opens up through it. Anyone who wants to know what the state of reading in Germany really looks like should take a look at their work: www.stiftunglesen.de. The statistics are sobering. The work is important. And the man on the museum steps would probably ask: Why doesn’t everybody know this?
That last line keeps it in Holden’s voice and circles back to your story perfectly, Hanns.
Wer das lesen verlernt, der hat bereits verloren.
This fairy tale is not over here. It doesn’t stop. It goes on in every child that drives its teacher to distraction with questions, in every old person on museum steps, in every conversation that thinks while talking instead of before. This is no happy ending. This is better than a happy ending. This is real life, and real life keeps asking. And it always asks too: Cui bono? Who profits most?
P.H. Bloecker · Gold Coast QLD Australia, 30 Mar 2026 · in the manner of Holden C. and Salinger, in memory of Kleist and his grave at the Wannsee, in defiance of all adults, mostly phoneys.
Phoneys in Sydney | Credit phb
Peter H. Bloecker has lived with his wife Maria Inés on the Gold Coast in Queensland, Australia since 2015.
Slavery, the Holocaust, and the dangerous arithmetic of atrocity
by P.H. Bloecker
Gold Coast QLD Australia, 25 March 2026
The UN General Assembly voted yesterday on a resolution declaring the transatlantic slave trade the gravest crime against humanity. 123 nations voted in favour. Three voted against: the United States, Israel, and Argentina. 52 abstained — among them all 27 members of the European Union and the United Kingdom.
The resolution is non-binding. It is political. And its most dangerous word stands in the superlative: the gravest.
Because a superlative implies a ranking. And a ranking of human catastrophes inevitably raises a question that nobody in that chamber spoke aloud — but that everyone present heard:
Is the slave trade worse than the Holocaust? And is that even a question we are permitted to ask?
I. Frankl and Benjamin Were Jews
In recent days I have been writing about Viktor Frankl and Walter Benjamin — two Jewish intellectuals from the German-speaking world, both caught in the machinery of the same annihilation, both witnesses to the absolute limit of human barbarism. Frankl survived Auschwitz. Benjamin died fleeing it, in a hotel room in Port Bou on the Spanish border, on the night of 25 September 1940.
Israel voted No yesterday. That is not coincidental. The Israeli delegation read the same subtext every attentive observer read: the phrase gravest crime against humanity is an implicit hierarchy. And that hierarchy positions the slave trade — deliberately or not — above the Holocaust in the moral order of priority of the international community.
That is politically explosive. And philosophically untenable.
II. Can Crimes Against Humanity Be Ranked?
The question is not academic. It has real consequences — for reparations claims, for international jurisprudence, for whose history appears in school curricula and whose pain becomes law.
The historian Yehuda Bauer, one of the foremost Holocaust scholars of the twentieth century, argued throughout his career that the Holocaust was sui generis — a singular crime that could not be placed in a sequence with others. His argument: for the first and so far only time in history, a modern industrial state deployed its entire bureaucratic, military, and technological apparatus with the explicit aim not of subjugating a people, not of exploiting them, but of biologically erasing them from the earth entirely. No economic motive. No territorial logic. Annihilation as an end in itself.
The transatlantic slave trade followed a different — no less brutal — logic. The enslaved were valuable precisely because they were alive and could work. The horrors were immense: dehumanisation, the destruction of families, the erasure of cultures, the creation of an inherited poverty that remains structurally operative today. But the goal was extraction, not extinction.
Does that distinction make one worse than the other?
Most serious ethicists answer: the question itself is the error.
Every human face presents an absolute, irreducible demand. You cannot weigh one face against another.
— Emmanuel Levinas, Holocaust survivor and philosopher
Elie Wiesel was more direct still: he refused all comparison. Every genocide, he argued, is unique to those who suffered it. To rank suffering is to diminish all suffering simultaneously — to treat the victims not as human beings but as data points in a comparative exercise.
This is also Frankl’s implicit position. His entire framework of Logotherapy rests on the absolute uniqueness of each human life and each human suffering. The logic of the will to meaning forbids the ranking of catastrophe — because meaning is not comparative. It is singular, concrete, unrepeatable.
III. The Colonial Motherlands and Their Abstention
And yet — the EU abstained. Britain abstained. The official argument was legal: the formulations in the text were too complex, the juridical implications too unclear, the respect for the subject matter too great to vote yes.
That is diplomatic language for: we are afraid of the consequences.
Britain, France, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Denmark — these are the colonial motherlands. They did not observe the slave trade from the sidelines. They invented it, financed it, gave it legal frameworks, and ran it for four centuries. The wealth on which European industrialisation was built rests to a considerable degree on the bodies of enslaved Africans.
They know this. And that is precisely why they abstained.
Because a Yes would have meant: we acknowledge. And acknowledgement — as they learned from Germany’s post-war history — leads to reparations. Germany has paid billions to Holocaust survivors and the State of Israel since 1952. Not one European nation has paid a cent in reparations for slavery.
That difference cannot be justified on moral grounds. It is political, geographical — and racist in its consequences, even if no one in the chamber was willing to use that word.
IV. Money Does Not Heal — But Silence Destroys
My deeper objection to reparations in the form of financial transfers is a different one. The slave trade was so catastrophic in scale, duration, and civilisational destructiveness that no financial transaction can calibrate it. Four centuries. Millions of human beings. Generations of broken genealogies, erased languages, destroyed cultures, compounding poverty that no cheque can reverse.
A payment is also a receipt. And a receipt carries the notation: settled and closed.
What would actually help is what no Western government is seriously offering: debt cancellation for African and Caribbean nations, structural trade reform, and above all honest historical education in European and American classrooms. None of that costs what a cheque costs. All of it costs more politically.
Healing is medicine. Healing is acknowledgement. Healing is the naming of truth — without subtext, and without superlatives.
V. What Actually Happened in New York Yesterday
Yesterday in New York, 123 nations said that the slave trade was a crime. That is right and necessary and long overdue.
But the word gravest was a political mistake. Not because the slave trade was not immeasurable in its horror. But because superlatives in the language of suffering always set victims against one another. And because this particular hierarchy — this is the bitter subtext — serves precisely those who abstained from everything: the colonial motherlands, who want to say neither Yes nor No, because both cost them something they are not prepared to pay.
Benjamin’s angel of history stares back at the wreckage. The EU looked away yesterday.
Frankl would ask: what attitude do the heirs of perpetrators take toward unavoidable historical truth?
The answer New York gave yesterday was: we abstain.
Both crimes were absolute. Both were total for those who suffered them. The ranking is not philosophy, it is politics. And the politics reveals, with uncomfortable precision, whose suffering Europe is prepared to name, and whose it is still not.
P.H. Bloecker is a retired Director of Studies and has been writing about education, literature, and the lived life since 2015 at bloecker.wordpress.com and bloeckerblog.com. He lives on the Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia.
Trained in German language and literature, American Studies, and linguistics at the Freie Universität Berlin, he worked across Germany, Namibia, and Queensland over a forty-three year career. He writes from the intersection of German Idealist philosophy, critical theory, and lived experience across three continents.
