Dolphin Address 2005
‘Why Berlin?’ everyone asks, ‘what has that got to do with dolphins?’
‘Nothing’ I answer on the ball, ‘except that it rhymes!’
Within 3 years I had to two times leave my home. In summertime I have been living in my car in Ireland for 12 years, but this is only do-able for about four months. The year before last I met Verena there and in winter several times joined her in Berlin .
As stated in the Dolphin Addresses of last summer we lived on the Fanore meadow and stretched on towards Christmas by way of Killohill. By that time swimming with the dolphin had become a life threatening affair and Ballyvaughn, stripped of its traveler welcomes, nearly a ghost town. Moreover I had to abandon the tube waterwing project on the weight issue.
So presently I am trying to track down a production place, preferably in Berlin , as we live here, but we have wheels as well. We’ll keep you posted on developments and other cool stuff.
Wet Meadow
Dolphin Address 48
December 14th 2005
Though it seems a mere formality I keep insisting on spending the night on the meadow. Most of the day and evening I'm up in the WaterWing Research and Development Centre and my nightly move 'only' serves me to wake up to a new day in the too subtle and delicate pastels to picture. Fortunately no technology can match human appreciation, so every morning I just love to open my eyes to the light, brushing colour into the slopes of Fanore.
Cold winds to Walhalla
Dolphin Address 47
November 23th 2005
There is a lot of cold out there and one of them I caught, or should I say it caught me? I felt it coming and immediately organised my resources. Menthol cigarettes and pine&honey syrup for starters. Still in power I dragged the redundant furniture and stuff up to the collar beams and criss-crossed the top of the walls with as many lengths of timber as I could find. I reckon I pulled about one and a half tonnes up there, so finally I had the entire width of the shed at my disposal.
Counting sheep
Dolphin Address 46
November 28th 2005
Honey could easily slip through the gate, but she patiently waits until I open it. She lives in black and white bright lightning and she knows all the shortcuts to the easy ways. She's got golden brown milk chocolate polka dots over the inside of her courageous eyes. Her nostrils winging at any passing odour.
Unconditional love
Dolphin Address 45
November 14th 2005
From day one this has been a concept associated with the dolphin that I found very hard to grasp. There always seemed to be this double bottom. On first glance it's not so hard to understand. Love can't really be love if it only sails on preset conditions. But then the consequence presents itself. Should it be there no matter what, should it be without end, should it even be blind?
Fun page
Dolphin Address 44
November 8th 2005
I do love to laugh for a reason, however absurd. Therefore I've never been too keen on jokes. They are mostly prefab humour, canned laughter and meant to put a smile on your face whether you're in the mood or better be. It feels a bit like the dolphin's ever smile, like Rick Barry, the former trainer of 'Flipper' once put it: 'They'd even smile when told to jump through a hoop of fire'.
Hyde Park Corner
Dolphin Address 43
November 5th 2005
Like I used to say to my daughter: 'If you learn from your mistakes you can't make enough of them.' I've run wild a little. I got the feeling I'm a little bit much alone. This is how I lived on the farm for 12 years. Nearly always alone and I kind of like it. The feeling I can always fall back on myself, that I like to have something to do.
Under water
Dolphin Address 42
November 3th 2005
Head winded spray waves in wide lines plunge across the land brake, while crawler clouds, big with rain, seem to cling out of breath to the Slieve. The gale screams around the back doors of the bus and hoots on the open end of the rear bar. In a dry spell I hasten to do my jobby, but the drizzard hits me cold and drenching, a true water closet.
Saw Dusty
Dolphin Address 41
October 27th 2005
'Shed a tear at the thought of the winter to come'. Maybe good stuff for a singer songwriter, but it rang out like a menace in the actual prospect. I'd seen it coming for a while now. Ireland has all this green for a reason. The rains are torrential. The road puddles splash over the roof when I hit them with the bus.
Shifting Cycles
Dolphin Address 40
October 16th 2005
Sunlight may well be the major incentive to schedule our activities. Whether we live by day or night, we orientate to its brightness or turn on artificial devices to prolong or even dodge it. We would feel lost without its table, no chair to sit, no bed to lay upon.
Solitude
Dolphin Address 39
October 10th 2005
The worst thing you can do to a dolphin is to cut its social bonds. Some Delphinaria use this knowledge to discipline a dolphin that does not want to obey to a show drill.
It works very well on humans too. Solitary confinement is like a last resort for authority to force a prisoner to comply with its rules. Exposing a mind to the gravity of time and throwing it into the wilderness of a social void effectively breaks down even the strongest willpower.
