International Paneling/January 2023
Image by Horster
Christmas Eve, 1982
by Leo Kuelbs
Berlin
In the years up to 1982, Christmas had been a big deal. There were eleven of us kids, so it was like a lake of holiday-hued presents under the 20+ year old plastic tree. You actually had to make a path through all of the semi-worthless stuff in order to plug the tree in. The couple of days before Christmas eve, my little sister and I would organize the gifts per person. It really was magic.
No one wanted to help set up the tree that year, not even my little sister, who was following the behavior of the larger group, so I did it myself. I was 14. That had never happened before. I even hung up the most famous of the ornaments: the silver ball with the teddy bear and train in blue. Not only a nice ornament, with special memories connected to brother Jeff, but also an elegant supplication for treasures, wonderous and expensive. Rarely rewarded, but worthy of hopeful devotion, nonetheless.
My oldest brother George had recently returned to live with us after some years in Texas. For some reason, he decided to get a job at the Green Giant canning plant, some 40 minutes away in Belle Plain. To make matters weirder, he was rallying to persuade my second oldest brother, Rick, to move in with him, and also work at the canning plant. But Rick had a Corvette and was working at our retail motorcycle store, developing infrastructure that would lay the ground work for expansion and greater success, with all that entails.
I had already been excused from the apparel department, where one started out, and had been dropped back at home by another brother, when the sun was still shining. Christmas eve business hours were fluid for us, and the sudden cold weather had ended our work day earlier than planned. My sister, Irene, as the last one to still get kid’s level gifts, was excited about the impending fun. I was, too. But something was not feeling right. First of all, Mom had just gotten home from her shift at the local mall, where she was a salesperson for ladies’ luxury outerwear. My brother Philip, two years older than me, was still at work at Target. Dad was nowhere to be seen, nor was Rick, who was also staying over for the holiday.
All this was before cell phones. And as the temperature began dropping further and faster, we began to worry. If you were trapped outside and your car died--you might be next. And these temperatures clearly meant that many, many of those crappy old cars would not start. And don’t forget the black ice, which could cause a spinout at any random moment.
The first call was from George. His not road-worthy Pinto would not giddy up. No one was surprised by this. Not only was that car falling apart, but it also had a gas tank that, if rusty or dented from the back, could drip gasoline onto the exhaust pipe and explode. Thanks to Ralph Nader, it had been all over the news for the last year, or so. But George was loyal.
But now, how could he get home? Though the cannery would run continuously, there was apparently no one who could help him get his car started. Where was Philip? He could help. Though only 16, Phil was reliable. His car, a Cordoba, was okay. But where was he? Mom called Target. No one answered. They had been closed for half an hour. Dad wasn’t answering either. George was in a real jam. We sat around the TV watching the news about the dangerous cold. The weather people were really playing it up. Or were they? It was 6 pm and definitely not the typical loud Christmas eve crowd, with the sounds of gifts being opened and a fireplace full of exploding wrapping paper. It was, in fact, just the three of us and the TV.
The phone began ringing and ringing. Mom was up in the kitchen, running the show. Dad had finally been reached. He was with Rick, finishing some last-minute shopping. They were now back at our store, a little closer to Belle Plaine than we were. Rick, who had not been receptive to George’s plan to join forces at Green Giant, was now dispatched to save him. You could hear the grumbling through the line.
Meanwhile, we heard a noise outside and suddenly Philip came through the front door. Not only had the Cordoba not started, but it had actually frozen shut. Water was warmed up in the Employee Lounge’s microwave and poured over the lock. It opened, but it would freeze again. And the seat cracked when he sat on it, like a big foam ice cube. He also was one of the last to leave work, but still found a colleague to give him a jump. Back then, we all carried jumper cables. And long underwear, gloves, ski masks, etc.
Phil was home and we were glad, but he was cold and quiet. The phone rang again. This time, it was my mom’s boss, Doris, who had finished the night alone and, after closing out the cash register, discovered her car would also not start. Phil was back, but he needed to warm up and was not up for another adventure so quickly.
