MOVIES
https://pad.riseup.net/p/amovielovers-keep

Vagabond, Agnes Varda
Otar Joseliani - georgian film director
"the train in the fire"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_set_on_trains

NAMES OF RECOMMENDED MUSIC ARTISTS:
(georgia)
yasadik-hom
sawtuha
(I dunno)
Son pascal
Rim arthur Jool
Trippel G
prapapojez
pramamojez

(kazakh)
shiza & yenlik
kyparah quarakesek -inflower
instasamka
-players
-terbel & 5000 & still & shaiga
50ct mashup shahara DJ Xtreme
nooransister patakha guddi sergio
ÏÎÏÉAEOII
Bepa

Kairat Nurtas

(russian)
miagi

THE NOTEBOOK

TEXTE
Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya
The great armed train
Mircea cartarescu... die Wissenden. Rumenien
Testojunkie - Paul B. Preciado

TIME

we travelled through 5 timezones, forth and back. again and again we had to wonder, when the sun will go down, because this was one of the rare important significants of our daily plans: we could cross the yard and get into a train unseen only in the dark, most of all being in treeless areas. when we were still in europe we would wonder around the industrial harbor zone of Rotterdam or would even go to see a acrobatic show or an aircraft show (Rumania) during the day, later in Kazachstan in the light we only went to get food and water, go swimming or sleep or moved to the next yard if we gave up the other one - we did everything to be prepared for later and survive the heat.
so there was light and dark and in between there was the reign of the mosquitos - and that was how time worked.

NOTES ON MAKING A FILM / SHOOTING LOTTO

ON THE FERRY TO BATUMI

the night of the sleepover (11.06.2023)

we are crashing at the couch of the most inviting host and two others too. we are showered and can wash our stuff and all this small things mean something.
the room we share (there was a clothing swap too) is nice and immediately belongs to all of us, or we belong there.
they call it the hobbit house, because it is subterran and the garden is the living room.
tonight i can offer my mattress because we got the couch, but Leo is crawling underneath it smiling happily, while my travel fellow is lying on it having a call talking about puppies.
we are like wild dogs that found a bush to live in and a bit of trash to share for dinner.

Ж​д​а​т​ь - Красные Зори

JOYFULL WAITING

I always liked waiting. It is opening the space to do whatever one wants, senseless, small stuff. Watching ants, a spiders web and other people. (maybe I am trapped in capitalist logic, when I first need a purpose why I am somewhere, waiting, and then I am free to do whatever…). train hopping made waiting a main task. But actually often it was more being on the watch-out, because anything could happen any time, we had to be ready and still could try to find out more about how trains go, so I could not fully fall into the waiting-mode. But we got better, watching and being alert in a calm way. To decide what I am waiting for, is freedom, and maybe also, that waiting can be something active, is emancipation.

Красные Зори ("Red Dawns") is a fem-trip-punk collective from St.Petersburg. they translated the famous feminist poem 'Waiting' written by American artist Faith Wilding to Russian and set it to music:
https://krasnyezori.bandcamp.com/track/-

"Waiting is a 15-minute monolog, scripted and performed by Faith Wilding in the Performance program at Womanhouse, "Waiting" condenses a woman's entire life into a monotonous, repetitive cycle of waiting for life to begin while she is serving and maintaining the lives of others. The full text was published by Ms. Magazine in 1972, and in the Appendix of "Through the Flower" by Judy Chicago" - from Faith Wilding's website faithwilding.refugia.net/waiting.html

SONGS AND POEMS - THOUGHTS ON THINGS TO GIVE

maybe songs were the most "natural" (organisch) way art was part of our journey, because we needed nothing for it but the permission to make noise, we could practice anywhere and severall times it was the only gift we could give.
i am still wondering what could have been another thing to give, the glitter, the beautiful memory, the treasure to share symbolically, but maybe it is just this.
when I think of that old woman with her garden in an outer district of almaty were we would get offered a shower, black tea and incredibly sticky sweets and then sang for that family and this woman already started glooming wenn I said, Песня, and overflooded in an endless smile when we sang for them... I almost cried when we left and she kissed my cheek, because I felt understood in a wordless way (and now thats a bit flowery and exagerated, but also true)... in that moment it was just the perfect thing to share.

