Back To Shore

Lyrics: “Try This At Home” – Frank Turner, 2009

At work this week I offered to rework / copy edit a text which had been generated by ChatGPT. Why anyone uses ChatGPT or any other AI to produce some words instead of writing those words themselves might be topic for another post (which might turn into quite a rant, I’m afraid). But people were grateful that I willingly offered my services even though copyediting is not part of my job description.

But it served a good reminder to me that I do enjoy writing and working with words in any kind of way. And that I’m quite good at it. So why don’t I make more use of this space I’ve got here, was a follow up thought of mine. Not thought right away, but over the course of a few days. I think over the last decade or so I might have raised the bar of what I myself consider a worthy content for this space to some impossible standard. Not everything has to be meaningful. Or essay length. I should just start writing here more often instead of typing my thoughts into the limited space of an Instagram story.

German news magazine DER SPIEGEL last week had a title story presenting their “World’s 100 best books from 1925 – 2025”. I’m often on the fence about these kind of lists, because it’s all so subjective, isn’t it? In the editorial they explain that they are aware of the European / North American centric view of literature tradition so to speak and thus they put German academics with interest and knowledge in African, Asian literature on the jury. For some reason they obviously didn’t consider putting a German academic or writer with an ethnic minority background on the jur.

48 of the chosen books are written by Europeans. 24 in USA / Canada. But “at least” (they state almost proudly) 28 were written in the Caribbean, Latin-America, Africa or Asia. To put it in perspective: Europe and North America are about 1,5 billion people (~ 20%) to the 6,5 billion (~80%) in the rest of the world. But they have produced 75% of the “World’s Literature” to mere 25% of the rest of the world. I can’t be the only one who thinks this is a very skewed way of thinking.

28 of the 100 books were written by women. That’s another discussion I’d like to have with this jury. At least it’s not a “top 100 list, counting down from THE #1 book”.

Like I said I don’t really care much about these kind of lists. I have only read 3 or 4 of those 100 yet. A few more are on my “to-read-shelf”. A few more I added now after I’ve read this article. Mostly from female writers, if I’m honest. I probably have read more than enough books by (white) men in the first 35 or so years of my life.

Lyrics: “Letter To Myself” – The Lottery Winners, 2023

Oh look, it’s already over a week since I posted here last. I’ve been busy. You know. Work. Life. Sadly not in any balance. Plus the whole.. everything. Everywhere. Again, you know what I mean. Anyway: let’s tell you a little bit about the The Lottery Winners gig I saw in sold-out venue in Cologne on Saturday, 15th Marc. Sold out! 450 people, I think. Which is about 10x the amount of he audience they played to the last time I saw them in Cologne in autumn 2023. How times have changed. Next time headlining Palladium in Cologne? A girl can dream, right?

The show was lots of fun, because Thom (lead singer) is talking to and interacting with the audience a lot. I think it’s palpable that the four members of the band are close and old friends, they enjoy experiencing this together. I remember other bands (not naming any names), where (by the end of their band career) they didn’t really interact with each other at all. Not the Lottery Winners, they are having the best of times together. 

At some point Thom was wondering, where all the people knew them from and he said “Nickelback, I guess?”, because they were a support on Nickelbacks’s last tour in mainland Europe and I saw quite a few in Nickelback swag in the audience. In protest to that assessment, I pointed to the FTHC shirt I was wearing and Rob (guitar) at least noticed that, because I stood right in front of him and he gave me a thumbs up. 

Later on Thom was talking about [Instagram link] how his biggest talent is doing things – being on stage, sharing his emotions through songs and all – despite being scared about doing those things. But doing them anyway. 

By the end of the gig he then asked for six volunteers to do a dance routine on stage with them and I found myself raising my arm. Half of me was scared about embarrassing myself up there, because I’m a klutz. The other half was determined to do it anyway. I then was picked indeed and climbed up and did the routine, which I sort of already knew, so it wasn’t such a big deal. But OMFG! If you had told me I’d do something like that a decade ago, when I started out as introvert, hyper self-conscious, worrying (Frank Turner) fangirl, I would have said “No way!” If you’d told me I’d do something like that 5 years ago, I probably still would have said “No way!”. Look how far I’ve come. Go Me!