What’s a secret skill or ability you have or wish you had?
Since I read stories and books and saw the first black and white films on TV since 1956, I wished I found a Tarnkappe, making me invisible.
These and other stories have faszinated me a lot, identifying with my heroes.
And the giants and the large birds carrying me out into the world.
I read every book I could find.
Even Comics with Tarzan and Jane in the jungle.
Now at the age of 76 and born in 1949 I have the time to sort things out a bit.
Connecting the dots …
Like Steve Jobs phrased it before he went up there into the clouds.
Of Google, I would guess.
Read this about Albo and Pauline Hanson in Australia, friend of Gina Reinhard, the Mining Queen of Australia:
One Nation (Australian Party gained 20% while the Liberals lost 19%):
Credit phb
Just listen very carefully and word by word:
This is just one example of Media and how Propaganda is designed:
Greetings from George Orwell and the Animal Farm
Soma in Huxley’s New World.
Stupidity and the melting down of Liberals or FDP in Germany and the so called Middle of Grand Coalition of CDU/CSU and SPD in Germany (Australian Labour Party in OZ with Albo).
The man is trying as good as he can …however ….
Pauline Hanson gained 20%
The Farage Kasper or better Clown in Britain is called a Reformer
He was with Boris Johnson one of the Masters of Brexit.
Masters of War like Trump or former US Presidents have been characterized well enough by Bob Dylan.
One of the reasons for his Nobel Prize, there are many more reasons for sure.
Edle Federn — Der Literaturpodcast von und mit Juli Zeh
Ein Werkstattgespräch, das es kostenlos gibt. Und das man sich nicht entgehen lassen sollte.
Das Konzept ist denkbar einfach: Jeden Monat, am letzten Sonntag um 10 Uhr, interviewt die Schriftstellerin Juli Zeh einen Gast aus der Welt der Literatur — über Geschichten und Sprache, über das Schreiben und Erzählen. Spotify Ein Gast. Eine Stunde. Ein Werk. Und das Beste daran: Die Vollversion aller Folgen findet sich auf The Pioneer.de TuneIn — die kostenlose Version ist jedoch über alle gängigen Podcast-Apps zugänglich: Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Acast, TuneIn.
Wer also wissen möchte, wie deutschsprachige Gegenwartsliteratur wirklich entsteht — ohne Feuilleton-Lack und Verlagsformulierungen — der ist hier richtig.
Juli Zeh als Gastgeberin: Juristin, Richterin, Schriftstellerin
Juli Zeh, 1974 in Bonn geboren, ist promovierte Juristin, Verfassungsrichterin in Brandenburg und preisgekrönte Schriftstellerin. Ihre Romane sind in 35 Sprachen übersetzt; für ihr Werk wurde sie u.a. mit dem Thomas-Mann-Preis und dem Heinrich-Böll-Preis ausgezeichnet, 2018 erhielt sie das Bundesverdienstkreuz. PIPER Ihr Roman Über Menschen war das meistverkaufte belletristische Hardcover des Jahres 2021. Penguin
Was Zeh als Interviewerin von anderen unterscheidet: Sie fragt nicht als Journalistin, sondern als Kollegin. Die Fragen kommen von innen — aus dem eigenen Schreiben heraus. Das ist der entscheidende Unterschied zu einem Literaturgespräch im Fernsehsessel. Hier sitzt keine Moderatorin. Hier sitzt jemand, der selbst weiß, wie es sich anfühlt, vor einem leeren Dokument zu sitzen, eine Figur nicht loszulassen, und trotzdem weiterzumachen.
Was ist das Format?
Edle Federn ist einerseits ein intimes Werkstattgespräch über den schriftstellerischen Alltag und die Routinen der jeweiligen Autorinnen und Autoren — andererseits eine literarische Reise in ihre Gedankenwelt. TuneIn
Die Gästeliste der bisherigen Folgen liest sich wie ein Querschnitt durch die relevante deutschsprachige Gegenwartsliteratur: Daniel Kehlmann über Lichtspiel, Felix Lobrecht über Sonne und Beton, Ilija Trojanow über Tausend und ein Morgen, Adam Soboczynski über Traumland, Dörte Hansen über Zur See, Feridun Zaimoglu über Bewältigung. Acast Dazu jüngst die Büchnerpreisträgerin Terézia Mora über ihr Schreibtagebuch Fleckenverlauf — ein Buch, das die Tür zu ihrem literarischen Prozess öffnet und zeigt, wie aus kleinsten Beobachtungen Literatur entsteht. Apple Podcasts
Was macht den Podcast für Lehrende und Lesende besonders?
Für alle, die mit Sprache arbeiten, egal ob als Schreibende, Lehrende oder als aufmerksame Lesende, ist dieses Format ein seltenes Geschenk. Es geht nicht um Buchempfehlungen im üblichen Sinne. Es geht um das Handwerk. Um die Frage: Wie entsteht ein Satz, der bleibt? Wie findet eine Figur ihre Stimme? Warum scheitert ein Kapitel und was rettet es?
Diese Fragen interessieren mich seit mehr als 40 Jahren. Und sie interessieren, so meine Erfahrung, auch Leserinnen und Leser, die selbst nie ein Buch schreiben werden, weil sie andere Prioritaeten setzen.
Die kostenlose Version enthält die vollständigen Podcast-Episoden. Der Pioneer-Newsletter ist jedoch kostenpflichtig, der Podcast selbst nicht.
Mein Fazit
Edle Federn ist kein Unterhaltungsformat. Es ist ein Denkangebot. Juli Zeh stellt die richtigen Fragen, weil sie die richtigen Fragen kennt, aus eigenem Erleben durch Schreiben. Das Ergebnis sind Gespräche, die über das jeweilige Buch hinausweisen: auf Sprache als Erkenntnisform, auf Literatur als das, was sie im besten Fall ist, ein Spiegel, der nicht schmeichelt.
Jeden letzten Sonntag im Monat, 10 Uhr. Kostenlos. Sehr empfehlenswert.
Zuletzt gelesen: Unter Menschen.
English Version
Edle Federn — Juli Zeh’s Literary Podcast
A master-class conversation about writing. Free to listen. Not to be missed.
The concept is disarmingly simple: every month, on the last Sunday at 10 a.m., the novelist Juli Zeh interviews a guest from the world of literature, about stories and language, about the craft Spotify of writing and storytelling. One guest. One hour. One book. And the best part: while the full back catalogue lives behind The Pioneer’s platform, the podcast itself is freely accessible TuneIn on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Acast, and TuneIn, no subscription required.
For anyone who wants to understand how contemporary German-language literature actually comes into being, stripped of publisher gloss and literary-supplement formality, this is the place to start.
Who is Juli Zeh?
