The sofa at the edge of the forest

Again, the Greatful Dead are the inspiration for my writing. Just a box of rain…
And "The Restaurant at the End of the universe" by Douglas Adams is the godfather for the title of this post.
The sofa at the edge of the forest. "I don't know who put it there" the Greatful Dead are singing into my ears through my headphones. Whereas they mean the box of rain, I mean a symbol for irresponsible idiocy.
Someone put a sofa there. You can still see the tire tracks of the mini-van they must have used.
The only one who would have liked that is the Bauernbergpark Man.
However, this is not at the Bauernbergpark, but at about a distance of 30 miles from that.
Now it looms there, blue and gray, losing color in the spring rainfall.
It is there a week now although the local authorities know about it.
A 21st century bullshit memorial.
It really made me angry.
Now as I walk by every day with the dog the anger is gone.
In the town there was the Bauernbergpark Man, here it is the sofa, that reminds me how luxurious my life is. I can afford to bring my old sofas to the waste dump, although I have the one with the black leather pillows stored away in the cellar, I must confess.
So I am waiting.
Waiting for the day when the sofa is gone again.
I hope it will be replaced by nothing.
Maybe at night, with the full moon out, the ghost of the Bauernbergpark Man will sit on the sofa and roll a cigarette. Then he will smoke it before he will start one of his rituals.
I won't care much for I will be lying in my bed, dreaming of an edge of the forest without sofas and Bauernbergpark Men.

Attics of my life (A goodbye to Terry Pratchett)

This is the name of my funeral song, preferably the live version. And then "We'll meet again" by Johnny Cash is also in the top three.
Maybe someone can take care of that.
Not that I plan this funeral to be soon, but who knows.
I've just heard a story about a funeral today, about a priest saying a Latin mass. I guess that inspires me now - and of course the Grateful Dead song.
It is sooo beautiful.
And ah yes.
Terry Pratchett left us yesterday. SOMEONE visited him and took Terry with HIM. The story REAPER MAN, when Death sets out to learn how to forget becomes rather tragic in the context of Terry's illness.
In the attics of his life there must have been many things. He was the only writer I have read (maybe except Matt Ruff) who was able to describe the doors to insanity properly. (In the Wee Free Men). He showed how expendable the whole "Lord of the Rings" story is in "Witches Abroad"- "Beware of the slimy ones- they are the trouble makers" and he really made me rolling on the floor laughing. One time someone even came to check my room to see if I was OK. It was just "Interesting Times" or "The Colour of Magic" or "Eric" or "Small Gods".
I hoped for a moment that it was a mistake. That someone had not seen the sign "I aten't dead".
I once fantasized, that I was in a bar with three witches, who staged a play to bring back his memory. In my fantasy it worked and he left, writing some more books.
Now he might be able to see again. If his version of the afterlife is true, he might rest in deaths domain for a while, feeding a cat, talking to the raven or the Death of Rats, and then he would go to the place in which he believed, Great A'Tuin, roaming space with four elephants on her back, carrying the Disk, the mirror of all worlds, forever and ever…

PACITA Conference

1) The venue, the food and the entertainment were brilliant. However, one participant I talked to observed that to focus on these issues is not the goal of a conference. The  “Neue Mälzerei” and the “Umweltforum” add atmosphere to TA talks. And I liked the dancing on Thursday evening. Let’s rock TA.

2) Before the conference there was a workshop on OpenTA, an Internet platform of NTA (Netzwerk TA), which was a nice warm-up for the conference and gave me insights into the possible use of www to connect among TA practitioners and especially to have a platform for news and publications.

3) The keynotes by Naomi Oreskes and Roger Pielke were interesting but caught up in a very US American context. For me they were all about identifying the bad guys.

4) My favourite talk was by Armin Grunwald about a hermeneutic approach toward prospective TA. He argued that hermeneutics are the only way to deal with a maximum of openness with respect to foresight and that it enables us to learn more about our present ideas about the future and possibilities to act.

5) Virgil Rerimassie gave talks about engaging politicians with respect to the issue of synthetic biology. Although both talks were rather similar I enjoyed the positive rhetoric and the commitment.

6) The poster presentation was a bit weird and too short for my taste. However, the atmosphere of the Umweltforum saved that one, too.

7) The organizing team was extremely helpful and also guarantee a smooth process and environment for the conference.

8) Alexander Bogner retold the story of problematic aspects of early engagement with technologies, not only in the face of the Collingridge dilemma, but with respect to participatory approaches, that might lack the desired outputs of legitimization and gain of additional knowledge.

9) As regards methods, the conference was a treasure chest, starting from ITA’s CIVISTI and going as far as the use of narrative design objects.

10) However, I experienced some repetitions and redundancies on the conference with what I knew before and with what I have heard on other conferences. I think this means, when I selected the talks that I went to, I did not leave my comfort zone. On the other hand: it was a comfortable conference.