Written by:
Philipp Schmickl
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A large whisky in Raymond's Bar, Vienna
Wednesday, December 16, 2015. Raymond's Bar, Vienna 6; 10 pm
This is not a review. I came here and because none of these small tables was free, I had a seat at the bar and immediately was invited for large whisky (Laphroig, 10 years). It came from a man in a suit, standing to my right, almost opposite me. Between him and me there are two women with their drinks on the counter. His and another woman who could be mine. The whisky amplifies my coffee.
I came to this bar in order to write and to distance myself from my room, my space, in which I was listening to the record over and over again and at the same time I want to come closer, circle around it, come back to the record via the long way round and explore what lies on this way. This bar is on this way, and a movie I recently saw again, Sans Soleil from Chris Marker. In there, Sandor Krasna reports letter-wise from his journey to Japan and in his letters he gives an account of many scenes from Guinea Bissau; Cabo Verde.
I remember very lively - now, here in this bar - the look, the glance of the market woman, straightforward, that lasted a twenty-fourth of a second, the length of a film frame - directly into the camera, into the eyes of the viewer, into my eyes, so that I was transported, for a moment I was there, at the market in Praia (Cabo Verde), around the time I was born. This fraction of a second belongs to my version of Princess Shonagun's list of things that quicken the heart.
It appeals to me to, like to Sandor Krasna, to report in a report of something, about something else. In writing about the record I want to tell about society. In this society in which we are living and in which the record could grow, the idea of the record, the sounds, the words, the combination of words, the references and citations, intentional or intuitive. Thus I want to report from this world that can create such a record - and the words of its description.