Writing and Plays
<p>Vor ein paar Wochen war ich mit einer Freundin unterwegs und wir kamen auf das Thema, wer der aktuelle Schiller der deutschen Literatur sei. Peinlicherweise sind mir als lebende Autor*innen nur Caroline Wahl(fn Und auch das nur mit Mühe! Sorry, Caroline), Elfriede Jelinek(fn Ich bin großer Jelinek-Fan, aber ich fand sie zu alt für Schiller, den ich primär mit <em>Sturm und Drang</em>…
<p>Like so often, I have fallen into the dangerous trap of reorganising my files—it’s three hours later and the only thing I have to show for it is a more complete (but still spotty) understanding of Obsidian’s bases syntax. I’m a great fan of Obsidian, but I have to admit that I usually spend more time organising and configuring plugins and looking at the graph overview than writing.</p>…
<p>Because I’m a deeply insane person who loves making more work for myself, I volunteered to update the <a href="https://annotating-literature.org">annotating-literature website</a>.(fn Ilea, my annotations are incoming this time. To be frank, I almost added them to the website during testing it.)</p> <h2 id="tech-stack" tabindex="-1"><a class="header-anchor" href="#tech-stack">Tech…
<p>The house was an odd thing to look at, a relic from the first settlement, refusing to be replaced by something grander.</p> <p>While the neighbours had not been expecting the murder, on consideration, they found themselves agreeing that it was not surprising.</p> <p>'He’s always been a strange one,’ said one neighbour, keeping his distance from the fence, ‘as was his father. We could never…
<p>Just now, I was drunkenly on the phone with my sister and wrote a terrible text about quitting the play I’m in. I’ve rarely done things as freeing as cancelling that play—a play I’ve dreaded for literal months! I can barely wait to wake up tomorrow and have a fun event to look forward to.</p>
<p>It’s been a few days since I launched this site, and I thought it might be worth documenting what I’ve built here, both for my own reference and for anyone curious about the technical (and often insane) decisions that went into it.</p> <h2 id="why-another-website%3F" tabindex="-1"><a class="header-anchor" href="#why-another-website%3F">Why Another Website?</a></h2> <p>Good question. I already…
<div class="title-page"> <h1 class="play-title">Die Urne</h1> <p class="play-author">Nicolai Plenk</p> <div class="title-page-info"> <p class="meta-line"><span class="meta-label">Draft date:</span> 07.11.2025</p> </div> </div> <div class="page-break"></div> <hr class="separator" /> <div class="scene-break"></div> <h3 class="scene" id="ext-friedhof">EXT. Friedhof</h3> <div…
<p>Editing the theatre scripts was among the biggest mistakes I’ve made—I thought it’d be a fun activity to kill time, but now I’m reading the same sentences 20 times, trying to add some semblance of style and sense.</p>
<p>I made a grave mistake this semester—and I did so twice! The <a href="https://bruchbuehne.de" title="Bruchbühne">cool leftie theatre group</a> I’m a part of decided to write a play and then stage it, and I volunteered to help whip the play into something that can be performed.(fn In all honesty, I mostly did it in order to avoid having to write a scene fitting a prompt I didn’t care about.…
<p>I’ve finally finished <a href="https://bruchbuehne.de">our new theatre website</a> (something which took far longer than it should have because my first version broke due to various PHP issues I still haven’t been able to fix (ugh ugh ugh) and I then kept kicking that can down the road) but it’s finally live now.</p> <h2 id="tech-stack" tabindex="-1"><a class="header-anchor"…
<p>I don’t know exactly why, but for the past few years, I’ve written much less than I’d like to admit, and I’ve been meaning to get back into seriously writing for the longest time.</p> <p>I think it might be my theatre hobby (which takes up far more of my time than any hobby should), it might also be the incessant need I’ve developed to edit my sentences while I type them.</p> <p>So I’ve decided…
<p>i rarely think of the future, but sometimes i dream. i shall, of course, wear purple. but, above all else, i dream of a place so much better that people will criticise me for prejudices we haven’t even begun to imagine.</p> <p>this is why i fight for tomorrow. for a better future. a future that will cancel me and all other progressives—we have been rendered conservative, hopefully obsolete.</p>…
<p>When I was a child my grandmother gave me a perfume sample she didn’t much care for, but I fell in love with. I would obsessively remove the cap, smell, and then replace the cap as not to lose a drop of it.</p> <p>This perfume, as it turns out, was <em>Mitsouko</em>. I’ve recently started to explore fragrances more after starting with BVLGARI’s <em>Au Thé Vert</em> and decided to get it on a…
<p>I can’t sleep.</p> <hr> <p>It all comes flooding back—the hair salon in the basement, the perfume samples in the vanity, the statue lights in the living room.</p> <p>At first, smell by smell—the peroxide and soap lingering after years, the faint traces of Chanel and Guerlain that ran out years ago, the smoke from the fireplace that hasn’t been lit in ages.</p> <p>Then colours; the green chairs…
