Wir ihr (vielleicht) bereits gemerkt habt, faszinieren mich Videos. Nicht 08/15-Youtube-Videos, in denen ein fetter Ami versucht 40 Hot Dogs in einer Minute zu essen, während er einen Kopfstand angelehnt an einer Wand übt. Okay, manchmal braucht man auch diese (Yeah zu Katzenvideos!). Aber sind es nicht Videos mit einer kleinen Geschichte, die in deinem Kopf stecken bleiben? Videos, bei denen Menschen sich etwas gedacht haben und in denen sie diese Gedanken zeigen – auf komische, ironische, wunderschöne, laute oder leise Weise. Jede Sekunde ist ein Ausdruck von Leidenschaft – die Leidenschaft Geschichten über bewegte Bilder zu erzählen. Vielleicht ist es ein bisschen übertrieben. Vielleicht. Ich finde es großartig. Und einer dieser kleinen großartigen Gedankenstücke will ich euch vorstellen. Das Video von Katie Armstrong, einer Amerikanerin, die sich gerade in Leipzig befindet. Und zu ihrem Video “once more, once more” gehört ein Essay. Einen Auszug aus diesem ebenso großartig geschriebenen Stück will ich euch nicht vorenthalten. Für das komplette Essay klickt hier.

It is happening again, a new page has been turned in the seemingly infinite tome of human existence. A new year cozied up right behind the last, starting over, the same color, green at first and then brown, then green and brown again, forever. I’ve realized lately that I have simplified everything into cycles, things that reach a certain limit and begin again, rituals, habitual endlessness. My heart drums over and over and over, I inhale and exhale, blink without thinking or remembering. I go to sleep when I’m tired, I wake up when I’m hungry, take one pill in the morning and one pill at night, lock the door when I leave, turn the key twice, and twice more when I get home. Make the bed, light the candles, blow them out, tuck myself in. Type one letter, then the next, then the next, plink plink plink. And then the bigger ones, the songs that get stuck in my head- in our heads– those catchy, repetitive beats, the chorus we hate but know by heart. Our relationships, beginning so small and warm, then all that heat, the balloon stretched so big, and then the winter again, shriveled and thin, a bare branch in the snow, hibernating until next time. Making tea because it feels less lonely that way. Water becomes steam or ice, melts down again, or rains, or is drunk and then. Hair grows, falls out, grows back, gets cut, pinned up, let down, washed, dried and then. It’s the happy hunting ground, shooting without a gun, and the rabbits play dead but bounce up again. All at the pace of Internet browsing, quick, and antsy. Animated .GIFs, loading, changing and repeating. It’s a dance, beautiful choreography, 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8, 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8…

This isn’t really the way time moves, is it? This isn’t the way stories are told. But it’s not the other way– beginning middle end– either. It can’t be. The end is the beginning, or it could start in the middle, couldn’t it? And it’s not just one line, it’s hundreds of little circles, little cycles, stacked up on top of one another, forming a bigger cycle, stacked against bigger cycles, which form even bigger ones– a whole universe. Events cut in and out intermittently, and then we’re back where we started, in bed or at the window, in the womb or underground. When things are good, we replay them in our memory, basking in their glowing rightness. When things are bad, we replay them in our memory, cringing and punishing ourselves for what went awry. Once more, once more, once more we do it. Just once more, we say, but just as one firework fizzles away, it’s twin arrives, the same but different. One more notch in the ol’ belt, one more day, one more time. Andy Warhol was a big bully, but he once asked, quite accurately, “Isn’t life a series of images that change as they repeat themselves?”

once more, once more from Katie Armstrong on Vimeo.

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