Ir was decided that Mom would drive back to the mall, and I would have to do the jumper cables. I had only been around them a couple of times before, and was wary. But Phil talked me through the things not to forget (connect to good battery first, don’t let the metal clips touch each other, etc.), and I felt the beginnings of being a useful man forming. I was ready.
When we got to the mall, the lot was mostly deserted except for a few cars which were left for dead. Mom went inside and I sat in the car listening to the overblown excitement of WCCO, our local news station. When Doris and mom returned, I was ready to go. As I was managing the jump, I remember thinking Doris was kind of sexy. I was hoping she might be impressed with my manly actions. And she was. Until her car was started and I was relegated to the back seat as we let it charge and the ladies chit chatted up front. The first time I had been played.
On the way home, I remember Mom being very satisfied with our mission. We had helped out her cool boss-lady. And I proved myself a good team member.
Back at home, my little sister hopefully waited for another Christmas gift-fest, but it was becoming clear that it was not to be. The other older ones decided to stay in and make due with whatever they had. Besides, there was always dinner tomorrow and Mom hadn’t had time to prepare much for tonight, anyway. Philip sat in the rocking chair in front of the TV—very distant. He was lost in thought, staring through the TV instead of really watching it.
Then a couple of sets of lights and more noise. The Pinto hobbled up the driveway…
Then a couple of sets of lights and more noise. The Pinto hobbled up the driveway, with Rick in a pick-up truck behind. It was a tough blow for George’s overall plan and marked the beginning of the end of the Pinto, which would be sold for parts to the junkyard in Savage before the spring. George was sullen and a little defensive before locking the bathroom door and climbing into the bathtub. Dad showed up around then, too. He and Rick went downstairs, and Dad lit the fire.
Hope was still alive for Christmasy fun until Rick told us he was leaving to do God-knows-what, and with whom. He was in his twenties and doing well. He had a different kind of “ho ho hos” on his mind, as they say.
Phil and George were beat, seemingly in more ways than one. The gifts Dad and Rick had shopped for were few. Mom pulled the roast out of the over to little fanfare. We opened the presents and afterwards, we just watched a Carol Burnet Christmas special on TV. Dad threw part of a shipping palette into the fireplace. Philip rocked away and George lay on the couch, TV blaring, as always. Later, Phil would tell me that was the night he decided to leave Minnesota as soon as he could and never move back. And after the death of the Pinto, George would do the inevitable and begin working at the store. He also decided to partake of one of the many company vehicles, insurance and maintenance included.
Meanwhile, Irene was upstairs disappointed and sulking to an audience of stuffed animals. Besides some needed, but very boring, socks and underwear, I got a Hai Karate shaving kit, which I didn’t need quite yet or really understand. I was in some kind of soft semi-shock; one foot in a childhood, one in adolescence. TV blaring. Whatever fragments of our family’s innocence that remained was cracked that night, yet again into smaller pieces. Whatever the future was going to hold, it wasn’t what we had known. For us, Christmas had changed forever. And so had we.
Shorty of the Month: Vadim Schäffler and Alex Hamadey’s "You and Me”
This digitally animated work by Berlin-based Vadim Schäffler with soundtrack by Brooklyn-based Alex Hamadey originally appeared as part of 2021’s Digital Fairy Tales: Water Stories. Based on a fairy tale collected in the mid 1800s by Franz Xaver von Schönwerth, is a contemporary take on a folk tale told in time of fire as a light source, as well as a source of heating. It’s the first collaboration between the two creators who have actually never met in person! Ah, the wonders of today…
Image by ANANI
Take a Deep Breath, Relax and let Poetry Place Work its Magic!
by Caitlin Grace McDonnell
Brooklyn
Home Test
(An amalgam of language from Ulysses and the Flowflex Covid 19 Antigen Test)
The moral idea seemed lacking
Failure to follow instructions
The sense of destiny, of retribution
Check your kit contents and lumps
of sugar deftly longwise rotate
the swab 5 times while squeezing
Jingle a tinkly jaunted, gently insert
The entire sigh on the silent flowers.
Slow cool dim seagreen sliding
Squeezing the tube and shadow
Depth of shadow. Mix by
Swirling and flicking the bottom
Not make him walk twice. His corns.