Born in Bonn in 1974, Juli Zeh holds a doctorate in law, serves as a constitutional court judge in Brandenburg, and is one of Germany’s most decorated writers. Her novels have been translated into 35 languages; among her many awards are the Thomas Mann Prize and the Heinrich Böll Prize, and in 2018 she received the Federal Cross of Merit. PIPER Her novel About People (Über Menschen) was the best-selling literary hardcover in Germany in 2021. Penguin
What sets Zeh apart as an interviewer is precisely this: she does not ask as a journalist. She asks as a colleague. The questions come from the inside, from her own experience of writing. That is the decisive difference from the usual television literary chat. There is no moderator here. There is someone who knows, from the inside, what it feels like to sit in front of a blank document, to refuse to let go of a character, to keep going anyway.
What is the format?
Edle Federn is at once an intimate workshop conversation about the everyday writing life and routines of each author, and a literary journey into their inner world. TuneIn
The guest list reads like a cross-section of what matters in contemporary German-language writing: Daniel Kehlmann on Lichtspiel, Felix Lobrecht on Sonne und Beton, Ilija Trojanow on Tausend und ein Morgen, Dörte Hansen on Zur See, Feridun Zaimoglu on Bewältigung. Acast More recently, Büchner Prize laureate Terézia Mora appeared to discuss her writing diary Fleckenverlauf — a book that opens the door to her literary process and shows how literature grows from the smallest observations. Apple Podcasts
The podcast is conducted entirely in German. For readers with working German, that is no obstacle — in fact, hearing writers discuss their own language in that language adds a layer that translation cannot carry.
Why does this matter beyond Germany?
For those of us who came to German literature through Goethe, Hesse, or Sebald, and who have spent decades watching students wrestle with why German prose rewards patience, a podcast like this is a rare corrective. It shows the literature as a living practice, not a museum exhibit.
The podcast describes itself as a monthly journey into the richly faceted world of German-language literature, featuring the most successful, most significant, and most compelling voices of the entire literary community. Radio.de That is accurate, and it undersells it slightly. What Zeh actually delivers is something more particular: she makes her guests speak about failure as readily as success, about the sentences they cut and the ones they kept for the wrong reasons. That candour is unusual, and it is what makes the conversations worth returning to.
The podcast episodes themselves are free. The Pioneer newsletter is free as well, but the Pioneer full versions carry a subscription fee.
A personal note
I have spent about 40 years in classrooms — in Germany, Namibia, and Queensland, thinking about how language works and why literature matters. Edle Federn is one of the very few podcast formats I return to not for entertainment, but for the kind of slow thinking that good literary conversation makes possible. Juli Zeh asks the questions that practitioners ask, and her guests, knowing they are talking to someone who has done the same work, answer with unusual honesty.
Every last Sunday of the month. 10 a.m. Central European Time. Free. Recommended without any reservations.
Advanced Learners of German Level B 2 and Level C will love this podcast a lot, like all avid readers do.
The Podcast is in German, not slowly spoken. But you may stop 🛑 and replay a few times.
First lesson just listen and try to understand as much as you can.
Then work in your own language on Juli Zeh and the interview partner just according to interest.
Step three: Read Juli Zeh and or the books and texts discussed if interested.
I have published here asking Claude AI about MCA and my own photos. So the replies of Claude AI were carefully read and re-edited to publish this blog.
Credit MCA | phb
Anatomy of an AI System (2018) — Crawford & Joler at Data Dreams, MCA Sydney
What the installation actually is
The work consists of a large-scale map — a visual essay requiring minimum print dimensions of 220×360 cm — that uncovers the invisible matrix of human labour, energy consumption, and resource extraction hidden behind digital networks and AI. It maps the full chain of manufacture behind the Amazon Echo, from geological extraction through data exploitation and energy consumption during AI training, to the device’s death and disposal.
At the MCA, the installation went beyond the map. Situated next to the diagram is a cabinet containing samples of the rare minerals required to produce the Echo, each accompanied by a label noting its industrial application, the site of its extraction, its level of toxicity, and the illnesses associated with exposure. And of course the dissected Echo device itself lies there — opened, gutted, made literally transparent.
The core argument — your cui bono lens applies directly: Who pays here what exactly?
Who profits most?
Crawford and Joler’s research critically examines the concept of the “cloud” — a metaphor that evokes a disembodied, ethereal image. In reality, digital technologies are inextricably tied to material resources and economic and geopolitical interests. Countless human workers are needed to construct, train and maintain the system: to mine minerals, produce hardware, generate training data and manually correct the AI — often in poor, underpaid, health-damaging conditions. And whilst the consumer is analysed in all areas of life, practically transparent to corporations, the companies themselves obscure information about themselves. The true costs — social, ecological, economic, political — remain hidden.
Crawford and Joler make the Frankfurt School’s Ideologiekritik of Horkheimer & Adorno fully visible here. The “smart home device” is the commodity fetish par excellence: it conceals its own conditions of production behind a friendly cylinder and a voice called Alexa.
As Crawford and Joler observe, the user performs simultaneously the function of consumer, resource, worker, and product. As a consumer they receive convenience; as a resource they provide their voice to a large dataset; as labour they provide feedback; and as product they contribute to development. Marx would have recognised this immediately — surplus value extracted at every node, including the most intimate one: your own home.
The deep time dimension — the most unsettling move
This is where the installation achieves something genuinely philosophical. The minerals in that cabinet have rested in the earth for vast geological aeons, only to be torn from their strata for the manufacture of a device whose life cycle is shockingly — even offensively — brief by comparison.
Each object in the extended network of an AI system, from network routers to batteries to microphones, is built using elements that required billions of years to be produced. Looking from the perspective of deep time, we are extracting Earth’s history to serve a split second of technological time, in order to build devices often designed to be used for no more than a few years.
The broader exhibition context
What marks Data Dreams out as important is the extent to which so many of the works push back against disembodied narratives. The exhibition simultaneously rematerialises and demystifies, returning discussions of AI to the worlds on which it depends. It offers a slowing of pace — an invitation to look carefully at what AI takes, what it costs, and what kinds of lived realities it is already shaping.
The exhibition opened 21 November 2025 and runs until 26 April 2026.
Location Sydney Harbour under the iconic Harbour Bridge.
Credit MCA ~ phb
There is something quietly ironic about the fact that you photographed this label on your phone — a device whose own mineral cabinet would look remarkably similar. Crawford and Joler would appreciate that. The viewer is always already inside the diagram.