I haven’t found any photo or video proof of it all online (yet), I’m not joining The Lottery Winners Facebook group just for that. I don’t need proof that I did it. I know I did. (And I’ve got a photo of the crowd from the stage to prove it). The Instagram post I shared above has a bit of the routine, but it’s filmed centre stage from behind the volunteers and I was at the right side, out of the frame. 

Anyway, it was a fun night. Next time I see the Lottery Winners they will open for Robbie Williams in a stadium. Far far far away from my seat up on the side somewhere. But I can’t wait to see them win over the next big crowd.  

Lyrics: “Little Changes” – Frank Turner, 2018

Recently I pondered how much my writing here has changed over the years. How much I have limited myself for some reason. Some change might have been inevitable. Some surprise me in hindsight. I have written so much more when I started with blogging over two decades ago. I’m not even talking about the oversharing, which I think I might have done to some degree. There is a reason why I’ve taken older blogs and/or posts offline or set to private these days. But I also put down and shared more thoughts in general. About books and movies and TV shows. About politics on local or global level and anything else really.

When I start thinking about what I could / should / want to write about I have too many “open tabs” in my mind so to speak and can’t make up my mind to just start with one of those things. Even before putting down one single word I’m worried that the post won’t be any good and not as “perfect” as the critical nagging part in my mind wants it to be. Thus in the end I don’t write anything at all.

These days I also don’t want to spend more time than necessary in front of a computer screen, especially when I’m doing several one-hour video meetings per day for the next two or so weeks. I might be exaggerating here, but that’s what it feels like.

I’ve radically changed my digital news consumption or at least I’m trying to. I’ve deleted the over 200 saved (and sorted in various folders) links to all kinds of online articles from my bookmark app, because I’ll never catch up. I’ve unsubscribed from most newsletters, because after years of already using an RSS feed for some websites, I finally realized I can probably subscribe to most of the newsletter providers as well. I usually put links from the newsletters into the bookmark app. Now I see the article headlines compiled in my feed reader and can then decide if I want to read them or not. For the next few weeks the answer more often than not will probably be “no, don’t bother reading it”. I am determined to either read an interesting article right away, or try to do it on the day I save the link or at least after one week. If I haven’t bothered reading it then I’ll delete it. That’s the plan for now anyway…

In the past few months I’ve gone back to buy print newspapers or news magazines on occasion. Years ago I had subscriptions for some of those until I thought / decided I don’t have the time to read them. I’m now back to trying that again and t actually get some news and information in a long(er) read format. I know I could also do that digitally, but as I stated above, I don’t want to spend all the time in front of a screen. I also think it might help to tamp down the constant urge to check for news (and commentary and analysis) through online media 24/7. Yes, I can follow a live ticker / daily updae of all the horrible decisions being made in Washington and/or Berlin these days. But does that really help me to make sense of it?

On social media (Instagram only these days if I’m honest) I’m a bit torn whom to follow and how to follow it all. I did a bit of purge to focus more on overall news reporting / analysis, but on the other hand still find myself following various politics adjacent accounts: political parties, members of parliament, NGOS, activists. And even though they all provide valid and relevant content, which I appreciate in general, it all more often than not is reduced to 30 – 90 seconds, sometimes a few minutes video, which to me can never properly convey all the aspects of any issue / topic / policy / event whatever is going on at the moment. So I might need another purge of Instagram accounts to follow soon.

I’m also much better at absorbing information if I read it and not if someone tells me about it on in a video format. In the day and age of youtubers, podcasters and influencers this makes me feel quite ancient, but so be it.

Man, did this post take turns I didn’t even intend to. Anyway, I’m determined to write more. Again. Maybe shorter posts. More photos. Whatever. Watch this space for my thoughts on the “Lottery Winners” gig I went to in Cologne last night. The movies I’ve been to recently. And anything else, really.