The Wheels in My Head Keep on Turning

Ok so this is quite late. But I promised to put up the final product of my published article in Focus. This way, you can see how it looked on the page and such.

You can also find it online here.


Although it was a good experience, and I am glad I was finally published, recent events have really caused me to take a deep look into what I need to accomplish before leaving here.

It’s going to take a lot of work. And I have too many ideas. So I have to pick a few and really concentrate on setting things in motion.

I don’t want to explain too much about where I am heading, (you know that whole copyright thing, I don’t want people stealing my ideas…) But I will surely keep you updated. And Brenna Moore might have more than just one blog in the very near future…

Never wake up one morning and realize you have become stagnant. And if you do, fix it immediately.

If not sooner.

First Yikes But Not Really, Then A Revisit of Things Previously Mentioned

It's Friday the 13th.

I just realized that just now.

There actually isn't much significance in this for me, just felt like mentioning it.

SO, during my lunch break just now, as I ate Spaghetti and Schnitzel at the Casino (our cafeteria here at Burda), good ole' Stephen King was addressing things in his book, The Stand, that I was JUST talking about. It kinda freaked me out. BUT that brings me around to make another point. I have been reading this book, hmmm for maybe on the heavier side of 2 months, and I am JUST NOW about to finish it. Granted, it is 1150 pages, but 2 months??? What is wrong with me? And I REALLY like this book so I am just baffled at how long it is taking me to finish reading it... Hmmm... might have something to do with MY COMPUTER.

Dah.

But, this is what I was reading at lunch and I was so awestruck that I muttered a loud "Huh!" (Like I always do when stumbling upon something I find interesting in a book), and quite a few people in the cafeteria turned to look at me. Red-faced now, I just held the book higher up so I could disappear behind it. Worked pretty well. Anyway, it is a part of the book (hmmm crap I really don't want to reveal too much for people who haven't yet but might read it), well let's just say there is a group of people who are making quite a long journey somewhere, without materials of any kind, and they begin discussing, in a sense, what the purpose of this journey is. King writes, and I quote:

"You think (we were sent) out here to have visions?" Ralph asked. (Didn't want to mention a name there.)
"Maybe to gain strength and holiness by a purging process," Glen said. "The casting away of things is symbolic, you know. Talismanic. When you cast away things, you're also casting away the self-related others that are symbolically related to those things. You start a cleaning-out process. You begin to empty the vessel."
Larry shook his head slowly. "I don't follow that."
"Well, take an intelligent pre-plague man. Break his TV, and what does he do at night?"
"Reads a book," Ralph said.
"Goes to see his friends," Stu said.
"Plays the stereo," Larry said, grinning.
"Sure, all those things," Glen said. "But he's also missing that TV. There's a hole in his life where that TV used to be. In the back of his mind he's still thinking, At nine o'clock I'm going to pull a few beers and watch the Sox on the tube. And when he goes in there and sees that empty cabinet, he feels as disappointed as hell. A part of his accustomed life has been poured out, is it not so?"
"Yeah," Ralph said. "Our TV went on the fritz once for two weeks and I didn't feel right until it was back."
"It makes a bigger hole in his life if he watched a lot of TV, a smaller hole if he only used it a little bit. But something is gone. Now take away all his books, all his friends, and his stereo. Also remove all sustenance except what he can glean along the way. It's an emptying-out process and also a diminishing of the ego. Your selves, gentlemen-they are turning into a window-glass. Or better yet, empty tumblers...
"When you empty out the vessel, you also empty out all the crap floating around in there," Glen said. "The additives. The impurities. Sure it feels good. It's a whole-body, whole-mind enema."

Ok, now. Isn't that INSANE that I read that RIGHT after I had written my last entry??? Wow it boggles the mind. That's what I am talking about!!!!!!! It's not necessarily the fact that I watch American television shows over here, that is a (sad) staple of the American society, or that I read books, or listen to music, or hang out with friends; it's the fact that I almost ALWAYS have this feeling that I am not doing things right, that I am not living the way I am meant to, that I am missing something. It's REALLY hard to explain, even to myself. It's like I am seriously mad at myself but can't remember what I am fighting about. Sometimes I feel like in coming to Munich—and this year abroad—was going to help me find myself, find out what it is I really want. And, I hate to say it, but sometimes I feel like the me I know and I love, is drifting further and further away. And the harder I try and stop it, the smaller it becomes, appearing like a dot on the vast oceanic surface of my innerself.

