Made in China

 
There was still sunlight in the Kastanienallee. The bar was full of red discs, red toy volkswagen station cars (the old model) that were running in endless circles, and a red radiotransmitter next to each disk. It was a joyfull sight. Children walked in and out, mothers sat on a chair, and the people from k77 came to look at the yodlings.

The red was China red, like the lanterns in the restaurants or the flags on Tiananmen Square in Beijing. I would call it poppy red as well, and not because of the flower, but because of Pop. Would it be pop, if those cars were miniature wedding couples, and the radio inside a wedding cake? I guess not. But it was no use lingering over this question. Nor did I have time to imagine Staalplaat Soundsystem occupying Beijing's most famous square with their red army of discs, toy cars and radio's, just after the hour of the tai-chi-chuan exercises.

In came somebody who looked like an intelectual, a philospher maybe. Sweaty, shortsighted and a heavy rucksack on his back. He didn't take the rucksack of. He looked in disgust at the toy cars going around and around and around, listened a few seconds to the soundtraffic and came to the bar:
" A serious musician would laugh at this! You mix nothing with nothing and what you get is nothing!"

A post-Einsteinian was talking to me, and I didn't recognize him. What a missed chance. I should have offered him a chair, something to stand on, and a glass of water too, of course. I would have loved to hear his discours on nothingness, rising above the sunny soundscape that made salon bruit such a nice place to be.

Rinus