The cui bono is answered explicitly and globally: the extractive infrastructure of AI serves the platform monopolists, at cost to miners, data workers, ecologies, and — in deep time — the planet itself:
Mother Nature and the planet:
Credit MCA | phb
Image 1 — The wall text: “Planetary Costs: Environmental Impacts of AI / What Does AI Cost the Planet?” The curators’ question is deceptively simple, but it encodes the entire Frankfurt School critique of instrumental reason. Notice the rhetorical structure: “Who bears the environmental risks, and who benefits from the convenience?” — that is your cui bono in exhibition-catalogue prose. The asymmetry is the argument. The ones bearing the risk (miners in Congo, data labellers in the Philippines, communities near server farms) are never the ones enjoying the convenience. The second paragraph is philosophically the richer one: “Thinking about AI ecologically means tracing connections — between server farms and rivers, batteries and mines, code, and climate.” This is systems thinking in the Humboldtian tradition — everything connects, nothing is isolated — applied to the most aggressively isolationist technology marketing discourse of our era. Big Tech sells transcendence; Crawford and Joler sell geology. The final question — “What counts as a meaningful image or output when each has an environmental footprint?” — is quietly devastating. Every generated image, every AI chatbot response, every query to a large language model carries a carbon and water cost that is structurally invisible to the user. Including, one must add, this conversation. Image 2 — The installation itself: the great map on lightbox, with mineral samples at the base The photograph captures something the published image doesn’t quite convey: the scale and darkness of it. White lines on black — it reads like a technical blueprint, a circuit diagram, a medical anatomy chart, all simultaneously. The three vertical columns map the three extractive axes: material resources (left), computational processing (centre), and data/disposal (right). What your photo shows beautifully is the transition at the bottom: where the abstract white-line diagram literally meets the physical mineral samples sitting on a shelf in front of it. That is the conceptual hinge of the entire work. The map is intellectual; the minerals are real. Ochre-red ore, black rock — billions of years old, sitting below a diagram of a device with a two-year lifecycle. The juxtaposition is not commentary. It is evidence. The lightbox format is a precise choice: it glows, it illuminates from within, it has the aesthetic of a radiology scan. You are looking at the body of a system that was never meant to be seen.
The Installation is an example of the Power of Art Work:
The artist (A) and his work (C) and the visitor (B):
Credit phbCredit phbCredit phbIconic Opera House Harbour | Credit phbIconic Harbour Bridge | Credit phbArt Gallery | Credit phbGood morning world | Credit phbGood morning world | Credit phb
Thank you – with research of Claude AI:
Ron Mueck — Encounter: Background and Legacy
Origins: From Puppets to Provocation
Ronald Hans Mueck was born on 9 May 1958 in Melbourne to German parents, growing up in the family business of puppetry and doll-making. That German heritage is worth noting — it is not incidental. The obsessive craftsmanship, the memento mori undertow, the refusal of sentimentality: these feel distinctly rooted in a Central European tradition of Kunsthandwerk elevated into existential statement.
His father was a toymaker, and Mueck would later attribute his interest in realism to the meticulous, hands-on world of model-making that defined his childhood. He never attended art school. His early experiences in puppetry and special effects for Jim Henson taught him the technical skills — sculpting, moulding, animatronics — that would later underpin his fine art practice. Most notably, he designed, performed, and voiced the character of Ludo in the 1986 Jim Henson fantasy film Labyrinth.
The Breakthrough: Dead Dad and Sensation (1997)
Mueck’s move into fine art was initiated by a collaboration with Paula Rego — his mother-in-law — at the Hayward Gallery in 1996. A year later, his sculpture Dead Dad became a highlight of the era-defining Sensation: Young British Artists at the Royal Academy, London.
Dead Dad — a scrupulously rendered, three-foot-long sculpture of the artist’s father lying naked on the floor — established the central grammar of his work: radical scale distortion as psychological amplification. Mueck’s manipulations of sculptural scale are often dramatic — his figures are either writ large or reduced drastically to strengthen the metaphor between the artist’s material presentation of a personality and the psychic life the viewer imagines for the figure.
As Mueck himself put it plainly: “I change the scale intuitively — avoiding life-size because it’s ordinary.”
Technique: Hyperrealism as Philosophical Gesture
All his sculptures are made with an obsessive attention to realism, right down to the pores in the skin and the hair on the body. The process is extraordinarily labour-intensive: Mueck first sculpts the figure in clay, incorporating all the fine details of expression and skin texture, before making a mould in silicone or fibreglass. For larger works, a metal frame is covered by wire mesh and plaster strips before being worked in modelling clay. Individual hairs are glued into holes drilled by hand.
Influences such as classical sculpture, 19th-century waxworks, and the Old Masters are visible in his anatomical precision, while contemporaries like Duane Hanson and George Segal resonate through his approach to realism.
The result produces what one observer aptly described as the uncanny valley turned aesthetic programme: the sculptures are not merely representations of people — they feel as though they contain lived experience. They hold silence, tension, introspection, vulnerability. Standing before them, one is not simply looking — one is being looked at.
The Career Arc: From Venice to Seoul
After Sensation, Mueck was invited in 2000 by the London National Gallery to become Associate Artist for two years. The immense sculpture Boy was presented at the 49th Venice Biennale in 2001. The Hirshhorn Museum in Washington gave Mueck a solo show in 2002, as did the Nationalgalerie in Berlin in 2003.
His 2025 exhibition in Seoul, and his two 2014 exhibitions in Brazil at the Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro and the Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, each broke visitor attendance records.
The Kollwitz Parallel
Particularly resonant for a German-educated viewer: the AGNSW has staged alongside Encounter an additional display pairing Mueck with the German expressionist Käthe Kollwitz. Sharing a profoundly empathetic humanist vision, Mueck and Kollwitz each explore the body’s emotional traces — the gestures, postures and expressions that emerge from both ordinary and exceptional human experiences, which Kollwitz called the “silent and noisy tragedies” of everyday life. This curatorial decision is not decorative — it is a thesis about lineage.
Encounter Sydney 2025–26: The Exhibition Itself
Ron Mueck: Encounter runs exclusively at the Art Gallery of New South Wales from 6 December 2025 to 12 April 2026, bringing together nearly a third of Mueck’s exceptional output over a three-decade career, featuring major works sourced from public and private collections across Australia, Europe, Asia and North America — most never before seen in Australia.
At the centre of the exhibition is the world premiere of Havoc 2025 — a monumental installation drawing visitors into a tense stand-off between two packs of colossal dogs, an unsettling reflection on the anxieties shaping our times.
Gallery director Maud Page described the show as offering “the rare chance to experience the depth and ambition of his practice on home soil — each of his sculptures carries an uncanny power to hold us still, asking us to reflect not only on the intimate details of life but on our shared humanity.”
Eisfieber mit Heiner Lauterbach und Matthias Brandt / Ebola Virus
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Whiteout by Ken Follett — A Review for my Blog Readers
Why We Can’t Stop Reading Crime Fiction, Why True Crime Has Us Hooked, and Why a 2004 Thriller Reads Like a Pandemic Prophecy.
Part One: The Primal Pull — Why Readers Love Crime Fiction
There is a question worth asking in any seminar on reading culture: why do millions of educated, empathetic, morally grounded people spend their leisure hours absorbed in stories about murder, theft, betrayal, and catastrophe? The answer is not trivial, and it tells us something important about the human mind plus condition
. Crime fiction is the literature of anxiety management. We live in a world of invisible threats, financial collapse, health crises, institutional failure, the stranger at the door. Crime fiction gives those anxieties a shape, a face, a plot. And crucially, it gives them an ending. The detective finds the killer. The security chief stops the theft. Order is restored. The reader closes the book with a breath they didn’t know they were holding. Cognitive psychologists call this “threat simulation.” Reading crime fiction is a form of rehearsal, we run through dangerous scenarios at a safe distance, stress-testing our instincts without real-world consequences. This is not escapism in the pejorative sense. It is the brain doing what brains evolved to do: anticipate, prepare, survive. And rest.