Honestly I have no clue what kind of answer—if there even is one—I am searching for. And if I do, I don't know how to find it.

I think it's going to take something big (I pray to God that it's nothing near a government-created biological plague that wipes out most of mankind) to shake me out of this weirdness and instill the change I am craving.

I'm confused.

Aktualisierung (For lack of a better title)

Hello, hello.

So I have noticed that a few things have gone awry with my photos below, and I just caught this now. (It didn't look like this when I posted it), but I will have it corrected as soon as I get home. My computer at work does not seem to like blogger very much, and I can't fix things here because the page doesn't load correctly and what not. I also can't post links or photos here, or spellcheck. So pretty much all I can do at work is write my thoughts down and then wait 'til I get home to post.

Laaa dee daaa.

Don't know why I am explaining this really. I apologize.

However, I do plan to scan (rhymes!) and post my article about Lady GaGa, so that I have the finished product on here, and then I have also been working on translations from interviews done with Noam Chomsky, (I translated them from German into English), and I will post those on here as well. Got to keep up on the work side. Immer.

But now, a talk about life. My plans (as I have said over and over), have been to write every day. I am so horribly bad at this, hey? I don't know what it's going to take for me to stick to my goals. I get really frustrated with myself because I have so many plans in bettering myself as a person and therefore having a more worthwhile experience over here in Munich, but I am still stuck in this awful Americanized-habit of having to be constantly entertained, mostly by broadcast mediums. What I am trying to say is, I am living in this wonderful city, that I will only be in until July (most likely) and I still can't wait to see what is going to happen on the next episode of Lost.

Booooo, who cares (well, I do)... but why??? ARGH why can't I get out of that stupid rut. What is it going to take? I know exactly what is going to happen. I am going to keep living like I have been, and when the time comes to leave Munich I will never stop feeling like I wasted my time. How do I get myself REALLY motivated to accomplish the goals I have set for myself? I think I should shut down my computer and never turn it back on. The Internet, and everything that comes with it, is a wonderful thing, but it's also HORRIBLE at the same time. I remember being young and in elementary school and we had the GIANT computers with the floopy disks that you had to carry oh-so-carefully over the carpet so as not to trigger a jolt of static electricity that would wipe your disk clean of data. The Internet wasn't even around then. And alas: the world still functioned.

Blah blah blah, you've heard it all before, but see that's just the thing. What good is all of this technology doing us, really? Sure we can listen to any song at any given time, contact old friends with the click of a button, order any little thing our hearts desire, but what is all of that doing to us, as humans? (So not trying to sound Kaczynski-ish, I swear...)

When I was young, I never sat still. I was the little girl who was always in her own world, wanting to wear my nice sun dresses and black dress shoes just so I could look nice while climbing up trees. If someone had told me then to sit in front of a computer or a television set for a few hours each day, I would have thought I was being punished. I ached to go outside. To see the world. To experience everything. And yes, that is in a child's nature. Isn't it? Or has their "nature" now become which level they can get to in a video game?

Ugh I hate that! I really hate that. That is what is happening too. The unseen dangers of technology... and I can't really say anything against it (too late) because I am a participant in it all. I check Facebook and Gmail religiously, I know all the best Websites for streaming television shows online in addtion to all of the ones that find the best music.

When will I wake up and have that uncontrollable urge to go climb a tree?

That's the thing. I am afraid I will never get that feeling back again; scared to death that (some of, it's not like I lock myself in my room all day and never go outside, go to a museum or meet with friends, I'm just saying that should be how I spend all of my free time, not some) my happiness now comes from the fake realities of the characters within the "magic box."

No no no, I will not let this happen. Oh and how CLICHE it is, but we have this one life, and I am currently wasting mine. How trite and hypocritical it is... but isn't it funny that in writing on my blog ONLINE, I come to realize what is going on in my mind and thus I am better equipped to discovering what I want and how to get there?

Yes. But I say these things to myself daily. How to get that determination, that movitation, that child-like wonder back? Hmmm...

It's snowing outside.

I think I will go for a walk...

Oh, the Art Museum

I am in love with the Neue Pinakothek.

