Endo Anaconda
Photo: Manuel Liechti
Endo Anaconda had a gravelly voice, the type you cultivate with cigarettes, whisky, and other drugs. His words were often the antithesis to the rawness. My love for the Aare may well have been fanned by the song of Stiller Has. “Gang doch e chli der aare naa.” His songs ran the gamut from poetic to absurd. The 1990s and early noughties were good for popular music, there was plenty to get drawn to. Endo brought a touch more art to the pop hits of the time, he brought Dadaism to the radio. He also reflected some of the tristesse that I felt around me in this grey urban city, and it’s rolling farm hills around. Endo didn’t fit in – I could identify. Except that Endo had the courage not to care or even want to fit in, a courage most of us only find as we get older.
I first began learning Bärndütsch from Endo, from listening to his songs endlessly. He and Kuno, the city’s two poets.
I bought his collection of short stories “Sofareisen”. A drawing of his likeness was on the cover. Talk about being iconic.
Eventually, as is the way in this small city, I got to know Endo. When I first met him, I found it hard to match his written word to the way he was. I often saw him in bars. A bit too loud, a bit too drunk, a bit too obnoxious. Mortuis nihil nisi bonu. If he was anything, he was honest and remarkably self-aware. His stories were lived.
He was a velvet writer. In recent years, he seemed more like that velvet: softer, soberer, kinder, still very funny, ironic, and self-deprecating.
Endo has passed away, suddenly, leaving children and patchwork families behind who are devastated by the loss of this eccentric, deeply inspired human.
May his work continue to inspire many and his spirit not be lost in the universe: «Verlore wie ne gagu /Schwäbeni durchs läären all».
In remembrance,
Gwendolyn
