Daily Super High

Muscle Mania

"Ever since I stopped living in dreams, every spring I was overcome by an indescribable longing for something that I couldn't give a name to, but that consumed me like an illness." Wanda von Sacher-Masoch

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„The day you're born is not the day you grow, it's the day you evolve. The revolution is up to you." Goitsemang Mvula

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"Art lives from compulsion and dies from freedom." André Gide

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"The renunciation of ecstasy is a betrayal of our true possibilities." R.D. Laing

Keno dawdles after his grandma through the cemetery of Ö... He listens to the murmuring of his ancestors. From the rustling of the leaves he feels taken into prayer. For now, Keno is the last male descendant of a Swabian dynasty of blacksmiths. No surname is more common in this area than Schäufele. Grandma Betty's birth name is Schäufele. That means a lot here. Schäufeles were buried in Ö... when the cemetery didn't even exist. The oldest gravestone on site commemorates a generation of this family, which was one of the longest-standing residents three hundred years ago.

"The earlier means of achieving similar enduring beings over long generations," says Nietzsche, "were inalienable land ownership and the veneration of elders who were said to be young like gods and heroes (as ancestors of humanity). "

Since no genetic program can reproduce this high form, the means have to be constantly "invented". Cultural memory (Maurice Halbwachs) intervenes. The term shovels biological explanations into the bins of culture.

"With every old man who dies, a library burns." Amadou Hampâté Bâ

Grandma Betty's instructions follow the nuclear family principle. First the graves of their parents and siblings are cast. After them come their aunts and great-aunts. Although their men lie in the women's graves - apart from the World War participants who were buried elsewhere - they have no claim to their own attention. They often died so early that they remained strangers to Betty. Betty grew up in a community of Protestant widows. The soloists were connected in a circle of sisters and cousins. They were grateful to their late husbands for pensions and pensions. No man was missing or remembered. Subtle slander was widespread.

Keno trains with anything that is at least moderately heavy, including the tinny cemetery watering can. He pumps with stupid endurance while Betty has her chat.

Muscle Mania

Keno has put up a Schwarzenegger poster on a wall in the riding room; naturally in consultation with his grandpa. Bodybuilding is generally notorious. People make fun of Arnold Schwarzenegger. They think he's stupid. But he is present. His show poses are mockingly imitated. This happens in an otherwise power-glorifying milieu. In the male dimension of the village, much revolves around clout and motor vehicles. Schwarzenegger's American career does not take away his stigma. All the losers are not prepared to bet even three pennies on the millionaire.

Betty and Anton are not bothered by their grandson's muscle mania. The old couple are also united in the knowledge and certainty that the boy is not quite all there, but is nevertheless a very dear person. They find it comforting to think that they will have Keno within easy reach until the end. 

 Keno orbits around Anton like a satellite. The old man and his grandson exist in a symbiotic relationship. Apart from Betty, there is only one person who comes so close to Anton: his favorite daughter Veronika.

Veronika is just as devoted to her father as Keno. To this day, the housewife with a doctorate does not even secretly dare to find the imagined grandeur of the barely literate patriarch ridiculous. A superstition forbids her from even considering things that could cause a loss to her father's power and magic.

"Ole O'Cangaceiro / We ride day and night / And we hear in the storms / How all hell laughs." Helmut Zacharias

Veronika lurches across a territorial minefield every day. Her father's permanent power grabs still give direction to her maneuvers. As a girl, Veronika wore the uniforms of his passions. She alternated between the cute and the proper versions. 

Anton always seemed larger than life to her. Well into his fifties, he was a bull of a man. Forever in breeches. He wanted Veronika to be mercilessly efficient. The most beautiful daughter played the missing progenitor. Anton led Veronika to the most expensive outfitter and the best specialist shop. The owners always personally looked after the high-ranking visitors. Anton, a trained electrician (and self-made millionaire), gave the child a fictitious sense of status. He took her with him when one of his tenants was slaughtering. The farmers toasted with wine from bottles without labels. There was a cooperative bottling plant next to the gas station.

The campfire and baked apple evenings. Communions of smoke and night dew ... and the fervent chatter of the broncobuster, court heirs and independent craftsmen who hovered around the seven teenage Steinbrecher sisters, sometimes more and sometimes less welcome, before the young academics of the Enzkreis (district) picked up the scent and raised the advertising to another level. Almost all of the daughters of the stubborn Westphalian (German region) Anton are married to Württemberg (German federal state) top performers in the first category. Only Keno's hapless mother remained single.