some truckers where stunned, others started singing themselves and others again were just fine that we do our thing singing along in their space.
but anyways - singing made a lot of "sense", it structured what was happening, gave it a frame, made moments out of situations and made me always ("always") feel connected with the other one as our voices scratched on eachother and hugged us and developed a rhythm inspired by the trains themselves.
that day we rode a train in the wrong direction from Kandyagash (Blutbaum) back west and it started raining on us sitting on a pile of stones, we carved bumpy seats into that pile and were partly wrapped around eachother: two hugging rain coats. to start singing and humming changed strongly how i felt in this situation. i concentrated stronger on the beating of the train, to see it as a pattern and not as "noise", (which was my perception most ot the time, cause i love noise, but after a few ours the ears also get sensitive in an over stimulated way...) singing can make me cheerfull in the rain or thoughtfull. it is deliberating to say the thoughts out loud because they can just flow into the pattern that is there anyways, like i am not taking sound space cause the space is already full so there can also be more, no problem. (many people know it from using a vacuum cleaner, i guess, it is not a new thought)
and then the other one made up a song and a melody about our situation, which captured this special situation but also in a way the whole vibe of the travel, of cause somehow performed - which was also intersting: to develop some kind of performance around that song, like, that you said, oh yeah, afterwards and it would get me everytime cause it sounds so silly but also just right.













also it was beautifull how the uskoken song connected our sail trip with the rail adventure, and in general that, to draw a line between the sea, (our) friendship and the rail adventure "made sense". now that i spend a few days at the sea, i realised the similarities between the sea and the степь (steppe), how they both give the sky a fitting stage to widen my eyes. and when you roll high on a truck (as on a drug) through it, it is almost like in a boat, getting thrown from side to side by the waves (of concrete and sand).

it is still sad that i did not get the harmonica early enough to bring it to the trip. next time.

At some point the other one said, we might learn a poem (maybe even in Russian) to make other people understand what we are doing and to have something to give in the same time. In between learning Russian and making short notes to keep a situation in the notebook we used (or on sheets of paper that I had in my fanny pack) something like poems grew...
this one was a vocabulary list and my impression of our daily life in Kazachstan

tired
write on skin
here bush house (home)
under the open skye
song mosquitoes
the whole night through

day, it is hot
baked brain
me nuts you bread
no language to mouth
only eyes

each other (friend friend)
breathing
..........tomorrow westwards

oh my train is going the wrong way
should i jump, or should i stay?
should i risk to break a leg
or go a place I cant go back?

the rain is soaking me slow and the wind blows cold
the rails they squeak and the breaks they scream
but I must admitt - I m living my dream
to ride freight trains, through a land I ve never seen

(oh yeah)

(in a land I have never seen)

being the weirdo that does not want a ticket but
stays at the train station anyways
knowing every shady trail around
after a few days
sleeping in a barrel
in the wind we are awake
sitting in a bush and I am chewing my fingernails
listening to the train noise
to the horn and to the speaker, in the yard
(if we would understand, we might know
where it would lead her, and how far)
waiting gets a lifestyle
for the signs to be right
taking every chance to gather knowledge
of their movements
sometimes later we know less
but we're together and moving

be still in the hiding spot
but be aware
live where the homeless live means - share
getting lemonade and chocolate
from the yard securities
getting questioned by police
eating shitting riding freeze

being clear in the head
hear every workers step and
be more fast and more
on the edge
getting desperate
having a stomach ache from
the lentils meal of yesterday
skin like clay

ninja style climbing mode
from wagon to wagon
but scratch open my arms
on every occasion
even lying in my bed
mosquito bite kisses on the forehead
want to lay down but I jump instead

