If you think of immortality versus transitoriness, about dwelling versus living or about existence and life concepts, about the phenomenons that everyone knows and nobody cares:

There is this guy with an very complex appearance: he is tall around sixty or timeless, his face is a distorted, his mouth is not at the right place anymore and his teeth are missing completely. One of his leg is a lot shorter then the other and usually barefoot he walks strange...somewhat between a humble and a dance. He walks with an always open mouth and eyes wide open almost afraid or shocked. At his left arm he is always carrying a basket, one of these baskets that one remembers being a shopping transportation medium and now is used mostly as decoration and remains always empty. A wide skirts made out of some ugly materials such as printed synthetic with flowers and small patterns surrounds his thin legs. He can't really speak so you can understand him but he does strange things like turning your glass or showing you something out of his basket, or he is just standing looking nowhere and watching everything.

A mall guy almost looking like a dwarf carrying candles around is one of the less impressive appearances but always kind of amusing. He sells huge candles out of a rucksack that he carries on his shoulders since years, which seems to be grown onto his back, because I've never seen him take it off. The candles are two feet long and in bright colors and he is carrying them sticking out of his rucksack and one always in his hand- he holds it in front of his body and asks in a real childish tone and pronunciation: kerze kaufe (candle buy). An astonishing experience was that he really sells them even to me.

Who else? There was a woman, who died very recently, Frau Scherer, who drove around with a huge sawing machine with an iron wheel in the back. She visited people around different villages to saw peoples wood. You had to order her and she would come to help you saw huge chunks of wood into two and four pieces that would have to be chopped up further with an ax in order to get wood for heat in the winter. She always wore a straw hat that my father called "Gewitterverteiler" ( Thunderstorm distributor).

And then there is this man who is sitting since two years in his flat on his couch in Kreuzberg. A friend of mine, a doctor, had to examine him once in order to estimate how sick he is and told me this story. He was sitting by that time already since one year. He had been a baker in the most depressing bakery in Kreuzberg, the one were the bees died in the window and stayed with the dried out sweats ( since years the same) that were always displayed within the growing open grave for insects. He had been working as a baker since twenty years when suddenly after the wall came down he and his wife were fired from one day to the other. He couldn't understand, was furious, angry, but by that time was around fifty and decided he will sit down on his couch in his living room with the words "Ich setz' mich jetzt zur Ruhe" (which is a German term to say sth. like "I sit down to retire"). He never got up again from his sofa and now he cannot walk anymore. His muscles have completely disappeared and his knee- bandages are stretched and shortened in the back. His wife is taking care of him, washing him giving food and she lays him down on the same couch, were he is sitting during the day, she feeds him and needs him and if he didn't get up yet he is still sitting....