There is also the matter of moral clarity. The best crime fiction, and Ken Follett’s work qualifies without any doubts, operates in a moral universe where actions have consequences and evil, however cunning, is ultimately legible. In an age of moral complexity and institutional opacity, that legibility is deeply satisfying. We know who the villain is. We know the stakes. We know that Toni Gallo, tough, smart, and underestimated, will not let the canister walk out the door without a fight.
Ken Follett understood this from his first major success, Eye of the Needle (1978), and he has never forgotten it. His formula, ordinary people thrust into extraordinary danger, intersecting storylines, ticking clocks, weather as dramatic accomplice, is not formula at all. It is architecture. Whiteout, published in 2004, is that architecture at its most compact and kinetic.
Part Two: True Crime and the Culture of Obsession
Whiteout is fiction. But it arrives in a cultural landscape increasingly dominated by its non-fiction cousin: true crime. The true crime explosion of the past decade, podcasts like Serial, documentary series like Making a Murderer, the endless Netflix pipeline of cold-case reconstructions, reflects the same psychological drivers as crime fiction, but with an additional charge: this actually happened. Real people. Real consequences. Real failures of justice, policing, and institutional trust. True crime’s popularity among educated readers and listeners is not prurient. Research consistently shows that true crime audiences skew female, highly educated, and professionally employed. The common interpretation, that women engage with true crime as a form of threat preparation, processing real-world dangers through narrative, is plausible, though reductive. What true crime really offers is an interrogation of systems: how did the justice system fail? What did the investigators miss? Where did institutional loyalty override moral duty? These are exactly the questions Whiteout poses in fictional form. The pharmaceutical company Oxenford Medical is not a neutral setting. It is an institution with competing interests, profit, reputation, scientific legacy, that create the conditions for catastrophe. Stanley Oxenford’s family convergence at the Scottish farmhouse is not merely a plot device. It is a microcosm of how organisations actually fail: through the complicity of insiders, the exploitation of personal loyalties, and the chronic underestimation of risk by those who believe their competence protects them. True crime audiences would recognise this immediately. The bureaucratic blindness, the charismatic founder whose authority goes unchallenged, the security professional whose warnings are dismissed until it is almost too late, Whiteout reads, in places, like a dramatised case study for a criminology seminar. Follett’s genius is to make all of this gripping rather than didactic. The snowstorm that isolates the farmhouse is not a metaphor (though it functions as one). It is a plot mechanism that forces every character to confront what they are actually made of, stripped of the social scaffolding that usually allows people to avoid hard choices.
Part Three: The Pandemic in the Room, Reading Whiteout After COVID-19 Here is where the 2004 novel becomes genuinely uncanny.
The premise: a lethal haemorrhagic virus, Madoba-2, a fictional pathogen modelled on Ebola-type viruses, is being studied at a private pharmaceutical research facility in Scotland. A new drug has been developed that could save lives. The stakes of protecting the research, and of preventing the virus from leaving the facility, are existential. Then a canister goes missing. Read this in 2020 or 2025, and the discomfort is not literary. It is visceral. Follett was writing in 2004, three years after the anthrax letters that followed 9/11, one year after SARS. The biosecurity anxieties of the early 2000s fed directly into Whiteout‘s scenario. But nothing in that pre-COVID world prepared readers for the degree to which the novel’s central premise, a novel pathogen, a race to develop a pharmaceutical solution, institutional pressure to manage public perception, the catastrophic consequences of a single security failure, would become the defining experience of an entire generation. The parallels are not superficial. Stanley Oxenford’s position as the scientist-entrepreneur who has staked everything on a pharmaceutical breakthrough maps uncomfortably onto the public debate about COVID vaccine development: the compressed timelines, the profit motive, the question of who controls access and at what price. Toni Gallo’s battle to be taken seriously as the person who actually understands the risk echoes every public health official who warned about pandemic preparedness and was ignored. More troubling still is the novel’s central moral problem: the canister does not escape by accident. It escapes because someone trusted chose betrayal for personal gain. Whiteout is, at its core, a story about how institutional trust is destroyed from within, how the people with legitimate access are almost always more dangerous than any external threat. COVID-19 generated its own version of this anxiety. The lab-leak debate, the early suppression of information, the PPE stockpile failures, the private communications that contradicted public messaging, whether or not one accepts any particular narrative about the pandemic’s origins, the general structure of the anxiety is identical to Follett’s plot: who knew what, when did they know it, and who decided that other interests outweighed the obligation to tell the truth? Whiteout does not answer these questions. It dramatises them, which is more honest. Fiction’s job is not to resolve political controversy but to make us feel the weight of the choices involved. When Toni Gallo fights to contain the situation, against institutional resistance, against a snowstorm, against a clock, readers who lived through 2020 will feel something beyond narrative tension. They will feel recognition.
Conclusion: What Whiteout Offers the Higher Education Reader
For readers with a background in education, institutional analysis, or the social sciences, Whiteout offers more than a page-turning thriller, though it is emphatically that. It offers a case study in how good fiction illuminates the structures of real life. The reasons we love crime fiction, threat simulation, moral clarity, the satisfaction of order restored, are not weaknesses of the reading mind. They are its strengths. The true crime boom extends this impulse into non-fiction, asking harder questions about institutional failure and systemic injustice. And Whiteout, read in the light of COVID-19, becomes something it was perhaps not quite intended to be: a remarkably prescient narrative about the conditions under which civilised societies become vulnerable to catastrophic error. Follett is not attempting the melancholy archaeology of buried history. He is doing something more democratic: putting urgent ideas into the hands of the widest possible readership, wrapped in a story that will not let them sleep until the last page.
Ken Follett, Whiteout. Macmillan, 2004. ISBN 978-0-330-49069-6. Highly recommended.
Word count: approximately 1,200 words.
Watch ARD Mediathek Teil 1 und 2 mit Heiner Lauterbach in der Hauptrolle (Stanley Oxenford) und Matthias Brandt (in deutscher Sprache) – Nigel Malone.
Gefilmt in Schottland an Originalschauplaetzen.
Ken Follett’s “Eisfieber”: Germany’s big-budget virus thriller
“Ken Folletts Eisfieber” — the German-language adaptation of Ken Follett’s 2004 novel Whiteout — was a two-part ZDF television movie that premiered in January 2010. Heiner Lauterbach starred as pharmaceutical magnate Stanley Oxenford, while Matthias Brandt played Nigel Malone, the ruthless criminal mastermind orchestrating the theft of a deadly virus. Despite a €7 million budget and a strong German-Italian ensemble cast, the production drew mixed-to-poor critical reviews, with one Der Spiegel critic memorably comparing it to a Rosamunde Pilcher movie “with the plague.”
