PANIC NOW

Panic Now, originally uploaded by asmodeus.

came across this on flickr, it is part of a campaign by artist and designer Shawn Wolfe done in 1999-
(The Hitchhiker's Guide motto is "DON'T PANIC!" not sure if that is a reference)

Post Titled: FANTASY LOVE HOTELS
wow, (from WIRED)

Post Titled: Edwards quitting presidential race.

from CNN

Post Titled: IRAN
this is sad:

however, I am actually surprised that we haven't begun military action against Iran...

(MORE TO COME)

Post Titled: the beauty of the German language.

words I have had to translate at work today (with some help from Babel Fish), for the most part these words smash together relations and simpler ideas/subjects to form a bigger idea. A lot like Transformers when they attach to one-another to create a super-robot:
For example:
Vollkommenheit: Perfection
but separately:
"voll" = fully
"kommen" = coming
"heit" = (a general state of being)
so, like "the state of fully coming around" or "the state of coming into full"

Other great words I came across today:
Vorstandsvorsitzenden: Chairman of the board
Landtagsfraktion: Federal state parliament / parliamentary group
auseinanderlaufen: to disperse

Außergewöhnlich: unusually
Anschauungsmaterial: visual aids
aneinanderreihung: lining up

sometimes I just effing love German for its ability to pack a half dozen things and ideas into one lovely crazy long-ass word. English doesn't do that very often...

Post Titled: OBAMA on WAIT WAIT
I have posted this before, but I'll post it again;
Wait Wait Don't Tell me! NOT MY JOB GUEST: Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL)

Post Titled: Post-Google suggests: EXBERLINER'S 1st Wednesday at Burger for Charity
Jan 30, 21:00 -


"The proceeds of this month's special Wednesday at Burger all go to the Hope Foundation, a charity that supports homeless children in Calcutta, India.

Here's the line-up:

robin alexander
Reading - Robin Alexander: The former EXBERLINER political columnist and taz journalist, now German Vanity Fair staffer, will be reading exclusively translated passages from his new book Familie fuer Einsteiger (Family for Beginners), a succinct and witty account of his unexpected trajectory from the status of boyfriend to that of pater familias.

Tod Wodicka
Reading - Tod Wodicka: In case you missed him last month, the first time novelist will be back to support our charity night - reading passages from his acclaimed debut All Shall Be Well; and All Shall Be Well; and All Manner of Things Shall Be Well the tale of Burt Hecker, a widowed medieval re-enactment obsessive. Click here to read the New York Times' review of the book.

ENTRANCE: 5 Euros - ALL PROCEEDS GO TO CHARITY

hope foundationProceeds will be transferred to the Hope Foundation which provides education, healthcare, food and shelter to street children in Calcutta. For more information visit www.hopefoundation.ie

Where: Kaffee Burger, Torstrasse 60, Mitte, U-Bhf Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz

When: Wednesday, January 30, 21:00

Post Titled:
NEW PORTISHEAD ALBUM

I was in one of those large bookstores on Friedrichstraße three days ago and saw all the Portishead albums on sale- thinking "Gosh, will they ever put another album out..." then today in the guardian I come across: "Portishead's Third out in April"
That makes life a little better, now doesn't it? (Or does it actually make life a bit more sweetly melancholic?...)

The sale of older albums for €9,99 or less- which I assume is supposed to attract suckers like myself who have either lost, had them stolen or - most commonly perhaps- gave them out to friend on loan and simply forgot to get them back, (OR they got mixed in with other people's CDs in college)- has caused me to buy albums multiple times throughout my life, the ones that come to mind are:
STEREOLAB- Dots and Loops, purchased at least 4 times
The DIGABLE PLANETS - Reachin' (a new refutation of Time and Space) also purchased at least 4 times
TRIBE CALLED QUEST - Midnight Marauders purchased at least twice
TRAINSPOTTING - soundtrack purchased 3 times
MOLOKO - Do You Like My Tight Sweater? purchased 3 times
PORTISHEAD - DUMMY purchased 3 times
SMASHING PUMPKINS - Siamese Dream purchased at least 3 times
WU-TANG CLAN - 36 Chambers purchased at least twice
soooo, what does that say about people artists losing money from burned copies? I am fairly sure with all this music downloading silliness that one has to have a hard copy as a backup somewhere anyhow.

