Here’s yet another quick post, since I’m tired and not feeling too well. And this time, I don’t even have any links.
This early onset winter still has us firmly in its grip. Yesterday, the temperature never rose above approx. minus six degrees Celsius. Most of the time, it was closer to minus eight. And over night, it also snowed again, though we’re still better off than the rest of Germany, where people are drowning in snow.
Yesterday evening, I was at the launch reading of newleaf No. 27 at Lagerhaus Schildstraße. newleaf is the literary magazine of the English department of the University of Bremen. I’ve been on the staff of the magazine for years and am still listed as sales manager as far as I know, though I haven’t done a whole lot of active work since leaving the university.
Still, it was nice seeing many of the old gang again. Pretty good audience turnout, too, particularly considering that newleaf was up against the TV premiere of Neue Vahr Süd, adapted from the eponymous novel by Sven Regener. Both novel and film are set in Bremen in the early 1980s – the title actually refers to a huge postwar housing development, though most of the story takes place elsewhere. The film was shot on location in Bremen, so pretty much half the city was watching.
I’ll do a more detailed write-up of the launch for the newleaf website soon and will probably also put up some photos at the newleaf flickr account.
ETA: The newleaf editors actually picked my suggestion for this issue’s featured classic poem, The Tyger by William Blake.
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