Dusty undone
Dolphin Address 38
September 29th 2005
So sad. When it comes to dolphins we all tend to agree: these are sentient beings, a yet uncovered intelligence, a species blessed with a mind of their own. To many they categorise as our own extraterrestrials, like an 'Enterprise' inquiry object, communicable with a twist of fancy, an image mirroring the flight of our own fantasy.
Sub-surfing
Dolphin Address 37
August 31th 2005
Since a leading Dutch newspaper (the NRC) in the early nineties proclaimed the 'Blue Wave', a dazzling score of blessings has been attributed to dolphins. Regular visitors of these pages will have noticed that I shy to partake in imposing the supernatural on my observations. My angle in this respect is to close-up reality as true Nature easily outwits any fabrication of human fancy.
Bloody Tourist
Dolphin Address 36
August 24th 2005
With a sigh and an unuttered scramble of bad alphabet I push the bus in the verge for the umpteenth time. The short cut between Doolin and Lahinch seems to be discovered by a litter of slow-as-you-go campers that exceed their half of the road by an impassable stretch creating a wriggle in every encounter. The charm of winding and descending has deteriorated into a hazardous undertaking as these dormobiles take the mickey out of expedient steering.
Whichever way she turns
Dolphin Address 35
August 12th 2005
Life in the water has its adaptations. In DEA 27 I described the remarkable water repellent ness of the dolphin's skin. The photographs in 'Dusty water' bear witness of this. The following subject may require a little more of your spatial imagination.
Digital Midgets
Dolphin Address 34
August 9th 2005
This is meant as a ludicrous approach to a maddening medium. Since Verena left for Berlin I have to be all round again and I don't mean at MC Dermotts' pub. Suddenly I seem to have collected an unfathomable body of digitally operating machinery that initially profiled itself after the mountain view on Connemara: alluring shapes and colors but from here only reachable by imagination.
Photos
Dolphin Address 33
August 2th 2005
Lots of people find someone else's photo album obtrusive and uninteresting. Their own album, however, contains quite a few pictures they would not want to miss for the world. Well, those kinds of photos are now in my 'foto's'. I meant to tell you for some time, but then there have to be some. At the moment they amount to 449 and I would like to see you through them. They are divided into 18 subjects and continually under construction.
Balance
Dolphin Address 32
July 30th 2005
Everyone knows it. As a child you walk over a kerb and reach your arms to either side to stay in balance. But do you know why?
Tightrope walkers use long sticks, sometimes with weights at the ends. With this they dose their balance. A deviation is corrected by shifting the weight slightly to the side that feels too light. It is a play with gravity in which it is a matter of keeping to the center of the weight as good as possible.
Mystery
Dolphin Address 31
July 28th 2005
It is commonly known that sometimes you don't really know what you got until you miss it. I just happened on an interesting variation today.
I had been swimming with Dusty every day for over two weeks. This is not like a recreational dip in the pool. It may seem so in the beginning, but as soon as Her Silvership appears I am drawn into her wake and try to get as close as she lets me. And she can be a cruel mistress in all her splendor.
The Mayor of Kelp City
Dolphin Address 30
July 24th 2005
Here I am, with rope hair and dishwash hands, shivering out on the junior table rock in my wet suit, desalinating my uvula and relishing a scrapbook experience.
Because there were seven of them cuddling Dusty I thought to take my chance and glide over the kelp gardens undisturbed by the ruddy dolphin.
Blowholes
Dolphin Address 29
July 19th 2005
Because in Central-America a hurricane had twisted itself off the ground we got the encore over here. Hail white storm crests, lighted by sun breaches against a threatening black blue rain front fond.
For some time I had not been in Poul Sallagh, my first mobile home dwelling around Fanore.
The third dimension
Dolphin Address 28
July 15th 2005
Not only has the geographical residence of Dusty changed. The Boathouse bay offers more shelter than the inlet of Pollenawatch. The high tide island embraces her presence for almost the geometrical half, but the first 20 meters are a little bit foul. The bottom, until about three meters, is covered with dead algae and the fresh water that slowly mixes with the top layer gives Vaseline like, out of focus visibility and stinks.
Liquid layers
Dolphin Address 27
July 8th 2005
Far away a pepper and salt sea stretches towards a boldly outlined horizon. We wonder about the dolphin's appreciation and Verena guesses it to be practically in the middle.
Waves rushing towards the shore light up in emeralds and a solitary seagull flashes its feather light with an indignant chuckle. There must be a million shades of blue beneath the waves.
Pas du tout sweet
Dolphin Address 26
June 25th 2005
We thought: ‘Two dolphins, how can we miss?’ But there is a lot of sea around the peninsular of Crozon and nobody could tell us anything, except for some rapid-fire French. On a French website we learned that the dolphins separated and on the quay of Camaret finally someone knows that sometimes a dolphin swims into the harbor at high tide.
