↬ Twenty-two – 07: No… More… Words…

↬ Twenty-two – 07: No… More… Words…

Hi, I’m Rudiger Meyer and this is my monthly newsletter covering what I’ve been up to and what’s been catching my attention.

Evening landscape on the island of Bornholm, near Nexø. Caspar David Friedrich colours in the sky. A gravel road to the left. Trees on the horizon.
Morning mist rolling in from the sea over an area of heather. Trees to the left on the horizon. Bits of blue sky peaking through.
A hut in the foreground to the left, behind a wire mesh fence. Empty space with grass to the left. Trees in the background partly covered by a sea mist rolling in. The character of the hut and the presence of the mist got me thinking of some Tarkovsky polaroids.
Page 21 from the book Instant Light: Tarkovsky Polaroids. A hut in the mist. Trees behind it. In the foreground, some plants. A telegraph pole (?) to the right, extending out of the frame of the picture.
A spread from the book Instant Light: Tarkovsky Polaroids. A poem on the left, a picture of a hut in the mist on the right. The poem: ” I had a strange dream last night: I was looking up at the sky, and it was very, very light, and soft; and high, high above me it seemed to be slowly boiling, like light that had materialized, like the fibres of a sunlit fabric, like silken, living stitches in a piece of Japanese embroidery. And those tiny fibres, light-bearing, living threads, seemed to be moving and floating and becoming like birds, hovering, so high up that they could never be reached. So high that if the birds were to lose feathers the feathers wouldn’t fall, they wouldn’t come down to the earth, they would fly upwards, be carried off and vanish from our world forever. And soft, enchanted music was flow- ing down from that great height. The music seemed to sound like the chiming of little bells; or else the birds’ chirping was like music. ‘They’re storks’, I suddenly heard someone say, and I woke up.”

* * *

The cover of Modern Color, a book of Fred Herzog photographs on a cafe table. Glass with coffee. Spectacles.

* * *

Plants, vegetation. Evening view out over the ocean from the coastline near Nexø, Bornholm. In some ways a little like a painting by Rosseau. Violet plants in the foreground. Yellow ones in the middle (it’s these the remind me of Rosseau), a stretch of green, followed by the blue of the ocean and the sky.

* * *

Ok, a few words after all. The opening photographs were taken on Bornholm, along what turned out to be a poet’s route. (Digterruten for Martin Andersen Nexø på Bornholm.) The colours and scene got me thinking of certain Caspar David Friedrich paintings. There was something somewhat untouched about this corner of the island – a feeling of stepping back in time before the age of automobiles. How is it that certain scenes experienced in life so strongly bring up memories of particular paintings/photographs? Experiencing the present in the light of the depictions of others. A kind of layered/augmented reality. (It’s not something I can think of having experienced with sound though.)

Late-morning mist over the same area a few days later got me thinking of a book of Tarkovsky polaroids – beautifully layed out with poems on some of the facing pages.

I had a strange dream last night:
I was looking up at the sky,
and it was very, very light, and soft;
and high, high above me
it seemed to be slowly boiling, like light that had materialized,
like the fibres of a sunlit fabric,
like silken, living stitches
in a piece of Japanese embroidery.
And those tiny fibres, light-bearing, living threads,
seemed to be moving and floating
and becoming like birds, hovering, so high up
that they could never be reached.
So high that if the birds were to lose feathers
the feathers wouldn’t fall,
they wouldn’t come down to the earth,
they would fly upwards, be carried off and vanish
from our world forever.
And soft, enchanted music
was flowing down from that great height.
The music seemed to sound
like the chiming of little bells;
or else the birds’ chirping was like music.
‘They’re storks’, I suddenly heard someone say,
and I woke up.

Instant Light: Tarkovsky Polaroids

I came across the book of photographs by Fred Herzog (a photographer I hadn’t heard of before) in a holiday café. A German who escaped to Vancouver after the war and built up an oeuvre photographing everyday street scenes with film intended for slides – which lent a certain intensity to the colour palette of his works.

Yello: No More Words

All the best
↬ Rudiger

A single figure looking out over the ocean, late evening.

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Hi, I’m <a rel="me" class="p-name u-url" href="https://rudigermeyer.com">Rudiger Meyer</a>, a composer interested in the play between music, sound, and&nbsp;media.