That is one of the art museums here in Munich; part of the trio along with the Alte Pinakothek and the Pinakothek der Moderne. I ventured there last Sunday (museum entry only costs 1 Euro on Sundays) and became infatuated. I just wanted to share a few of my favorite paintings, and will post more as I keep going back! May this also inspire people to go to art musuems and experience similar culturally-related things instead of watching a television program. It is much more intellectually stimulating.

The first painting I really liked was Im Moor (On the Moor) by Fritz Overbeck.

The next was Die Sünde (The Sin) by Franz von Stuck. Very eerie but so engrossing.

Next was The Bathing Place by William Stott.

And The Hard Path by Fritz von Uhde.

Then I found my most favorite one, but I didn't have a piece of paper with me or a pen, so I couldn't write down the very complicated name. I thought that it had the words "Hyppolite" and "Morgenstern" in it, and I think it was by Arnold Böcklin. But I've Googled every combination I can think of and can't find the painting I saw. I will just have to go back and take my own picture of it.

But here is another one of my favorites from Böcklin, titled the Villa By the Sea.

As you can probably tell, I like pretty paintings. And ones that tell a story. But man, do I love this art museum.

Come to Munich just to go to it.

One Insane Week

So this is an update on last week's events; more specifically Monday's events, well and through Friday I suppose. So yes, most of the week.

Monday was when I had my interview with GaGa, which went relatively well. I was at Munich's Sofitel at 6:30 p.m., and met up with the people from Focus Online, who were doing a separate interview after mine. We were scheduled from 7:00 to 7:20, but didn't end up sticking up to that constraint. First, when we arrived we were taken up to her room, and I saw her leaving one room and going into another. But then her publicist from Universal told us we had to wait a bit so that she could get ready for the next interview.

So the people from Focus Online and I went down the hall a bit and chatted a while until we were called into the room. Then, Online set up all their equipment and I just sat and listened to people's conversations.

Finally, Lady GaGa entered and I sat opposite her with my tape recorder and notebook of questions. It was pretty cool to see her in person, but she definitely looks like she does in every picture of her. She was wearing a black shirt and black pants (that she made herself), black sparkled and bowed gloves, black sunglasses and bright pink heels. Also in her hair was her infamous "hair bow." (Photo by docjohnboy)

She has a very nice voice, kind of gravely and but also sexy. It's true. And I am saving my interview with her just because I can. My interview lasted ten minutes, and I asked her actually pretty basic questions, which later I was upset at myself for because I am sure she answered all of those a million times. It is hard to get her to say something out of the ordinary though because she is famous and has publicist. So, you know. Anyway, I think this is something that I will continuously have to work on, and I really need to concentrate on it because this was one of my biggest problems when I was in J-School. Dahhhhh. I've got to focus on what's NEWs, and not be content with all the same information everyone has heard before.

One of my favorite things she said was that she did so many shows while on tour with the New Kids on the Block so that she could pay for her extravagant stage performances. "Because I don't care about the money, I care only about the art," she said. Me too.

She also said " I really am Lady GaGa you know, it’s not like a made-up cartoon character that I put on every morning." Interesting.

But I found her to be a a bit different than I would expect a Pop star to be, and nice too. She knows a ton about music. She taught herself to play the piano by ear at the age of four, was singing at age 11 and was composing music at 13. She was also one of the 20 people in the world to get early acceptance into the Tisch School of the Arts. So she knows her stuff.


I also saw her perform at the DLD (Digital, Life, Design) Starnight. I thought she was really good. I thought it was a shame she didn't have an actual stage to perform on; she was level with the floor so not many people could see what was going on. I had to stand on a table. And I was one of the only people that knew the words to her songs, so I was singing my heart out. Haha. But her props are really cool, including her glowing disco stick, digital-screened metallic sunglasses and luminous disco glove. Also, her songs are broken up by short films, that star her but are very modern and artsy. I thought it was really good; I only wish I could have seen her and her dancers better.

