The Beggar's Diary, 31.08.2007. - "Unterschreiben Sie für den Frieden?" "Natürlich," replies Filch.
There must be more then 200 children at the Domplatz to attend The Children's Festival for Peace. Even the police has to comply with the terms set by this enthusiastic group, and so they, too, sign for peace. For peace! In but a little while, the group will pass by the Spiekerhof and Filch will have to wave at them all, and they will wave back and give him drawings of hands.
Except for this, all is calm. Filch looks at the Hotel Busche, 50 meters from his stand. At Sculpture 10, a film by Eva Meyer and Eran Schaerf, Filch saw that the hotel was used as stage set for another film: Alle Jahre Wieder, directed by Ulrich Schamoni in 1967, and starring the ravishingly beautiful Ulla Jacobsson! (At least, that is how Filch sees her).
He goes to the hotel and explains why he came. The owners seem to understand. They’re still proud that their hotel was once a film set, and they let him sit on the same spot where Lore Lücke (Ulla's character) would have her breakfast and in room 11, where she (or rather her character) would sleep. When they open the room door to let Filch in, he feels someone’s scent, and the bed is still unmade, as if someone had just got up and left the room. He says, astonished: "Did you just leave it like that after she left?" The question is so silly that it takes them some time to understand it: "No, of course not. It is regularly rented out, and we just happen to have a guest right now." But The Beggar somehow manages not to hear this and he leaves the hotel convinced that the ravishingly beautiful Lore Lücke has just left her room.
He goes back to his spot at the Spiekerhof. Filch's "gear" is still there: his cup on the ground, his number 06 in front of it and his shopping caddy a bit to the side. A couple on a bike seem to be looking for him, but they are looking in the wrong direction—up, instead of straight ahead—and so they cannot possibly see him, even though he is right there, in front of them.
An elder lady is interested in the clothes on the window …
… AND, AGAIN, she knocks down his money cup her foot, and AGAIN his coins go rolling all over the place. The woman is surprised and embarrassed at first, but then she shakes her hand at Filch, arrogantly indicating to him that the cup just shouldn't be there.
"Please pick it up."
"You can't just put that on the ground."
"It's a sculpture."
"Oh!"
She does pick up the money and gives Filch back the cup.
Anna explains to Filch when he is back at the Landesmuseum that the German for window-shopping is "einen Shaufensterbummel machen." Like in French: "lèche-virtines."
Anna tells him that a mushroom-shaped sculpture was found at Un Roman de Muenster (sculpture No. 20). Somebody must have put it there overnight. Anyway, it was Kasper König who discovered the infiltrated sculpture and everybody had to agree that it was well done. Somebody called it guerrilla-art, and it was even compared to Hans Arp.
Some people from Spain came especially to see him, i.e. Dora Garcia's Sculpture. They buy all his pins. And, as real fans, they pin them on immediately on their jackets. After all his "business transactions," he's left only with one CD and about 12 Euro. That's not exactly big profit. And he has to pay 11 Euro to his major, and only, investor. Remember him? The small business man!).* Hum.
Ah, what the hell he think, and he makes his way over to the Domplatz to eat Pistou and Bread. He is 3,50 Euro poorer now, but his stomach is full. “Live on the wild side!” he thinks.
He spends the rest of the afternoon reading at the Gasolin café, where a cup of coffee costs only 1 Euro. While reading, he comes across something interesting, a sentence by Peter Sloterdijk. It goes like this:
"We are ourselves space-creating beings, and cannot exist otherwise than in these self-animated spaces."
At the end of the day, under Ilya Kabakov's sculpture, he reads:
Mein Lieber! Du liegst im Gras, den Kopf im Nacken, um dich herum keine Menschenseele, du hörst nur den Wind und Schaust hinauf in den offenen Himmel – in das Blau dort obem, wo die Wolken ziehen – das ist vielleicht das Schönste, was du im Leben getan und gesehen hast.
(My love! You lie on the grass, your head thrown back. Not a soul around. All you hear is the wind, and you look up at the open sky – at the blue above, where the clouds float by; perhaps that is the loveliest thing that you have ever done in your life. And seen.)
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