Pumping Iron .. How I mutated into a muscleman

What is it about?

A few musclemen flaunt their thick upper arms. An Austrian among them overtakes them all with ease.

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What is it really about?

Last month, I watched the messive-guy-documentary Pumping Iron. Disappointingly, it’s not a movie about metalworking production processes. The film is much more about Arnold Schwarzenegger & more musculeros preparing for the Mr. Universe 1975 contest. There are tons of dumbbells being lifted. They spur each other on until they puke from exhaustion. Afterwards, the training continues. There is bragging in front of each other. Smearing each other with oil. Teasing each other for competition. They smoke pot together.

Schwarzenegger in particular plays the sympathetic troll, whom you actually have to hate because he always shows you how low you are beneath him. But he also shows you how to get up. And apparently you can only do that by exercising until you puke and then keep going.

The hour and a half flew by; as did our bag of chips, liter bottle of vanilla Coke, and three bottles of Hefeweizen. I closed the credits with the words, “I like the Arnold. I want to be like the Arnold, too.” Thereupon my wife wiped the chip crumbs from my mouth and signed me up at the nearest gym.

So for a month now, I’ve been going with my seven sports clothes to the temple of sports that reeks of sweat. There I struggle into my brand-new (and skin-tight) fitness clothes and sit down in the sports bar, right next to the fitness rooms. There, I start my workout by lifting one beer at a time. While I used to only use my right arm, I can now lift the glass equally well with my left arm. It took a few weeks of practice for me to be able to lift up to ten beers in one evening. But now it even works without having a hangover the next day. A sore muscle! After my workout, I also always throw up the same way Schwarzenegger recommends in the documentary. So I’m on the right track.

However, I stop when I’ve thrown up. Especially since I usually can’t stand up straight from exhaustion and the waitress also recommends that slow is enough. So afterwards I go back to the changing room, roll around briefly in the used sports clothes of the others, change and greet my wife at home. She is very happy so far, especially since she also calls it real progress that I no longer drink so much at home.

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Conclusion

Thanks to this movie, I’ve never been in better shape. Oder so.

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Facts

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What is Stranger’s Gaze?

The Stranger’s Gaze is a literary fever dream that is sensualized through various media — primarily cinema, which I hold in high esteem. Based on the distinctions between male and female gaze, the focus is shifted through a crack in a destroyed lens, in the hope of obtaining an unaccustomed, a strange gaze.