It begins in blackness with whispers. Jumps to a face with eyes closed. The eyes open. Words form: “I was almost human. But then something went wrong. I was a human being. But then I became a victim. I was almost a human being but then I ran out of time.” I wish I could embed the YouTube video here, but the embed function has been disabled. To see the video click the image.
If “Being Human” brings to mind Billie Whitelaw doing Samuel Beckett’s “Not I,” there’s nothing wrong with that.
Nice video and poem. Hard to pin it down. I sense the poem’s ethos coming from Germany. The Entfremdung is closer to a German than American mindset. Germans are closer to Beckett than Americans. The poem sounds to me more like the sentiments of Burroughs cast in the form of Beckett. Burroughs “told it like it is” while Beckett would have found the hipness another irony. I also enjoyed Carl Weissner’s translation. You travel in interesting circles!
You’re right about “the poem’s ethos coming from Germany.” The writer/performer Cody Mahler is an American expat who lives in Germany and has for many years. And the “entfremdung” you mention, which I take to mean “alienation,” fits his sensibility exactly. Which CW translation are you referring to? Please tell. I wish the circles I travelled in actually involved travel. I rarely leave the damned computer.
Carl’s translation can be found here:
http://www.weststadt-online.de/?page_id=21885
William Cody Maher and Carl did a few projects together, like public readings in which they read each other’s work. I watched a documentary a few days ago about Bukowski in which Carl was interviewed. His gentleness and kindness was a contrast to his hard boiled literary milieu.
Thank you for that, Bill.
Your observation about Carl’s “gentleness and kindness” in “contrast to his hard boiled literary milieu” catches him to the letter.