Berlin Balcony
Dolphin Address 25
June 8th 2005
The early morning sun cherishes Verena’s balcony. Bordered by violets in all colors of the rainbow I slowly let in the day. Polyphonic birdsongs echo three story’s high between the blocks, sometimes under voiced by home leaving commuters. The ripple on the Neu Koelner Schiffahrt Kanal re-sparkles the slept-in sunlight.
Berlin s’éveille.
Nutshell drama
Dolphin Address 24
June 2th 2005
Shakespeare immortalized the issue of choice in his ultimate ‘To be or not to be’. After a runway of two months still suddenly the hatchet has fallen. Two weeks of intense surveillance at the Boathousebay have not yielded one single sighting of Dusty.
Ireland awakens
Dolphin Address 23
May 25th 2005
I do not want to engage in politics. I’m doing fine with the news from Northern Ireland. I guess it’s an Irish prayer coming true at long last.
Dusty to Dusty
Dolphin Address 22
May 21th 2005
Things are getting tighter now. My initial resignation to Dusty’s absence was carried by confidence in her unpredictability. This was rather strengthened by both the times that we indeed saw her here. But she has been and stays away for a week now and so I leaped into darkness. Against my apprehension of the remote leash effect I have purchased a mobile phone. It is a snug little box that appears unprecedented in complexity to my untrained mind.
The Boathousebay
Dolphin Address 21
May 17th 2005
It could not have been even more beautiful. The wind had subsided within the embrace of the bay and the voice of the ocean had gone into a whisper. The sun had warmed the rocks to a scent that had not entered my nostrils since last summer. A handful of delfinado’s had pushed their cars into the verge of the narrow road and had spread over the dry ran rock points.
Some like it hot
Dolphin Address 20
May 11th 2005
Far from Hawaii, but just south of Donegal Bay, the estuary of the river Moy exits into Killala Bay. The ocean has left her imprints upon the sand of the immense beach, where the waves run in in parallel rows that seem to anticipate the roundness of their destination.
The Mark of the Maverick
Dolphin Address 19
May 7th 2005
For what feels long enough to be normal Dusty seems to have dissolved into the Atlantic. It was the ever vigilant
www.irishdolphins.com that dropped us an e-mail with the exact location she had been recently spotted. So we rocketed off to the old boathouse past White Strand and crept the bus into the swampy verge of the narrow asphalt.
Wave watching
Dolphin Address 18
April 26th 2005
If you want to see dolphins in the wild you mostly need patience and therefore lots of time. Today I have been here for exactly five weeks and only on my very first morning I saw twice two and once six dolphins. If they were people you'd call it an act of curiosity.
Ocean sculpture
Dolphin Address 17
April 20th 2005
The waves are jumping up out of nowhere today. As far as I can see there is a gentle ripple, a sea restlessly moving out of sight. Nothing that would warrant the pop-ups that start building about a 100 meters before the shore. They approach in single lines and stumble almost simultaneously in turquoise arches, pushing their madcap froth before them over the rebound of their predecessor.
'Full metal jacket'
Dolphin Address 16
April 15th 2005
This is the name of some fightfilm by Stanley Kubrick. The hero is clad like a Christmas tree with all kinds of weaponry. Not very much my kind of movie, but I feel addressed by the title because, for practical purposes, I like to hang myself with all kinds of things I might need. To this end I have purchased my attire. With my two coats, inner coat, hoody and body warmer I have a total of 34 pockets at my disposal of which until now 28 are in active use. Passport, business cards, dictaphone, paper notebook, everything has its place and is there when I need it. It takes a bit of organizing and remembering, but then it is sheer luxury to have everything at hand.
The working memory
Dolphin Address 15
April 8th 2005
As a student of ethnomethodology (a sort of anthropology of your own society) I formulated my 'tool theory': 'Problem solving strategies often spontaneously originate from instrumental methods and techniques on the work floor.' What you do day after day has its effects on your private life.
Nestle urge
Dolphin Address 14
April 2th 2005
By nature I am a seeker of resistance, as long as it is worth my while. Last summer Verena and I used the lee of a rock chunk, often in combination with an ugly red plastic washed up fisherman's tray, to cook or bonfire. This was not very adequate, but as the winds change a lot of direction flexible solutions seemed the only way to cope with the elements.
Here, there and anywhere
Dolphin Address 13
March 28th 2005
Only one single night was granted me on the meadow. When I went out over Funny Lane, the rain had made the mud so slippery that it took half an hour of brilliant and stupid maneuvers in skidding to set tyre on firm ground again. Mick dissuaded me to shovel sand over it as it is a public road. I think I sow legal grass in the twilight. Takes a while but is much easier. Meanwhile I will reside at my old spot in the Dunes.