starring at the moon
blind by nightly yard light
dogs eyes in the dark
we are stick figures in the far
on a hill between the countries
next to a graveyard
we do not make sense
but there s a hole in every fence
I try to keep my trash
but everywhere is plastic
carry a found pullover for some hours
then leave it where the rest is
we always chill where the rest piss
no set up will, it is elastic
direction east and
where we can buy chestnuts

some gave me a couch - so I can give my matress
another crawls underneath the sofa
with a smile like a can of red beans
one day we can invite some to our fire
and find out what being blessed means

I am not restless but
my sleep is light and we smash jizz
we find the trees that no one sees
who is here native
can you imagine
how was life without the satellites?
assembly of pictures from
what we never seen from
a perspective we can not be
running to the right corner
cause we believe the technixs
and the polar star rises
an assurance that we can miss
this train is not electric but
I can see a flash bit, dead birds on the sides,
bones, holes, clothes make a
landscape of tragic
this is human world
we cant mess this
so riding that train is a small piece of practice
to live this, to wreck this

ROMANIA

ROTTERDAM

ROMANIA

Domino (10.6.23)

walking through the corridor I can already hear the loud clacking of the stones.
I enter the canteen, some men are watching a movie but I walk straight to the table where the guys are playing to ask if I can watch. I get invited to sit at the bench next to the table. A perfect spot to watch the mysterious game.
One men on each side of the table makes four of them. All of them big guys, some are smoking, the air is hard to breathe. They all seam to know exactly what they are doing and play with concentration, slamming stones and spinning them, cursing and counting points. Others also come to watch. One is laying his hand on the shoulder of a player while rubbing his big hairy belly. Sometimes players get exchanged.
The other one has joined me in watching.
It is confusing and mesmerizing at the same time.

Direction Bucuresti (24.5.23)

this space that we share with the trailer on the train is not made for humans but for trailer, but it is yet not not-made-for-humans. It has its own tiny deserts, gas fountains and lakes, that break free and flood us when the train starts moving. But there is enough space to sleep, eat and piss. This is my work space now, my bureau when the train is waiting somewhere, but most of all my cinema and radio. (noise is on and a bit of tekkno and classical music, as far as I can tell.)

The Sea Always Wins (6.6.23)

the sea always wins, this is what I learned through many attempts to built fortresses on the beach or block streams with my brother and dad.
Born and raised in the Netherlands I learned the importance water has in dutch culture. I got taught how to swim, to sail, to ice skate, to safe myself after breaking through ice. I learned about the dutch water and water protection infrastructure.
And it makes me wonder, with a history of the watersnoodramp of 1953 end the knowledge that ocean levels are rising above a land which already has most of its population below water level (double check this), why does there seam to be no cultural reconciliation with the fact: the sea always wins.
How can we built this knowledge into our culture so we can be ready to deal with it when the time comes?

FACES
obviously train hopping takes up all my senses and how the landscape is running on my side it has a currency, an optical suction. An when no one is awake in the world anymore (it seams), I can watch it for hours. The problem is, from a position with good view, you can also be viewed.
If someone sees a hip or a knee, they might not even realize. When they see a glove or a shoe it is getting harder, but people might still think it was an illusion. But if there is a face, people are sure: if someone is looking back, there is someone.
We are not expected on this moving space, so we can perceive deeds that are usually unseen, trivial things: working people, often in the fields, two guys on a ladder in a vineyard four o clock in the morning, an old woman stretching heroic in her garden looking out the valley or how someone is walking down a hill backwards.
A part of me would like to share a smile with them and assure each other of our existence. On the other hand from passenger trains I am also not trying to make contact with people I see outside.
And now its just silly. Sometimes we shall not look at all. Rather less than more.

RUSSIA IN A JAGUAR WITH STOMACH ACHES

PLAYING DURAK WITH TRAIN SECURITIES (KUZET)