Jan Philipp Zymny has it all. Because when he tells his absurd stories - for example about a shaman who is also a banker and chicken barber, or a trip on the Interlunar Express from Hanover to the moon - the audience roars with laughter. In 2010, the student stood on stage for the first time with a piece of paper in his hand and a microphone in his face - in November 2015 he was crowned German-speaking poetry slam champion for the second time.
In your texts you slip into fictional characters and spin unreal stories. Doesn't reality offer anything exciting?
We are confronted with reality every single second of our waking time, constantly experiencing its very narrow boundaries and laws. In my opinion, a basic human characteristic is the pursuit of freedom. I go one step further and want to be free from the shackles of reality, so I deal with the superreal, the unreal, the imagination. There are so many more opportunities to write about nonsense or the absurd than about meaningful things. What does so much more mean? Infinitely more straight! That's where the great freedom lies. Reality is boring, so I'm interested in what we can never experience for ourselves, except in our imagination.
What happens in your head when you create a new story?
I bury a weasel under an old tree under the full moon. Preferably a deciduous tree, conifers are more suitable for sad lyrics. Then I wait until the new moon and dig it up again. Now all I have to do is plug the weasel's tail into the USB port in my left ear, which as we know is connected to the right, creative hemisphere of the brain. The ideas are then automatically downloaded into my mind, which then turns them into words and sentences. My hands then do the rest.
Are there any limits to humor for you? Is it allowed to make fun of 'minorities', even Nazis or IS fighters?
The limit is good taste. You shouldn't make random jokes about minorities in any form, but good jokes together with them. Humor should be something that connects us all.
However, when it comes to Nazis and IS fighters, one of their weapons is terror. Terror consists of two components: violence and fear. For the former, we have executive actions that protect and defend us. But how do we deal with the fear that results from terror? In my opinion, humor is definitely an effective tool - it drives them away.
Not only are you a slammer, you are also a student and have tried physics. Why?
Basically, for me it was the old hunger to know what holds the world together deep down. I wanted to understand reality. I also thought crazy professors and astronauts were great jobs.
But in the end you broke off. But too much reality and legality?
In a way, yes. Studying physics in particular is just a big clean-up. You have a messy formula at the beginning and keep cleaning it up until you end up with a neat formula - something like x=1. It doesn't get any neater. But at some point I realized that I couldn't clean up the universe because it was becoming messier and messier on its own. So why get in the way of the natural flow of the universe when I can do my part – a literary part?
Now you're studying theater studies. Do you enjoy it more?
There is a lot more chaos there than in physics studies. In this respect it is clear: yes! One of my goals in life is to write and perform my own play.
What do you wish for Christmas?
Socks. Mom, if you're reading this: SOCKS! Please! :)
And what for the New Year?
More love in the world. I know, I know... nasty cheesy... but just imagine it.