task 03 / 7 | COLLECTIVE TASK

Start date: March 1, 2025.

List of participants:
Alexis Almeida (New York City), Amir Akram (Baghdad), Roberto Balò (Prato), Stephanie Barber (Philadelphia), Erica Baum (New York City), Elisa Biagini (Florence), Laura Boggia (Genoa), Marie Buck (New York City), Courtney Bush (New York City), Alessandra Capodacqua (Florence), Felipe Cussen (Santiago), Mónica de la Torre (New York City), Claire DeVoogd (New York City), Robert Fitterman (New York City), Ethan Fortuna (New York City), Sophia Le Fraga (Los Angeles), Kristen Gallagher (New York City), Sanja Grozdanic (New York City), Aurelia Guo (London), Sabine Herrmann (Berlin), Elijah Jackson (New York City), Atef Al Jaffal (Baghdad), Josef Kaplan (Philadelphia), Christine Kelly (North Adams), Klaus Killisch (Berlin), Tyler Little (New York City), Matt Longabucco (New York City), Kristin Lucas (Austin), Monica McClure (New York City), Holly Melgard (New York City), Hella Mewis (Baghdad), Cole Modell (Pittsburgh), Yedda Morrison (San Francisco), Joseph Mosconi (Los Angeles), Michael Prado (Lima), Théo Robine-Langlois (Paris), Kim Rosenfield (New York City), Zaid Saad (Baghdad), Jeff Shapiro (Siena), Ed Steck (Pittsburgh), Luke Stettner (Columbus), Sam Winston (London), Joey Yearous-Algozin (New York City)

The experience of saying
Tyler Little

RESPONSES

Roberto Balò

Stephanie Barber

Erica Baum

Elisa Biagini

Robert Fitterman
Klaus Killisch

I, too, am sad and lonely
Klaus Killisch & ambientfunk: music, visuals
Robert Fitterman: words, voice

I, too, am sad and lonely
you told me that you are too
my ticket reads: sad and lonely
what do you expect us to do?

I, too, am giving up
you say you gave up long ago
giving up on every day
it’s a feeling I know you know

I, too, am looking down on
this world we left behind
got a suitcase full of sad—
got a world that’s so unkind

CHORUS:

You ought to know that your sadness just might be mine.
You’ve already said what I wanted to say every time
The world that’s forgotten about me
has forgotten about you too.
I, too, am sad and lonely.
and I know that you are sad and lonely too.

I, too, am sad and lonely
you told me that you wrote that too
too many of us feel too empty
too many days feeling blue

I, too, am sad and lonely
I’m sad when you go away
and if you’ll allow me this honesty
I’m sad when you’re here to stay.

I got a ticket to sad and lonely
the seat next to me is free
you thought the same thought I just thought—
we’re not who we thought we’d be

REPEAT CHORUS

Sophia Le Fraga

Ethan Fortuna

Kristen Gallagher

https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1360699

Sanja Grozdanic

In honor of Rosa Luxemburg’s birthday today, I’ve been reading her prison letters to Sophie Liebknecht. Frequently she draws attention to the sound of birds (or to birds, and living creatures generally—in one particularly moving letter, to buffaloes from Romania –“Poor wretch, I am as powerless, as dumb, as yourself; I am at one with you in my pain, my weakness, and my longing.”). Examples below.

May 2nd, 1917: “… Do you remember how, in April last year, I called you up on the telephone at ten in the morning to come at once to the Botanical Gardens and listen to the nightingale which was giving a regular concert there? We hid ourselves in a thick shrubbery, and sat on the stones beside a trickling streamlet. When the nightingale had ceased singing, there suddenly came a plaintive, monotonous cry that sounded something like “Gligligligligliglick!” I said I thought it must be some kind of marsh bird, and Karl agreed; but we never learned exactly what bird it was.”

May 23, 1917: “Will you believe me, Sonyusha, when I tell you that a little snatch of bird song can be so full of meaning, can move me so profoundly. My mother, who considered that Schiller and the Bible were the supreme sources of wisdom, was firmly convinced that King Solomon understood the language of birds. In the pride of my fourteen years and my training in natural science I used to smile at my mother’s simplicity. But now I have myself grown to be like King Solomon; I too can understand the language of birds and beasts. Not, of course, as if they were using articulate speech, but I understand the most varied shades of meaning and of feeling conveyed by their tones. Only to the rude ear of one who is quite indifferent, does the song of a bird seem always the same. Those who love birds and beasts, those who have a sympathetic understanding, can perceive great diversity of expression, and can recognise a complete language.”

May 12, 1918: “For my part, however, my interest in organic nature is almost morbid in its intensity. A pair of crested larks here have one young bird – no doubt the other three have come to a bad end. This little one can already run. You may have noticed the quaint way in which crested larks run. They trip along with short, hasty steps, not like the sparrow which hops on both feet. This young lark can fly quite well by now, but is not yet able to find its own food (insects, grubs, etc.) at any rate while the weather is still so cold. Every evening in the court beneath my window, it utters its sharp, plaintive pipe. The old birds promptly put in an appearance, answering with a soft and anxious “hweet, hweet”, and they bustle about to hunt up some food in the chill evening twilight. As soon as they find anything, it is stuffed down the throat of the clamorous youngster.”

…

Rosa Luxemburg’s last written words are available to read here. ““Order prevails in Warsaw!” “Order prevails in Paris!” “Order prevails in Berlin!” Every half-century that is what the bulletins from the guardians of “order” proclaim from one center of the world-historic struggle to the next. And the jubilant “victors” fail to notice that any “order” that needs to be regularly maintained through bloody slaughter heads inexorably toward its historic destiny; its own demise.”