Lights And Letters

luis suarez

the hero
I am/on the goal line/I am/the defender
the ball/goes in/one moment/a goal
a taboo/my hand/on the goal line/the ball
I am/the defender/defended/the goal
the rule/broken
the goal/prevented
penalty
a chance
saved
I am/the hero

the villain
he is/on the goal line/he is/the defender
the ball/goes in/one moment/we win
intention/the hand/on the goal line/the ball
he is/the defender/stole/our goal
the rule/violated
the goal/stolen
penalty
a crime
missed
he is/the villain

The trail of words left in the spheres of the social web are filled with momentary meaning.
Tomorrow, the remains are shed skins.

Looking at the snow covered landscape outside the window evokes a feeling of hush. The snow covered shapes and details of the streets that turn time and space into a uniformity makes me believe in a silence opposing the loud and chaotic structures surrounding me elsewise.  For a moment there I freeze in time and enjoy the solitude of the snow covered landscape and when I turn around all I see are my footprints on the once untouched surface of the street. The world is yours when you are being the first person leaving their prints in the snow that is hiding the path underneath your steps.

Two of the most beautiful things in the world that should never be breathed in through your nose: snowflakes and soapsuds. Both make you sneeze.

Two months passing by without you noticing. The further you advance, the smaller achievements from the past seem. Like looking down at people from a balcony. They look like ants, don’t they?

Being an Austrian football fan is based on the idea of masochism. It means trying to balance ‘knowing’ (you suck) and ‘hoping’ (for once you don’t suck). You move in a gray area that lies between ‘talented’ and ‘have no chance at all’. In the process of self-discovery trying to find out where you belong to (the top? the bottom?) you want to believe everything is possible. Is it really possible after going through so many years of suffering that you can not only hope (is everything possible?), but can be free of doubt (nothing is impossible!)? It is this feeling of everything is possible/nothing is impossible that causes all the pain and sorrow of an Austrian football fan. The certainty of parameters, the knowledge of who you are and where you belong to and the distinction between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ shapes our longing. Black-and-white is so easy and effortless, but the first to know that we can’t have black-and-white, that there is no black-and-white is the Austrian football fan. You wished you could just accept that your team doesn’t stand any chance at all, never and absolutely never so you could just stop cheering. Stop hoping and longing, move on. Otherwise accept it and cheer for your team without any expectation, be carefree and happy knowing you can’t win and therefore free yourself from the ties of the wholeheartedness of hoping. Beating France sounds too good to be true, like a dream or a reality far far away. Becoming true, it not only induces a gleam of hope but sparks a fire of enthusiasm and optimism we have been longing for all our (fan) lives. Not beating Färöer the week after seems like bringing us back to reality. Now here lies the dilemma of the Austrian football fan: What is reality? Being capable of reaching the impossible and incapable of doing the possible is the truth of Austrian football and the inner conflict of the Austrian football fan. The masochistic part of it: you know you’re going to watch your team again and you’ll be filled with hope and longing again. At the same time you know at some point you accept the gray and the misery, but today (today!) it could be either black or white, today they can do it. They have done it before (France) and they can do it again. Can’t they?