Four times firmly a circular motion
Her thumb and finger passed in pity
Be sure to collect the nasal drainage
Must have sweated music. Not touch.
Any faint line should be considered.
A liquid of womb of woman eyeball
You may need to have a second person
At each slow satiny heaving wave
with children, the maximum depth.
Splashes of beerfroth, stacks of empties.
Self isolate to avoid spreading.
Image by Pieper
Back to the Future - Why the 2020s are the new 1980s
by Dirk Lehr
Berlin
People blocking roads and sticking themselves to works of art or throwing tomato soup at them, young people occupying areas where coal is to be mined, and voices predicting the imminent end of the world given changing climatic conditions. I feel like I've gone around in circles. In time I mean.
Forty years ago, at the beginning of the 1980s, a music genre spread in Germany that was to define pop culture for a few years. I'm talking about the Neue Deutsche Welle (new German wave), which swept as far as England and the USA with Nena's 99 red balloons and Peter Schilling's Major Tom (Coming Home). Visually and lyrically painfully shrill, loud and colourful. Titles like Da Da Da, Fred from Jupiter or We increase the gross national product have taken this gagagism to excess.
Luckily, after a few years, that was the end of it. At the same time, a kind of social melancholy hung over Germany. Downfall was lurking everywhere, which didn't go with the musical Zeitgeist at all. Perhaps a parallel to fashion can be drawn here. It becomes more glamorous and colorful in times of repression and insecurity, and reduced and cooler in times of abundance and lack of conflict. During this time, opponents of nuclear power chained themselves to railway lines to prevent trains that were supposed to transport nuclear waste to disposal sites. They were separated from the rails by police officers and carried away like highway blockers are removed from the asphalt today. And suddenly an ozone hole opened up that would turn the earth into an oven within a few years, at least that was the prophecy.
Who doesn't remember the acid rain and forest dieback?
The current ozone values were reported continuously, as was the case recently about the number of corona infections. The current values were displayed as a warning on electronic highway signs, today there are posters from climate activists who want to speak to our conscience. Who doesn't remember the acid rain and forest dieback? I still have the omnipresent photo of a completely broken forest in my mind, which consisted only of dead trees. A truly apocalyptic scene. It became a symbol for the forest dieback in Germany. Later it turned out that this photo was not taken here, but in the Czech Republic and had nothing to do with acid rain. Fake news is not an invention of our time.
The imminent end of the internal combustion engine was predicted, raising questions among young people as to whether it is still worth buying a petrol-powered car. And then there were protest marches against the stationing of American Pershing missiles in Germany. Stickers with slogans like nuclear power no thanks!, create peace without weapons or with the symbol of the dove of peace were the statements of the rebellious generation. Appropriately, the radios blared The white doves are tired.
Today, forty years later, fossil fuels still harbor such great potential for conflict that politicians feel compelled to cap petrol and gas prices in order to make them reasonably affordable for everyone. A sad mood hung over the country, a kind of moral depression that I really didn't want to experience again. As if I had spun in a circle and entered a time tunnel. The 2020s are the new 1980s. Posters and banners have replaced stickers, highways have replaced railroad tracks, melting polar ice caps have replaced dying forests, the ozone hole has been replaced by wildfires and floods, and fur coats that were once spray-painted by works of art.
Otherwise everything stays the same. It's like Monopoly: Go back to start... Those who protested the arms race most fiercely and claimed pacifism for themselves are now the loudest in calling for the arming of states. So the chances are not bad that Greta Thunberg will eventually become the face of an international airline's frequent flyer program.
Image by Tom Rotenberg
Winter Projects: Ending the Old and Beginning the New
by Mark Bailey
Minneapolis
There is a new settlement on the island of Roatan in Honduras called Prospera. Described as an economic development platform and governed largely according to its own laws, Prospera is part of a new wave of international businesses capitalizing on the economic ambitions of smaller nations. The initial settlement on Roatan has been successful in some ways and problematic in others. While Prospera has provided jobs for some locals, it has disrupted the livelihoods of other locals.
