Maru's Mun Journal

From the Department of Literary Pimpage and Enthusiasm:

If you like words that capture a world, and are willing to read something that neither contains a fandom nor a plot but is simply a vignette, a short piece of utter and admirable Literature with a Capital L, you need to read what John Jacob Jingleheimer Smith aka Ji wrote. I have no idea where she took the subject from, but what she writes is the truth - I lived that sort of life from 1997 to 2002 and am eternally grateful that circumstances conspired to allow me to free myself from it and be myself again. I don't know if there's a comm where one reports LJ entries suspected of Literature, Poetry, and The Transpersonal Truth, but this should go there.

From the Library Department:

I got "Monstrous Regiment" back!!! I had to go meet the fellow who'd borrowed it and taken it to the Canary islands at the Spanish-speaking baptist church here in Munich, but I've got my book back!! Now I can read up on the canon for:

oliverperks

maladict_

lofty_hush

tonker

to say nothing of the additional canon for

les_mots_justes

and

ottochriek

YAY!!!!


From the Department for Religious Experiences

So, as I was fetching my book from that Baptist place, I felt compelled to stay - it would have been so impolite to just go. I find Baptists a bit odd, especially after having become accustomed to Orthodoxy. Liturgy as such is yuck for them, it appears. There was some fellow who prayed, first, and people raised their hands and read quotes from their own bibles they had brought with them. Baptists really thumb bibles, I noticed; it's not just a phrase. Then there was a part with a band that sang rousing songs of a very modern and Latin Pop sort of way, and the congregation sang along, swayed with the music, clapped and generally behaved as if at a pop concert. Part three: a sermon of 45 minutes' duration during which people looked up the verses quoted in their own bibles (more thumping, that is). And all of it in Spanish. There was a very modern translation system with wireless headphones, but the interpreter was a rank amateur. But as my derived-from-Latin understanding of Spanish wasn't enough for the sermon, I tried to follow, and developed a monumental headache. After that, coffee. I don't really subscribe to all that stuff the fellow said (after all, I've got Orthodox leanings if any religion at all), but there was one good quote from some religious writer: "If two people have exactly the same opinion in every aspect, one of them is superfluous." Harsh, but to the point, and so in favour of all kinds of diversity. After the Lutheran confirmation last week in Berlin, and this Baptist do, I urgently need an Orthodox liturgy next week, and then perhaps no church at all any more for a while, thank you? nazgul_nr_5, you get to pick whether Russian or Greek. The Greeks sell the nicer icons, but cycling out into the woods to the Russians, and having to wear headscarves, has a certain something as well. Not to mention their otherworldly music.

From the Department of Meeting Fictional People in Real Life

Afterwards, at the coffee in that Baptist church (my, do they brew strong and very good coffee - my headache was gone the monent I got to smell the stuff!!), there was an  RL instance of Mr Pointy who played the piano at us. No, really, totally an incarnation of thetomjon. Or rather, to be even more precise, he was like a young version of tvitoller from the AU on greatestjournal.com. Pinstripe suit, long, straight pony tail, totally skinny and pointy, very polite and incredibly nice to everybody. No idea what in blazes he was doing there; perhaps he came for the coffee, which was really good enough for the AU version of TJ. He took a turn at the piano in the room where we'd repaired to to have our coffee and look at holiday pics on my friend's computer in a bevvy of enthusiastic Argentinian ladies whom I hadn't met before but who knew my friend and his family and instantly loved me as well. I was sekritly and mightily amused and thanked Mr Pointy very politely for the music, which of course he claimed was nothing, he had really hoped the room would already be empty, yadda yadda...

Sometimes, when I say "icons", I mean this:

( Actual Icons )