What to my mind is Bullshit.
A prestige ZDF two-parter with international ambitions
The film aired on ZDF, Germany’s second public television channel, as a prime-time event across two evenings: Part 1 on January 25, 2010 and Part 2 on January 27, 2010, both at the coveted 20:15 slot. Each part ran approximately 90 minutes. Director Peter Keglevic, an award-winning Austrian-German filmmaker, helmed the production, working from a screenplay by Olaf Kraemer, Beatrix Christian, and Federica Pontremoli.
The adaptation was a multinational co-production involving Constantin Television and Network Movie on the German side, with Italian partners Palomar and RTI/Mediaset. ZDF Enterprises handled distribution, and the DVD was released by Universum Film GmbH on January 29, 2010 — just two days after the second part aired. The production was filmed primarily in Berlin (at locations in Werneuchen and Spandau), with some scenes shot in Edinburgh. Ken Follett himself visited the Berlin set during filming in 2009.
Lauterbach and Brandt anchor a strong German cast
The casting combined prominent German, Italian, and Dutch actors. Heiner Lauterbach took the central role of Stanley Oxenford, the founder of biotechnology firm Oxenford Medical and patriarch of a sprawling family gathered for Christmas in a Scottish estate. Matthias Brandt — son of former Chancellor Willy Brandt and one of Germany’s most respected screen actors — played Nigel Malone, the calculating criminal boss who manipulates Stanley’s troubled son into helping steal a lethal virus from the lab.
The ensemble included several other notable performers:
Tom Schilling as Kit Oxenford, Stanley’s gambling-addicted son who becomes the criminals’ inside man — a role that critics singled out as one of the film’s strongest performances
Isabella Ferrari (Italian) as Antonia “Toni” Gallo, the head of security at Oxenford Medical and Stanley’s love interest
Anneke Kim Sarnau as Daisy Mac, a psychopathic gang member
Sophie von Kessel and Katharina Wackernagel as Stanley’s daughters Olga and Miranda
Bülent Sharif as Elton, another criminal gang member
Huub Stapel (Dutch) as Harry Mac, a crime boss
The film also marked the screen debuts of Lucas Reiber (later known for the hit comedy Fack ju Göhte) and Vivien Wulf, both in roles as younger family members. Because the international cast spoke in their respective native languages on set, the final German broadcast required partial dubbing — a choice that several reviewers found distracting.
Critics were unimpressed despite solid viewership
The production attracted a healthy audience: 5.53 million viewers for Part 1 (16.0% market share) and 5.34 million for Part 2 (15.7%), solid numbers for ZDF’s prime-time lineup. Critical reception, however, was decidedly cooler.
The most cutting review came from Der Spiegel critic Thorsten Dörting, whose piece bore the headline “Frau Pilcher hat jetzt die Pest” (“Mrs. Pilcher now has the plague”) — a withering comparison to the gentle, formulaic Rosamunde Pilcher TV adaptations that are a staple of German public television. Filmdienst called it a “routine television thriller, staged as a largely suspenseful race against time.” TV Spielfilm offered a more balanced verdict: “Despite some deficits, worth getting tense about.”
The most positive assessment came from respected TV critic Rainer Tittelbach on tittelbach.tv, who praised it as “a congenial Follett adaptation” and highlighted the performances of Schilling, Brandt, and Sarnau as showing “cool class.” He criticized the overlong exposition — more than 45 minutes of setup — but argued the second part worked much better as a “classic family-threat scenario in chamber-play form,” comparing it to the Bogart classic The Desperate Hours.
On aggregation sites, the film sits at 5.0/10 on IMDb and 24% on FilmBooster. User reviews frequently cited the weak chemistry between Lauterbach and Ferrari, dubbing issues from the multilingual production, and a script that failed to generate genuine suspense despite the high-stakes premise. Amazon customer reviews, by contrast, trended more positive, with casual viewers finding it “as exciting as the book.”
Where this fits in Germany’s Ken Follett fascination
Germany has long been Ken Follett’s strongest European market. The Pillars of the Earth spent six years on the German bestseller list, and German broadcasters have invested heavily in Follett adaptations. “Eisfieber” was part of a broader ZDF strategy to adapt bestselling international thrillers as prestige television events. The same production pipeline later yielded “Die Pfeiler der Macht” (A Dangerous Fortune), a 2016 ZDF adaptation directed by Christian Schwochow. Meanwhile, Sat.1 broadcast the international co-productions of The Pillars of the Earth (2010) and World Without End (2012).
The film has been rebroadcast numerous times on ZDF, 3sat, and ZDFneo — typically during the winter holiday season, fitting its Christmas Eve blizzard setting. It remains available for free streaming on ZDF Mediathek.
Conclusion
“Ken Folletts Eisfieber” stands as an ambitious but ultimately uneven attempt to bring a Follett page-turner to German prime-time television. Its €7 million budget and international co-production model represented a significant investment for ZDF, and the casting of Lauterbach and Brandt gave it genuine star power on the German market. But the multilingual production created awkward dubbing seams, the script struggled to translate Follett’s narrative momentum to screen, and critics found the result closer to comfortable Sunday-evening television than to the taut thriller the source material promised. The one enduring legacy may be the early career credit for Lucas Reiber, who went on to become one of Germany’s most bankable young actors. For Follett completists, it remains a curiosity — readily accessible on ZDF’s streaming platform — though the novel is widely regarded as the superior experience.
Here are 10 theses for my readers — written with my higher education focus & audience in mind:
The Anthropic Agentic Coding Trends Report 2026:
Ten Theses
The era of AI as autocomplete is over. We have entered the era of AI as autonomous agent — systems that plan, execute, and iterate across entire workflows without waiting for the next human prompt.
The developer’s role has fundamentally shifted — from writing code to directing, supervising, and reviewing agents that write code. The hand has been replaced by the eye.
Human judgment remains irreplaceable — but its location has moved. Developers delegate 60% of their work to AI yet fully trust only 0–20% without oversight. The critical skill is now knowing what to delegate and when to intervene.
Multi-agent coordination is the new architecture. Specialist agents work in parallel — one writes, one tests, one reviews security — orchestrated by humans who increasingly resemble conductors rather than musicians.
The productivity numbers are no longer theoretical. Rakuten completed a complex migration through a 12.5-million-line codebase in seven hours with 99.9% accuracy. TELUS saved 500,000 working hours. These are not pilots — they are production realities.
Coding is no longer the exclusive domain of engineers. Domain experts across law, medicine, finance, and education are building functional tools without traditional programming knowledge. The wall between “those who code” and “those who don’t” is dissolving.
Security is the sharpest paradox in the report. The same agentic capabilities that make systems easier to defend make them easier to attack. Organisations that treat security as an afterthought will not survive the asymmetry.
For higher education specifically: the 60/20 finding should rewrite curriculum design. If even expert developers cannot fully delegate judgment to AI, then teaching judgment — critical evaluation, ethical reasoning, quality discrimination — becomes the core academic competency of this decade.