Mobile home
Dolphin Address 12
March 24th 2005
To begin with, I am where I want to be: on the Fanore Meadow. Memories like the ruins of Lackinishka. This may take the thrill out of my road story, but it gains in tranquility.
The bus is all confused, drive on the right, drive on the left, going East, going West. It's onwards to the Land of Lucozade now, only 1200 km. to devour. Everything is moving, except me. My eyes are locked upon the idiot ahead of me
'Across the border'
Dolphin Address 11
March 16th 2005
As I leave the smoking ruins of Berlin I so much realize I'm not cut out to be a city boy. The kaleidoscopic disinterest that is vested on fear and suspicion I feel as an insult to my integrity and can never really be my piece of cake.
A highway man I am by way of occupational hazard. I do like to drive from gas station to station, at least as long as I'm going somewhere.
Collage
Dolphin Address 10
March 11th 2005
As my Sony dictaphone began to talk back to me ever more unintelligible I bought myself a new one, a Panasonic. With the necessary, exorbitant, software you can even let the recorded text appear in writing on your computer screen. I don't need that. The write-out inertia rather gives me time to adjust and insert logs into the entirety.
Writing
Dolphin Address 9
March 1th 2005
One of my favorite FAQ's is: 'How do you get to writing?' Maybe it looks as if I plunge some events into a concrete mixer to poor them over my screen after the necessary revolutions. That may be a too simplistic representation of affairs and I do not think this would give me much pleasure.
On the road back
Dolphin Address 8
February 26th 2005
When I was younger, so much younger than today, actually I must have been about seventeen, I did a lot of hitchhiking. In one of my desperate moments I then took the vow that if ever I would one day own a car I’d take along any hitchhiker within reason.
On the road
Dolphin Address 7
February 24th 2005
After extensive Google-ing on the Internet I finally found a firm that deals in molding shapes in smaller quantities. After some e-mail exchanges I decided to visit them and discuss the possibilities to create a state-of-the-art WaterWing in synthetic material. There was a distance to be covered though: the firm is located in Munich.
City in snow
Dolphin Address 6
February 17th 2005
It balances upon each twig, not one excepted. Berlin is tucked in and every crystal absorbs the brutal sounds of the city. Yesterday evening I already saw the flakes light up in headlights and streetlamps. It’s affecting your gravity; it heaves your soul and glides with your thoughts.
City in rain
Dolphin Address 5
February 13th 2005
With a merry melody in my head I descend the stairwell. I'm going to town and sometimes I like that a lot, like now. Practiced I rattle the right key out of my bunch and stick it right in the silent lock. It's raining, how it rains a lot, but my hood works like a mobile home. In here I live and do that anywhere. Elastically I grind the winter grit under my soles. So much to see.
Bless you
Dolphin Address 4
February 3th 2005
In the previous episode I described the Dorn method as a considerable refinement of the care that I took for my spine by waterwing and monofin for many years. Just for a moment it looked like this could now be motorized.
Yesterday I had to be somewhere else, but happened to see a nude to the bone in a chance shop window. As I made a rather abundant acquaintance with spinal cords these last few weeks, my attention peaked.
Backbone
Dolphin Address 3
January 18th 2005
By definition a problem can only be a problem when it can be solved. An odd 25 years of hard physical labor as a sculptor has left its marks and in particular its pain on my vertebral column. Earlier attempts to ease this, particularly with physiotherapy, have yielded mere temporary alleviation. The best results I discovered to get by swimming with a monofin. In 1987 I could hardly walk without a stick, but after 2 months of monofin swimming I could do without the stick. Some five years later I added the waterwing and whenever the pain got close to unbearable I could bring it back to a liveable level. But it never really went away.
'Bunt'
Dolphin Address 2
January 14th 2005
Berlin is 'bunt' and actually it was by coincidence that I found a way to contribute to this by means of the waterwing. Not in the proper way in a swimming pool. These are governed by rules and do not allow such things. And I must not think of the Glienecker See, as this only gives me more gooseflesh when I shiver through the barren streets.
Berlin
Dolphin Address 1
January 7th 2005
In the lee of a privet hedge I light my roll-your-own. A spotted birch tries to camouflage an apartment building. What will there be around the corner?
Along under the bridge the Teltow channel flows. Two swans are drawing a deep V. This is not the only piece of nature the district of Neukoelln has to offer. Last year still I saw a squirrel in the large fir-tree at Verena's inner court. A few days ago two jays were hopping over an adjacent balcony and yesterday a hawk was hiding in a tree bush from a litter of excited crows.