23.09.2007, The Beggar's Diary, five movements.
1. Yesterday's tune, played by Dave Brubeck, is still humming in his head.
Rudolf and Eberhart, two documentary filmmakers, want to interview him and follow him around for an hour or two. Filch doesn't mind it this time. They have two questions for him:
“What is your task within the exhibition?”
“What was your most special day so far?”
Ah … the first is easy to answer, the second, impossible. Just look at his blog! There are so many faces, stories, actions, secrets, encounters, secret encounters, and happy and sad moments.
But the interviewer will not take such a vague answer. All right! Filch then selects those first days when he was following SP07 guided tours to find out who he was: one tour guide simply forgot him; the other mistook him for someone else.
2. "Where is Brooklyn?" asks Eric’s t-shirt. Eric is from Canada: "It's the title of an album by jazz legend Don Cherry." Filch is more acquainted with his stepdaughter, Neneh.
In the background of their animated conversation about Cherry, an accordionist and a guitar player fight for Filch's spot at the Spiekerhof, now overcrowded with tourists and Muenster natives sitting at both Kiepenkerls terraces. The dispute ends with the guitar player making a public statement in which he explains that he is the real one, and the accordionist a fake. Then he leaves.
3. A trumpet is playing Bach. Following the sound of it, the Beggar meets a man and his granddaughter; the man is an amateur magician, and he does the trick of the endless string of coloured handkerchiefs that come out of his closed fist. Filch has seen the trick a hundred times, but he still loves it.
Further on, he finds the man and the trumpet playing Bach. Dirceu Braz is the man’s name. He’s from Brazil and he has been living in the streets for 30 years, as a free man. "It's the way of the Dalai Lama," says Dirceu, drawing a sign in the air with his hands. Filch asks him if he can play Brubeck's “All by myself,” and Dirceu says he can’t. He does, however, play his own version of the classic "Summertime."
4. The name "Rijeka" seems to be whispered into Filch's mind by the Fates (ancient Greek goddesses who controlled people's destiny). He does not know why, but he is at that very moment printing a picture of the postcard he received long ago … So now he has two clues to follow, on his way to "Last Day": 1. Rijeka must come to him, and 2. this one picture.
5. The lovebird caravans. Another copycat must have been hard at work, because two caravans looking like Michael Asher's caravan stand side by side at the Domplatz, with a big red heart in the middle saying: “1+1=3.”
1+1=3?
"That's an easy one," thinks the Beggar. "The two are in love and a baby caravan is the result. And there's only one like that, at Dominique Gonzales-Foerster’s ‘Roman de Münster’.”
Dominique's "baby caravan" is still in place; nothing happened to it.
Filch reflects upon all this interaction between the people and the projects. Isa Genzken's sculpture has had some extra visits as well, and objects have been added to her work: a pair of swimming fins, a plant, dolls, an inflatable sun. Isa decided they could stay, as they add something to her work.
After some excellent detective work, Filch tracks down the owner of the lovebird caravans: he owns a restaurant called The Midi and he drives an old red Citroën Deux Chevaux. The car's license plate bear the initials WK, for Wolfgang Krauze.
Filch waits for him to show up next to the caravans in love but he never does.
It is past midnight when he goes back to the museum. A little party is going on there and The Beggar joins the shindig for a beer and a forfeit game ... and thus end his day, and night.
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