The question is no longer whether AI will transform knowledge work. It is whether institutions will acknowledge the transformation before or after it renders their current structures obsolete.
The organisations pulling ahead, as Anthropic documents, are not those removing humans from the loop — they are those repositioning human expertise at the point where it matters most. That is also the only viable future for universities worth their name.
This Text was generated by Claude and prompted & published by P H Bloecker at the Gold Coast in QLD Australia.
When an AI Company Said “No” to the Pentagon — And Paid the Price
A Report for Informed Citizens | 28 February 2026
What exactly Happened?
On Friday, 27 February 2026, US President Donald Trump ordered every federal agency to stop using the artificial intelligence products of Anthropic, the San Francisco-based company behind the AI assistant Claude.
In a Truth Social post, Trump directed every federal agency to “immediately cease” all use of Anthropic’s technology, with a six-month phase-out period granted to agencies like the Pentagon that had already integrated it into their systems.
Shortly after, Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth announced that the Pentagon would formally label Anthropic a “Supply-Chain Risk to National Security”
A designation normally reserved for companies associated with foreign adversaries such as China or Russia — barring any military contractor or supplier from conducting commercial activity with the company.
What Was the Actual Dispute?
The confrontation had been building for months. At its core was a fundamental disagreement about what an AI company is permitted to refuse.
Anthropic had been operating under a Pentagon contract worth up to USD 200 million to support defence operations. The company had made clear throughout months of contract negotiations that it would not allow its AI systems to be used for domestic mass surveillance or for direct control of lethal autonomous weapons.
The Pentagon, for its part, demanded the right to use Anthropic’s technology for “any lawful use”, language which, in Anthropic’s view, could cross those two specific red lines.
Red Lines!
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei held firm. In a letter made public on Thursday, he said the company “cannot in good conscience” agree to the Pentagon’s demands, while adding that Anthropic supports “all lawful uses of AI for national security” aside from those two narrow exceptions.
The Pentagon’s Undersecretary for Research and Engineering, Emil Michael, responded on social media by accusing Amodei of being “a liar” with a “God-complex,” claiming he wanted to “personally control the US Military.”
The Wider Context & Interests Behind the Conflict
Applying the old analytical question cui bono id est who benefits?
…opens up further layers worth noting for readers around the globe:
Elon Musk, Trump’s most prominent financial backer in the 2024 election, owns xAI, a direct competitor to Anthropic. Musk used his platform X on Friday to write that Anthropic “hates Western civilization.”
Why?
Cui bono?
xAI had separately agreed to let the Pentagon use its AI in all lawful situations, effectively positioning itself to inherit government contracts vacated by Anthropic.
A law professor at the University of Minnesota observed that if the Pentagon was simply unhappy with Anthropic’s conditions, it could have terminated the contract and sourced AI from another provider. “What the government really wants is to keep using Anthropic’s technology, and it’s just using every source of leverage possible,” he said.
What Are the Stakes?
Financially, the immediate damage is manageable but the longer-term threat is significant. The USD 200 million contract is a relatively small portion of Anthropic’s USD 14 billion in revenue, and the company is valued at approximately USD 380 billion. The bigger risk lies in the supply-chain designation, which means any company doing business with the US military may feel compelled to cut ties with Anthropic, potentially causing a large portion of its enterprise customer base to disappear.
Anthropic responded by threatening legal action, stating it would challenge the supply-chain designation in court, calling it “legally unsound” and warning it sets “a dangerous precedent for any American company that negotiates with the government.”
Politically, the reaction was swift.
Democratic Senator Mark Warner, Vice Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, accused the Trump administration of “bullying” a company into deploying AI-driven weapons without safeguards, and said such behaviour “should scare the hell out of all of us.”
Even Trump’s own former Senior AI Policy Advisor, Dean Ball, broke ranks. He posted on social media that the move amounted to “attempted corporate murder,” adding that he “could not possibly recommend investing in American AI to any investor.”
The Broader Educational Question for readers around the globe
This episode is not merely a business or political story. For educators and citizens concerned with democratic institutions, it raises questions of enduring importance:
Who should set the ethical limits on how powerful technology is used in warfare? The company that built it and understands its limitations? The government that funds it? Or democratically accountable law?
One AI policy expert described the situation starkly: “To take a domestic AI champion at a time when the White House is saying that the AI race with China is equivalent to the space race during the Cold War, you do not want to take one of the crown jewels of your industry and light it on fire over something like this.”
The conflict remains unresolved. Court proceedings are expected. The six-month phase-out clock is now ticking.
This report is intended for educational purposes only and does not reflect an editorial position. All readers are encouraged to consult primary sources from multiple news organisations.
The Mother of all questions:
Why?
Cui Bono?
“Was a private AI company right to say No to its government?
And under what democratic framework should such decisions be made?”
This text does not reflect the personal opinions of the Author P H Bloecker
Written with Claude AI and Copilot and then adapted according to my intentions.
For me the old style iPhone, as this device is with me all the time.
Not wasting my time with Facebook or SM or Non Sense, rather use it for Navigation and my own reading plus research and more.
Walking mostly without my iPhone.
Why?
The Mother of all questions, indeed …
Think and find your own answer, pls …
How Beautiful Is Burleigh Beach?
Once upon a time there lived an old swimmer in a little house in Burleigh Waters. Every morning he would go down to the beach and swim in the great ocean. The water was sometimes wild and sometimes gentle, but the old swimmer loved it dearly.
“Oh, how beautiful is Burleigh Beach,” he would say each day as he came out of the water.
One day he found an empty coconut on the sand. Written on the coconut were the words: “Gold Coast Paradise – Queensland.”
“Aha,” thought the old swimmer. “Gold Coast Paradise must be even more beautiful than Burleigh Beach. Everything there must be golden – the beaches, the waves, the fish, simply everything!”
He went home and told his wife Maria Inés about the coconut. “We must travel to Gold Coast Paradise,” he said. “I’m certain everything there is far more beautiful.”
“But we already live on the Gold Coast,” said Maria Inés.
“Yes, but not in Paradise,” said the old swimmer. “Come, let us set off on our journey.”
So they packed their things. The old swimmer took his swimming goggles and his towel. Maria Inés packed some sandwiches. Then they set off on their way.
They walked and walked. They passed many beautiful places – Surfers Paradise and Broadbeach and Main Beach. Everywhere was lovely, but nowhere so lovely that they thought: “This is Gold Coast Paradise.”
“Perhaps we must walk further still,” said the old swimmer.
They walked north and they walked south. They saw many beaches and many waves. Some were big and wild, some were small and calm.
After many days they came to a beach where the water danced between the rocks. There stood a great rock in the ocean, and the waves broke against it.
“Oh,” said the old swimmer, “this beach is truly beautiful. Let us swim here.”
He jumped into the water. The waves were strong and the water was clear. He swam and swam, and suddenly he felt completely at home.
“You know, Maria Inés,” he said as he came out of the water, “this beach reminds me of our beach. Of Burleigh Beach.”