<h2 id="oder%3A-eine-neue-exillyrik" tabindex="-1"><a class="header-anchor" href="#oder%3A-eine-neue-exillyrik">Oder: eine neue Exillyrik</a></h2> <p>‘Willst du Penthouse an Penthouse mit Andrea wohnen und dir ein Helipad teilen?’</p> <hr> <p>Meine Mutter meint, sie will auswandern. Panama, sagt sie, ganz begeistert. Oder vielleicht die Schweiz, aber die ist so teuer.</p> <hr> <p>Ihre Schwester…
<p>In meinem Leben gab es drei Pinienwälder: den zuhause, den in der Toskana und den in Stockholm.</p> <hr> <p>Above all is the smell—rich and thick, dripping with the heat of summer. The trees contort themselves into Italianate shapes against the dry grass.</p> <hr> <p>Liebe ich den Wald? Ich weiß es nicht; ich weiß ja nicht mal was ein Wald ist. Ist es ein Hain voller italienischer anmutender…
<p>I’ve always loved writing(fn Well, more the idea than the process which is usually rather tedious for me. There’s some precious times I get in the flow, but often I write because I am compelled to do so. And then there’s having to share. ) and I used to think that I’d just be someone who writes in the future—whether that be an author or a journalist—but with age I’ve thrown more and more…
<p>For a while, I’ve wanted to leave my Fachschaft to move on to bigger and better things (the next ladder of inane university politics because I have many friends there), but I just can’t bring myself to do it.</p> <p>No matter how much I complain about the Fachschaft, it’s something I’ve been involved with for years that has brought me joy and sorrow, but above all, many new friends and…
<p>Is life not what happens in between the tension of freedom and obligation? Sit and listen for a while as I tell you a story.</p> <p>===</p> <p>I dream that we are at the beach and I walk into the waters. It is too blissful, too free of implication, too true. I do not deserve it and neither do you. I spend my days waking next to you, working for our betterment, and then I return to that dream…
<p>Mit dir bin ich groß und klein, was auch immer du brauchst, aber jetzt bin ich alleine und falle schrumpfend in ein schwarzes Loch. Wie soll ich ohne dich sein? Warum soll ich ohne dich sein? Ich bin Nase und Lunge, immer noch deine Atmung kopierend, wie früher in der Hypnose im krampfhaften Versuch in dir Trance zu fallen—damals konnte ich nicht loslassen und jetzt will ich nicht.</p> <p>Ich…
<p>sometimes i am tortured by dreams of success—it doesn’t matter what it looks like, it’s always dreadful. ich weiß nicht wieso, aber ich kann mir einfach keine zukunft vorstellen, in der ich—oder irgendwer, tbqh—erfolgreich und glücklich zugleich ist. sind diese beiden konditionen nicht irgendwie negativ bedingt? man kann glücklich sein, man kann erfolgreich sein, aber beides zugleich? colour me…
<p>The first time I saw a photo of Yayoi Kusama I knew she had drowned.</p> <p>I’ve always known I wanted to drown, but my issue is that I don’t know what in; whenever I wade into the waters, I don’t feel the relief I seek, but the depths clawing at me and I just know that this is not the lake to drown in. So I tiptoe to another, still wet, and try again.</p>
<p>Their faces were, thanks to the lights hanging above, a tad too bright and devoid of shadows. She motioned for him to sit down in one of the elegant chairs, then did the same, waiting for him to start the conversation. She had done this for a long time now, but she still felt the same rush whenever she had a new guest on for the very first time—after all, there was always the chance they’d…
<p>‘Water under the bridge.’ His voice was deep and sonorous and he hesitated to face her, preferring to view her fickle reflection in the window, as if that would cushion the sting of her betrayal. Intently studying the flow of traffic below, he continued. ’I hope you realise that means the end of our alliance—I don’t work with those who faulted me.’</p> <p>She said nothing for a while, twirling…
<p>I’m lying in my bed, heart beating like the wind, listening to Yumeji’s Theme, pondering why my writing morphed from playful fantasy to overly sombre ‘literary fiction’ when I transitioned from German to English.</p> <p>I remain convinced that the English language in itself doesn’t force one to write sombre meditations on the human experience—without ever finishing them—neither do I believe…
<p><s>Summer had always been my favourite season.</s> When I was a small child, our parents had always taken us to the lake house, where time flew slower, heat lingered longer, and the summer air was ripe with promise. Even now, I feel a profound sense of fulfilment whenever I think about summer—its promises before me, waiting to materialise. I would never have imagined summer to be the season I…
<p>All those upper middle class people looking at a deconstructed barbecue grill and you just stand there, warning them if they take one stop too many toward the sacrosanct line.</p> <p>Not assembling something isn’t art, you think, it’s not doing anything. A barbecue grill doesn’t come assembled. It comes in exactly the way the artwork before was arranged.</p> <p>Your mind wanders to the print…