Post Titled: Added to Blogroll

PULPABLE
by Daniel Le Ray

Post Titled: the Youtube guys goofing off
(ironically that is not a Youtube video)

Post Titled: WHERE's THE BEEF?
I don't claim to have any über-high horse reason for being vegetarian, but every once and awhile one comes along, like this article "Rethinking the Meat-Guzzler" in the NY Times

Post Titled: you are a bad person behave you bad person ok good.
Post Subtitled: More half-baked (or burnt) theories, observations and beschwerungen on education.

Humour me if I start by saying simply that the entire American education system basically doubles as:
A. A Babysitting service
and
B. An indoctrination service to make people conform to the rules, order, expectations and desires they should have within their respective society (ok, maybe that one is more international)

Then/And how does that all compare to Europe? I haven't a clue really. I was talking with a German girl who had spend a semester in Israel and, after returning, had nothing good to say about the German University system.
"It is just, like- the professors lecture in the subjects they research and that is all they care about, there is no introduction adn no real interactive education... I mean, you are lost for the first year, no one really knows what to do." Then this goes on for years, adn then you are supposed to be ready to hunker down for a 40-hour work week... Huh? To be fair, the American University system could be the opposite extreme, that is; too customer-friendly.

But that is at the University level, so what goes on from KITA to Gymnasium/Realschule and (whatever that other one is called)?
I mean, these kids get out of school at lunchtime, so it isn't an effective babysitting service, and then... well, then - what. Somehow, the Germans have expediated their indoctrination process, needing only half a day for nearly twice the impact/results. (sorry, not all of you, I know -all you German readers of the blog readers are cool as hell)

AND Where do EITHER of these systems stand in the 21st century? The German system, like most all German systems, is going to resist (or live in denial of) change and might not be dynamic enough to weather the digital storm. The American system might have already produced a generation or two of kids who can't organise or cooperate, spell, think, who can't sit still, can't listen and take other people's ideas in to consideration, can't focus, can't make their own fun, have zero patience- and probably know more about computers/technology/ the internet than any other portion of the poulation -I dunno. Just throwing out a few ideas. Cynical today, okOk and I have no children of my own -so what do I know, really?

AND ohOh, wait, but there is always the beauty of Montessori... which is so vital, right?
OuiOui

On top of that, I had a coversation the other night where it was pointed out to me that- if not properly registered and if not backed by €1,000,000 firmly in the bank the TAR ART RAT Foundation labelled as a "Foundation" would be something that I could end up in German Prison for. Ok, whatever. Back to our regularly-scheduled program and Sucks to your assmar.


I had myself a fine MOS DEF film day yesterday, watching A Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy and Michel Gondry's Dave Chappelle's Block Party again, which is excellent.
Love this scene with teh marching band:

Post Titled: YES, SLATE, YES!

Post Titled: Meese is Messy.

Effing Jonathan Meese has a lecture on February 10th that costs €8 to get into... which I am willing to pay just to see what he has to say for himself. Since moving to Berlin he has become my most favorite artist to hate. He is messy, which in his case I find intolerable, and unclever, which is equally intolerable. Argh.
HERE IS A LINK TO SOME OF HIS JUVENILE CRAP.

Post Titled: Good Morning.

As an extension of last weeks little German post, "Nilpferd" has now taken a new fun and banal twist... or, rather Wasserpferd...
because there is a new film called "the Water Horse" which my little cousins went to see over Christmas, it is a cute kids movie about a baby Loch Ness Monster, but BUT the German poster is "Mein Freund, Der Wasser Drache" (My Friend the Water Dragon) because if it was Wasser Pferd it would be... or could be either a Sea Horse or a Loch Ness Monster...


woo-hoo MAXIMUM BLACK FESTIVAL is Final Fantasy, the Dirty Projectors, Frog Eyes, Deerhoof and Six Organs of Admittance

Post Titled: Batman: The Dark Night trailer

i love batman...



...badass.

Post Titled: "Heath Ledger is Dead."
I just wanted to document this from
the Gawker

Heath Ledger found dead in apartment

this is really truly upsetting. and just wierd when batman comes out...
R.I.P., big guy.

on being the Joker:

Post Titled:

CERN

(particle accelerator is about to go online, animation of how it works HERE)

Found HERE on Sign and Sight

(that is a STILL, don't click it)
Post Titled: Tom Cruise Scientology Speech
from the Guardian: "German historian likens Cruise speech to Goebbels"
here is the speech


INTERVIEW VIDEO WITH AUDIO HERE which is creeeepily similar to the interview in the film Magnolia

Post Titled: Peep Show

Yep. Back on the peep show wagon. Good way to start a grey, rainy Saturday:

Post Titled: Chess champion Bobby Fischer dies
(above link to the Guardian)

In 2005 before going to visit my volks in Iceland, I tried to track down some info about Bobby Fischer since I had heard that he defected/been invited to live there after getting into some trouble in Japan. All I found was a scary scan of his passport. Upon arriving I tried to look him up in the phone book, but later found out that he had chosen new icelandic name...
odd guy, and too bad he became so extreme in his later years...
her is another passport image- why is his passport scanned and available on the internet?...