Here in Minneapolis, where everything is covered in snow and the temperature hovers around zero, Honduras seems like a world away. It definitely wasn't on my radar until I was contacted by someone with Prospera about the creation of Prospera NFTs. They apparently want to create two sets of collectible art to support their enterprise. The first would be a collection of NFTs featuring local Honduran artists. The second would be a set of non-transferable NFTs to be used by residents as proof of Prospera citizenship.
Are Prospera and similar endeavors positioning themselves to accrue outsized power in the developing world? Will corporate citizenship tokens eventually become commonplace?
After a 90 minute consultation, it wasn't clear that these projects would actually happen. But the fact that they could raises interesting questions. Are Prospera and similar endeavors positioning themselves to accrue outsized power in the developing world? Will corporate citizenship tokens eventually become commonplace?
These are heavy questions that I'm still trying to make sense of. A much lighter development is the release of the EOS crypto zine Immutable Realms, which features an article by me about the future of that cryptocurrency. This fully illustrated zine was funded on the EOS crowdfunding platform Pomelo. Creator Lars Kommienezuspadt did a great job pulling everything together.
At the same time, I'm eagerly awaiting the release of Sifer Wars on Polygon, an NFT project that I wrote for. The release date has been pushed back again and again for several months, and is now scheduled for the end of the year. With thousands of people on Discord anticipating the release, Sifer Wars will probably be successful. Part two is already underway.
Outside of these three projects, I'm barely paying attention to the world of crypto at the moment. Prices are stagnant. Companies are reorganizing in the wake of the FTX exchange collapse. Governments are mulling over new regulations. It'll likely be a couple of months before anything important happens.
This crypto downtime has given me the opportunity to achieve a goal I set for myself at the end of 2018. I wanted to write ten science fiction novels in five years, and have just completed novel number ten. I drafted this work directly to my Hive blog, allowing my more dedicated fans to follow along as the story came together. Now that it's finished, I'm in the market for the next big thing.
Looking back on the Year in NFTs
by Adrian Pocobelli
Berlin
What a year it’s been in the crypto-digital art scene. Twelve months ago, financial markets were still in ‘buy the dip’ mode, and NFTs—arguably the most speculative of crypto assets—were heading towards their blowoff top.
To give an example of how crazy things were, I remember buying nine mfers PFPs NFTs for $1000 each in December (which probably sounds outrageous to most people) but by the end of January of this year, they were trading at $18,000 each. (Yes an 18x in less than 60 days. And no, I didn’t press the sell button—I was convinced they were going to $100,000 each lol). Few people sell the top, unfortunately (I wasn’t even close), but along the way, it did help me cover some bills, so that was at least something. These days they sell for about $1500, so call it a learning lesson—or ‘tuition’, as the speculators like to call it.
And although it’s been a pretty brutal bear market in financial assets (especially crypto), the creativity in the digital art scene (beyond a financial context) appears to be in full-swing. In fact, it’s actually a great time to be in the space. Just by showing up these days, you gain a certain credibility, as most of the supposed artists who showed up at the height of the crypto mania in 2021 have long since disappeared. It really speaks volumes.
Last November, Tezos, a prominent cryptocurrency that hosts a huge selection of digital art, was trading over $9, while today it trades under 80 cents.
So it’s gotten quieter, but it’s actually much better for getting to know people. All that’s left now are the true fanatics who are passionate about making and collecting digital art.
Last November, Tezos, a prominent cryptocurrency that hosts a huge selection of digital art, was trading over $9, while today it trades under 80 cents. Ether peaked out at $4500 and now trades near $1300. Needless to say, this is the time to get in, particularly as a collector. So don’t be shy—now’s the time to start your Twitter and download a Tezos wallet (Kukai), as you’ll have missed the boat by the next time things get crazy, whenever that might be.
