Album 6: My way home

An opera of love on Stabu iela and (...)





... the pain of fading love next to my apartment. Shakespearean dramas behind silent nightly city walls...

Alis P's resurrection

There is this kind of music that you hear somewhere, and then you want to learn the language it's performed in. You want to understand it, and to feel it. That's what happened to me when I heard Latvian music - I really think there's hardly anything more beautiful than sung Latvian. And he sings...:


"There was a woman
Living at Wallpaper Street
She doesn't live there anymore
I no longer need her"

But we need him. He was silent for twenty years, now he's back. And he brought news songs in his guitar case. Not that I'd like all of them when hearing them for the first time. Some are sweet like marinated cucumbers, some are soft like amber. But as always, there is something mysterious in his voice, something that goes deep into you. A guitar that follows you on the street and doesn't leave you ever.
Listen here the fantastic song "Es gribu (iet gulēt)" ("I want (to go to sleep)"), from his new album "Uz priekšu (Onward)". And don't miss the other songs, some 20 years old.



He is Gundars Rullis. Gundars is Alis P., a poet and musician. And Gundars has his own "How to become Latvian" story: During the Soviet time, his family lived in exile in Sweden. He grew up and recorded his first album in Stockholm, where he still lives most of the time.
"Do you feel here, or there", I ask in incorrect Latvian.
"In between", he says.
"Another in-between person", I think.



Gundars recorded the new album in Latvia with his friends: Juris Kaukulis from Dzelzs Vilks ("Iron Wolf", a well-known local rock band) is an old friend with whom he used to play, also in songs by Dzelzs Vilks.
"Why do you sing in Latvian", I ask.
"Because I breathe this language", answers Juris.
"Most of the Latvian rock bands still sing in their mother tongue - how beautiful", I think.
And Gundars sings...:

"Diversity is the future
New generations are everything
we have
and will experience it all"

"Onward,
to where the sun shines,
where it will be better"

Come on,
let's go on
Restless with Gundars' guitar.

> An interview with Gundars and Juris here (in Latvian).

Album 5: Free art, free soup

Artists and writers make soup twice every evening this week. Yesterday, the writer Pauls Bankovskis invited to a bean soup. Blaumana Street 10 has indeed turned into a warm-hearted meeting place in these chilly autumn evenings. Thanks to Katrina Neiburga and Agnese Krivade, who organize this art project.

All over real estate premises emptied by the economic crisis, there are exciting and interesting art projects to be visited these days. Altogether, the event is called "Survival Kit", organized by the Centre for Contemporary Art, and it's open until Sunday this week.


















One part of the project is an art book shop and exhibition space, where every evening at 18:30, new workshops are held (by Urs Lehni, Lex Trüb, Egija Inzle and Maya Wismer). One of the funniest things for me still is, again and again, reading the Latvianized names of authors on the book covers, trying to guess which author is behind this local pseudonym.







P.S.: In order to be able to decline names in Latvian langauge, they are all written in a Latvian form. Thus Alice Cooper becomes Eliss Kūpers - with a long u that looks like "ū". And the famous secret agent 007 becomes Džeimss Bonds...

Album 3: Rugby in Latvia

Latvians are well known to be the most enthusiastic ice-hockey fans in the world, and right now they're suffering with their basketball team at the European Basketball Championships in Poland, and they're waiting for tonight's most important football game of the year for the World Cup Qualification... against whom the latter is played? Oh, it's of course against Switzerland.

So I think it's a good time to calm down these nerves and look at a friendly sport that is usually happening far away from the spotlight of attention: Rugby.




I had a chance to see the game of last year's champions EŽI/EK Sistēma against their younger team EŽI/LMT, in a "stadium" in a forest in the suburb of Jugla. The highest (and only) rugby leage in Latvia has exactly four teams.







My old friend Martins (phon: Martinjsch) plays with the older "Hedgehogs" (Eži, phon: Eschi). We know each other from hours of futile hitchhiking attempts somewhere in the Latvian hinterland. He was more successful in New Zealand, where he participated in a Rugby exchange program. Pretty great, I'd say: To practice and play for five months in a country where Rugby is about as important as ice-hockey is in Latvia. Martins told me that even on the schoolyard, girls and boys would play Rugby during the breaks.

















This is Kristaps. He performed best in this game, had the most "tries", and could therefore frequently get a "conversion" with a kick to the goal. A try is 5 points, a conversion 2 points. Since Kristaps' old team went bankrupt, he drives twice or thrice a week the 60 km from the city of Jelgava to this Riga suburb for Rugby. Very passionate!







Martins and his Sistēma-Hedgehogs won the game 67:17. My congratulations!

Rudis' visual transformation

Wednesday evening, we had a truly great evening at the Ednica Art Space, with good friends and nice guests. And also, we used the opportunity to do a little project review. What's clear is that this project can no longer be about just one guy's self-realization, but has to open up to involve more people. Therefore I'm inviting other artists, musicians, actors, whatever, who are inspired by and interested in this project, to join in. Because after all, I can't become Latvian without the support of some more Latvians who have a deeper understanding (and their own points of view!) of what a Latvian is. Also foreign artists can of course join in, provided they have some experience in, with, and about Latvia. Write me for more information!

Big thanks to Mr. Gifmemore for the help, and to all the guests of the evening who joined in for my (or their?) visual transformation.

And here's a video of the actual little show, the "project review", so to say:

Album 1: Night market

Where potato sellers dream of wealth, or just a softer mattress. Where sleepwalkers sell crates of vegetables to night people. That's where I sit sleeplessly in front of my 50 grams of Black Balzam drink, in a nameless night café, with a hundred scallions on my table. And I become one more shadow within this parallel society. Maybe I just discovered the most wonderful place in Riga.

















To be a salesman in Riga's central market once in my life, even if only for a minute...