Dirk von Lowtzow describes his experiences during the corona pandemic in the years 2020 and 2021 in his diary novel “I dive up”. He “would like to talk about this sad year as if it had been the best time” of his life. He succeeds in doing this in a mixture of diary entries, poems and song lyrics written between his 49th and 50th birthdays. On 240 pages he takes the reader into his “involuntary year of rest” and processes the things that he cannot let go of day and night. “I appear” is accompanied by the song “Longing for Down”.
The Tocotronic singer describes how he goes on excursions with his partner J., how he can’t sleep because he’s fighting his inner demons, and how he flees from Berlin to Buckow. The place of refuge suits the writer von Lowtzow, who – like Brecht! – Find inspiration and breathe deeply. Nevertheless, everything that happens to him seems “absolutely contingent. There is no discernible plan.” Sometimes his entries read similarly.
Nevertheless, with the descriptions of his everyday life, he manages to revive feelings that have probably long been suppressed: he is embarrassed when shopping because he forgot his mask, he misses hugs, and he goes out with friends who are actually close fear of infection. “Only those who show up can take a breath,” he says in his entries – a condition that von Lowtzow does not let go of. Fears, helplessness and back pain are noticeably pushing him down again and again. However, he is also sensitive and admits that he sometimes feels lonely.
This is reflected in his music – be it in “Longing for the Bottom” or when he reports on the process of creating the Tocotronic album “Nie wieder Krieg”, which was released in 2022. He tells stories about the songs “Ho Hoffnung” and “Sirus” and about the fact that the simple, black and yellow album cover is based on Grobschnitt. He finds it “ironic that the songs take their final form during the lockdown of all times” – and the “uncertainty about the quality of the compositions” plagues him again and again. He wavers between “rejection of the recordings” and “acute infatuation” – “It is only a short way from tormenting self-doubt to massive overconfidence.”
In the course of his story, von Lowtzow considered discarding the thoughts he had written down. Luckily he didn’t and published them. Because “I appear” is more than just a diary. It is an intimate work about his thoughts and perceptions, capturing the mood and sentiment of society during lockdown. Dirk von Lowtzow probably didn’t have the best time of his life in 2020 and 2021, but “I appear” ends hopefully: “Looking ahead. The luck in the back.”
(To be published today, Friday, March 10, by Kiepenheuer & Witsch)
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