3 Questions with… Curator, Collector, Gallerist, Marie-Therese Huppertz
Intro by Leo Kuelbs
Berlin and Brussels-based Marie-Theres Huppertz, along with husband, the photographer Eddie Bonesire, are vital assets to the Western European art scene. Supporting artists through showing their work at pop-up galleries and events, as well as actively collecting and cultivating via conversation and creating contacts, are all essential parts of her practice. Oftentimes, these types of activities are overlooked when considering the greater art world. But without these contributions from MT and others, there would be an even more massive void between the worlds of blue chip galleries and working artists and appreciators who reside in the real world. We are big fans!
But, let’s take a look at the questions:
1. Hello there, Marie-Therese! Can you tell us a little bit about your background and how you became an art collector and a curator and part-time gallerist?
2. Your collection consists mostly of paintings, photos, some sculptures. Yet your background has a fair amount of Tech in it. What do you think of the digital arts, video, NFTs, VR--that whole zone? Also, when compared to more traditional modes.
3. You are based in Berlin and Brussels, correct? What’s coming up for you in both cities, and any others? What else are you looking forward to in the months ahead?
Hard Wired: Land-lines Run Deep
Image and Text by Stu Spence
Sydney
I’ll never forget the sound of that heavy black receiver hitting the floorboards when dad took the call about Jimmy dying in Da Nang. The dog raced in and leant against him, shivering.
Mum found out Lizzie was pregnant on that phone, she laughed and cried all at once, I was five, I remember being scared and hiding under the sink.
The big hail storm in ‘74 ripped that line off the post like it was a strip of licorice. We watched it flicking and squirming all over the barn paddock, sparks shooting off in wild patterns, like it was dying and wouldn’t give in. Like it was angry.
I kissed our next door neighbour, Jamie Maddox against that telegraph pole. Later he reckoned he wasn’t ready, but his mouth told a different story, he was ready all right.
If either of our families had seen that kiss from the respective farm houses, well, I hate to think. Sometimes I wonder if the beating the old man would have given me, not to mention what the other illiterate hicks out there would have done, would have been better than keeping the lie hidden all those years.
Once, I almost told my father.
I was living in Darlinghurst (an inner-city wild ride in those days) with a DJ named Spike. I was high, and in a moment of drug-fueled courage, I called.
“Dad.”
“Oh, g’day, how are you?”
“Yeah, good.”
“How’s the big smoke?”
“Yeah, not bad…” My face was on fire. I remember feeling the cheap speed running around my head fighting the fear and shame that were doing their own hot laps up there.
“I, you…” I seized up.
“You alright, mate?” He hardly ever called me that, and it threw me.
“I’m…yep, I’m excellent”
That was as close as I got. Next week he was dead, a clot in his brain, or something.
I thought about that telephone call a lot, I thought about how much I needed to tell him, and how easy it might have been if somehow, I dunno, all my shame and anger and fear could have somehow passed through that telephone line, without me actually having to say it all. Just pulses of feelings running along those thin black wires. I imagined them being like when a snake swallows something big, and how its body swells as it digests its, the bulge slowly moving along, then gone.
Years passed, I went back once in a while for a Christmas here, a birthday there, my secret still sitting inside, undigested. I always felt like a phony, never sharing how my other life worked in the city. I just learnt to sketch around it.
I thought about that telephone call a lot, I thought about how much I needed to tell him, and how easy it might have been if somehow, I dunno, all my shame and anger and fear could have somehow passed through that telephone line...
When little Valley Falls, 30 miles away started to grow outwards, land in our area was suddenly valuable. A railway transport mob bought up everything around, their progress unstoppable, their hands slowly strangling the families that had been out there for generations. It’s an old and grubby story.
When Mum went to live in the nursing home, she sold the farm to my brother Keith (though the details of that deal are still very sketchy). Keith, in turn, sold off pretty much the whole property to the railway arseholes, just leaving a handkerchief-sized square for the old house to sit in. Then, just to add insult to injury, he ‘renovated,’ which basically meant stripping the life from the house and smothering it with bricks and mortar , so it could never breath again. Then he sold it, and went to live in the Gold Coast, last I heard.
Many years later, a therapist suggested I go back there.
“What for?”
“Something will come up, Davey. I think it’ll be good for you.”
I put it off and put it off, but last month I took the old Western Line back. As the train got closer, so the sights became more familiar, and thus the anxiety, and the need for digging into the small plastic bag in my pocket.