“This is Burleigh Beach,” said Maria Inés, and she laughed.
The old swimmer looked around. There was the great rock. There were the waves. There was the beach he visited every morning. They had been walking in a circle the whole time and had arrived back home.
“Oh,” said the old swimmer quietly. Then he laughed too.
“You know, Maria Inés,” he said, “I believe we have found Gold Coast Paradise. It was here all along, right at home.”
“Oh, how beautiful is Burleigh Beach,” they both said together.
And if they have not died, then they still swim every morning in the great ocean, and every morning they say: “Oh, how beautiful is Burleigh Beach.”
The End
This English version preserves Janosch’s distinctive rhythmic qualities through several techniques.
Written by Claude AI and re – edit by Peter H Bloecker.
Note to my dear readers:
The old Swimmer is not the Author.
Both photos Credit phbNSW Roads south to Sydney from Gold Coast | Credit phbHOTA | Credit phbCountry Golf Club | Credit phbHome Office | Credit phb
LG in Australia or Life is good …
With my best wishes for the new year 2026, only 11 months until next Christmas.
Sentimental Value – Ein filmisches Meisterwerk: Filmkunst und das Thema Versöhnung – My Review
Als ich gestern morgens an der Gold Coast in QLD Australien dank HOTA den neuesten Film von Joachim Trier erleben konnte , wurde mir klar: Dies ist mehr als nur ein Familienportrait – es ist eine tiefgründige Meditation über Generationenkonflikte, künstlerische Integrität und die heilende Kraft der Versöhnung. Triers norwegischer Originaltitel “Affeksjonsverdi” – wörtlich “Affektionswert” – trifft den Kern präziser als der englische Titel. Es geht hier um den subjektiven Wert, den wir Beziehungen, Orten und Erinnerungen zuschreiben: Im Kern um Familie und ein HOME.
In London konnte ich Harold Pinters Dramen erleben, zuerst The Caretaker (Taking care …) und The Homecoming.
In Berlin (damals die Jahre im Studium an der FU) die Berliner Schaubühne mit ihren unvergessenen Inszenierungen: Der Kirschgarten, Shakespeare mit JUTTA LAMPE und Michael Koenig und anderen.
Gute Filmauszüge von Bergmann wurden in meinen Leistungskursen analysiert: Mann und Frau, Beziehungen und Kommunikation und mehr …
Zum Film (vgl. dazu Cannes):
Stellan Skarsgård spielt den begnadeten fiktiven Gustav Borg, einen Filmregisseur auf der Suche nach Erlösung. Seine Tochter Nora (Renate Reinsve) lehnt die Hauptrolle in seinem Comeback-Film ab – ein symbolträchtiger Moment der Verweigerung. Als ein Hollywood-Star Elle Fanning die Rolle übernimmt und immer mehr in ihrem Aussehen zur eigenen Tochter wird, wird der Film zu einer komplexen Untersuchung von Identität, Kunst und familiärem Erbe mit Flashbacks. Was den Film für mich besonders bedeutsam macht: Seine radikale Weigerung, in eine Art nihilistische Verzweiflung zu verfallen. Trier argumentiert mutig für Versöhnung – aber nicht als sentimentalen Ausweg, sondern als harte und manchmal sehr schmerzhafte Arbeit von Annäherung: Ich sehe dich (sagt der Junge)! Dieser Film zeigt: Kunst kann Heilung sein, nicht Waffe.
Ein sehr emotionaler Film! Schlicht gesagt: Sei einfach nur Mensch! Die technische Meisterschaft finde ich beeindruckend: Kasper Tuxens Kameraarbeit und Olivier Bugge Couttés Schnitt schaffen eine bergmanneske Intimität. Man spürt jeden emotionalen Unterton, jede unausgesprochene Spannung. Lange Harold Pinter Pausen …
Film und Drama in ihren Wirkungen werden ganz nebenbei vorgeführt … Medea!
Warum ich den Film unbedingt empfehle? Weil er Hoffnung anbietet in einer Zeit kultureller Verhärtung. Weil er zeigt, dass Zärtlichkeit tatsächlich – wie Joachim Trier in Cannes sagte – “das neue Punk” sein kann.
Mein Fazit: Ein Film, der unter die Haut geht und Versöhnung nicht als Schwäche, sondern als Stärke begreift.
Bewertung: ★★★★★ oder auch 15 Zensurenpunkte (gleich 100%).
Peter Hanns Bloecker, Director of Studies (Germany) and retired since 2015.
Sentimental Value – A Cinematic Masterpiece: Film Art and the Theme of Reconciliation
When I was able to experience Joachim Trier’s latest film yesterday morning at the Gold Coast in QLD Australia, thanks to HOTA, I realized: This is more than just a family portrait – it is a profound meditation on generational conflicts, artistic integrity, and the healing power of reconciliation. Trier’s Norwegian original title “Affeksjonsverdi” – literally “Affection Value” – captures the essence more precisely than the English title. It’s about the subjective value we attribute to relationships, places, and memories: At its core, about family and a HOME.
In London, I was able to experience Harold Pinter’s dramas, first “The Caretaker” (Taking care…) and “The Homecoming”.
In Berlin (during my years of study at the Free University), the Berliner Schaubühne with its unforgettable productions: “The Cherry Orchard”, Shakespeare with JUTTA LAMPE and Michael Koenig and others.
Good film excerpts from Bergman were analyzed in my advanced courses: Man and Woman, Relationships and Communication and more…
About the Film (cf. Cannes): Stellan Skarsgård plays the blessed fictional Gustav Borg, a film director searching for redemption. His daughter Nora (Renate Reinsve) rejects the lead role in his comeback film – a symbolically charged moment of refusal. When a Hollywood star, Elle Fanning, takes on the role and increasingly resembles his own daughter, the film becomes a complex investigation of identity, art, and family heritage with flashbacks. What makes the film particularly significant for me: Its radical refusal to fall into a kind of nihilistic despair. Trier courageously argues for reconciliation – but not as a sentimental escape, but as hard and sometimes very painful work of approximation: I see you (says the boy)! This film shows: Art can be healing, not a weapon.
A very emotional film! Simply put: Just be human! I find the technical mastery impressive: Kasper Tuxen’s cinematography and Olivier Bugge Coutté’s editing create a Bergman-esque intimacy. You feel every emotional undertone, every unspoken tension. Long Harold Pinter pauses…
Film and drama in their effects are incidentally demonstrated… Medea!
Why do I absolutely recommend the film? Because it offers hope in a time of cultural hardening. Because it shows that tenderness can actually be – as Joachim Trier said in Cannes – “the new Punk”.
My conclusion:
A film that gets under your skin and understands reconciliation not as weakness, but as strength.
My Rating: ★★★★★ or 100 %.
Peter Hanns Bloecker, Director of Studies (Germany) and retired since 2015.
Gold Coast Queensland Australia
Wed 21 January 2026.
Hota Cinemas Bundall Next door the 5 Level new Art Gallery!!!
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