Ok here is the story I wrote, not the original one with the whole interview but what I made it into after that:

American singer/songwriter Lady GaGa showed up to last week's DLD Starnight wearing a glittering electric glove not to fit in with the theme of DLD, but because the prop is fundamental to her "theatrical Pop" music style.
22-year-old Lady GaGa, referred to as "the future of Pop" by The New York Post, is known for her visual mulitmedia stage performances and multifaceted talent. Her debut album, "The Fame" has sold one million copies, with her single "Just Dance" topping the charts in the US, the UK, Australia and New Zealand.
"I worked really hard. I played two shows a night for months and months, sometimes three shows, press all day and no sleep, and late nights, and designing all the clothes and the show... I actually did that many shows so that I could pay for the extravagant stage performances that I wanted to put on," Lady GaGa said.
Her name originates from the Queen classic "Radio Ga Ga." Lady GaGa's producer, Rob Fusari, used to call her Ga Ga in the studio, because "I have these very theatrical stage performances, very dramatic presence," she said.
Born in New York as Joanne Stefani Germanotta, GaGa started out learning the basics of music and has since worked her way up the music industry ladder.
"I've been a classically trained pianist since I was 4. I began to sing when I was around 11 and started to compose my own music when I was 13," GaGa said. She has written songs for Britney Spears as well as thePussycat Dolls, and is currently touring with the latter as part of their Doll Domination World Tour 2009.

This is what the story turned into after translation, thanks to Kerstin:

Um auf der begehrten „Starnight" des Innovations-Events DLD zu performen, bedarf es nichts weniger als der „Zukunft des Pop". So preist die „New York Post" Lady GaGa, die im Münchener Haus der Kunst mit elektronischem Glitzer-Handschuh und Disco-Zepter eine Multimeldia-Show hinlegte, dass dem Avantgarde-erfahrenen Publikum die Spucke wegblieb. „Theatralischen Pop" nennt die 22-jährige Newcomerin, mit der Single „Just Dance" Spitzenreiterin der Charts in den USA und England, ihre innovative Tour, für deren Songs, Texte und Kostüme sie verantwortlich zeichnet. So gaga die Lady sich gerne gibt, als Künstlerin wählte sie den klassisch braven Weg. Klavierstunden mit vier, Gesangsstudium mit 11 Jahren: ganz schön „old school"! bcm

There was a problem though, and I didn't realize it until it was brought to my attention by the Dokumention department, who checks every story for factual accuracy. They reported to me that she did not have Klavierstunden (piano lessons) but learned piano by ear. I did know this. Why did I not catch it. I should have asked Kerstin what this word meant, but if I had thought about it, I would have caught it. It's my fault. I wasn't paying enough attention to make sure that everything was right. On a similar note, Gesangsstudium (studying singing) is incorrect too, because in the beginning she was self-taught. I knew that too.

DAMMIT.

I was so mad at myself. Because I didn't really know the schedule of production day-to-day, I was told I would get a call from Doku but I never did. So during the Friday meeting, Stephan told me to go see them. And then I found out that those things were wrong. So then I had to go to the department that finalizes each page and tell them I needed to make corrections. I felt really bad because they had already sent in the page and now they had to get it back to fix it. I could tell that this was happening at a pretty late point in production, and I was stressing out quite a bit. Because those things were wrong, the ending didn't make sense. So Peter had to come and rewrite the ending. He did it extremely fast, but I felt like a dunce because I just stood there, because I couldn't rewrite it myself. I just kept saying "Sie hat sich alles selbst gemacht. Sie ist eine Autodidaktin." Yah, I think they got it.

But it's ok. It was my first article, so of course mistakes can happen. And I always learn something.

1. Ask better and unique questions to get better and unique answers.
   
2. Write for the GERMAN audience!
   
3. Pay attention during every step and make sure everything makes sense!

I am still mad at myself. Because that's me. I always want things to be perfect, and they almost never are.

But I am still excited that something with my name (well, bcm) is coming out in Focus tomorrow. Hazzah!



FURTHERMORE (yeow this is a long one), I attended the last day of the DLD Conference, and I found it to be very interesting. There I met Dr. Hubert Burda (who is the head of Hubert Burda Media, durrr), Marissa Mayer, vice president of Search Product and User Experience at Google, Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO and creator of Facebook. I also met the lovely Julia Allison, who is a weekly columnist in Time Out New York and co-founder of nonsociety.com. She's written for TONS of magazines, was the Editor-at-Large of Star Magazine and has made more than 350 on-air appearances for shows like CNN, MSNBC, Vh1, Fox, E!, CBS and NBC.





I liked meeting all of these people, but it also depresses me a little bit because they are my age (or YOUNGER) and have already done so much with their lives. I keep telling myself if I can just find that niche, it will happen.

Easier said then done.

But Julia told me something very useful: never take "no" for an answer, and always, ALWAYS portray confidence, even when you're not sure of yourself.

Two things I definitely have to work on... and I need to get crackin'...