Standing outside our old house, I recognized almost nothing. It was a relief, in a way, as nothing “came up,” another good reason to get out of that dumb therapy palaver.
Then I saw it.
I’d turned away, and was leaving via a side street (that had been our calving paddock once upon a time), when I looked back and across the fence of what was, apparently, our old farm house.
Apart from a light someone had nailed to it, the old telephone pole remained, exactly as I’d left it, thirty-two years before, an army of shipping containers on its case, moving in for the kill, but our pole still holding its ground, resolute.
In that late light I could see every grain of the pole, the two horizontal struts at the top the old man had painted orange so that our farm’d be seen from the air if the floods ever got too high. Even the choco vine was still on the job, climbing up to “make a call,” as my mum used to tell me when I was little.
At the time I had no particular reason to look back over that fence, I was outta there, but some things have their way of making themselves seen and heard.
That pole was us, family, me, love, all of us, compressed into one object, still standing. Still there. In a flash, I felt there as here. I heard the call of blood, of place, of home. Felt the sex, the confusion the touch. Maybe felt it more than heard it.
‘It’s hard-wired in,” I said to myself, and smiled. I looked back because I heard the call, the jarring bell that meant something, really meant something. You felt a telephone call in those days, and that day was no different. The call that said, you’re not alone, you’re from somewhere, you matter. It only took thirty two years to come, but man, it felt good, like the last brush of paint on a portrait , that says ‘finished.’.
I called my mum from the train station as I waited for the city train. She didn’t recognize my voice, or even who I was, really, but that was ok.
Winter Visual Report from Kiev
by #headacheeartlaboratory
Kiev
Warning: Some images are pretty graphic.
Image by #headacheeartlaboratory
Image by #headacheeartlaboratory
Image by #headacheeartlaboratory
Rules to overcome Rauhnächte (the Time of The Wild Hunt). A Users Guide!
by JCO
Baden Baden
Halloween is long over. I’m happy you haven’t got bitten by a vampire, a zombie didn’t suck out your brain and a demon didn’t try to posses you. You probably think that you’re safe for another year, that you can enjoy a peaceful Christmas feast and toast with your loved ones on new years. Well you’re wrong. Because even though you might live in a city where the old traditions are forgotten, they may still apply. In Europe between December 25th and January 6th, there’s a high chance to see something strange in the night, in the darkness. During the so called “Rauhnächte,” the portal to the underworld is wide open. And if you don’t know the rules, well…you can only imagine.
Luckily for you, I’ve written some down, so your 2022 won’t start with a curse.
1. Your pets might be able to talk in human tongue at midnight. The good things is they can tell you about your future. The bad thing, if you can hear them talk, you’ll die right after. Also if you treated you pet badly, it might complain to a ghost that will punish you.
2. Singles can go to our crossroad at midnight and see a vision of their future partner. But they not allowed to stare or speak to him, because that will cause immediate death.
3. Keep your house clean and tidy. Demons are attracted by chaos.
Don’t hang up white bed sheets. The cavaliers of the wild hunt might steal them and use them as shrouds for you and your family members next year.
4. Don’t use clotheslines to hang up your laundry at home. A ghost might get caught and will stay in your home.
5. Don’t cut your hair or nails. You will end up having gout or migraine in the following year.
6. Don’t whistle in the morning or misfortune will follow you.
7.Slamming doors will cause thunder and lightning.
8. Keep track of your dreams in a dairy. During the Rauhnächte your dreams will predict events in the future. Each of the twelve nights is representing a month.
9. “Ins Horchen Gehen" - The only safe way to talk to a ghost: From midnight till 1am you can go to a crossroad and draw a circle out of salt around you. The salt will protect you and you can talk to the passing ghosts of the wild hunt and ask them for advice.
10. Smoke out your home that will protect you from demons and dark forces.
11. Protect your home by drawing a pentagram on your front door. The members of the wild hunt respect the symbol and won’t bother you.
So, if you follow these simple rules, you should have a great Rauhnächte season and a wonderful new year! If not…??