Post Titled: So I'm not completely delusional...

Readers of this blog know that I ocassionally touch upon immigration issues here in Germany, often pointing-out the LACK OF integration. So, I was happy t find this article in Der Spiegel today which gives validity to past rantings, evn if it is an op-ed:
When It Comes to Integration, Silence Is Golden
By Charles Hawley in Berlin
"Integration is back on the political agenda in Germany these days. The xenophobic rhetoric underscores decades of foreigner bashing by the country's politicians. And it may explain why immigrant youth here have fewer opportunities than in any other industrialized country." READ MORE

After a talk with Helen last night I was delighted a the possibility that I might actually be able to get financial compensation to take German courses, that would be excellent, and also that passing a language certification test might be easier that I had assumed at my skill level. That is hopeful- especially in a country where certificats, diplomas, and documents might as well be gold.
Anyone who knows me in real-life is bored by the story of why I think my German is so effed-up, which is: I moved to a small German village in the summer between 7th and 8th grade, none of the German kids were interested in hanging out with us, nor were they interested in hanging out with the Russians who had just moved there after the wall came down- so, we hung out with the Russian girls across the street. They knew really basic German, which we learned from them- but it wasn't until years later tha I realized that I was speaking this wierd russo-germo-rudimentary slapped together language, so it was no surprise that no one understood me. Nevertheless i have a decent vocab, and absolutel no idea how grammar works technically... whatever. Egal. Comprehension is now so good that I sometimes donät even have to think about the mening of things anymore, like- rather than focusing extra hard on the dialogue in a film i can basically just watch it now, not bad.
Another issue however, is -when someone occasionally complains about how Americans never learn German here (which is somewhat true) the other side of that is the Germans tend towards automatic English responses - so if one attempts to speak German, and is only met with English in response, well- having that happen over and over and over again is somewhat iscouraging- still, no excuse really.

Post Titled: Ice Festival

Selling hot potatoes- Harbin Ice Festival, originally uploaded by Jon Bower.

This is a photo I found of a man Selling hot potatoes- Harbin Ice Festival, where it is -20. I just thought it was nice. If you have a good internet connection then surfing flickr for a bit.

Post Titled: A Note on the State of the Blog.

Readers may have notices a lack of posting, this is because I have started journaling again. The double edged sword of journaling again is there is a good chance that no one will ever read what I write, but that also gives me the freedom to be much more honest and personal. Things that go in the journal would never go in the blog and pretty much vice versa.

I cut back journaling in favor of blogging because I was excited about the fact that people couldactually read what I wrote, and I still am, but lately I am just feeling the need for pen and ink.
ALSO, while reading Everything is Miscellaneous, which NK got me for Christmas, the issue of paper (and) using atoms or atomy things to store information- well, just having thing written on paper- how that is important. All of my journals for the past 8 years have been in archival ink of acid-free paper. However, that acid-free paper is subject to water and (god forbid) fire damage or destruction. The digital information, well, heck, I have written plays and short stories which are saved or burned to discs somewhere adn long since forgotten, and in that sense they are lost in a way... which makes me wonder about all the digital photos I#ve taken... are digital photos really most valuable in those first seconds or minutes after you take them and people huddle to review them- is that their real lifespan?

Post Titled: Things we are subject to.

APPLE just presented the Macbook Air, which is creepily thin, like a supermodel or hollywood type with an eating disorder.

British American Tobacco are whiney bitches because this idea is pretty great.

SLATE ASKS: "Nabokov wanted his final, unfinished work destroyed. Should his son get out the matches?" uhm... that's heavy.




we are afraid of the world and/or the world makes us afraid.

Roget's New Millennium™ Thesaurus - Cite This Source - Share This

Main Entry: coward
Part of Speech: noun
Definition: afraid person
Synonyms: alarmist, baby*, big baby, caitiff, chicken*, chicken liver*, chicken-heart, craven, cur, dastard, deserter, faint-of-heart, fraidy cat, funk, gutless*, gutless wonder, invertebrate*, jellyfish*, lily-liver, malingerer, milksop, milquetoast, mollycoddle, mouse*, nerd, pessimist, poltroon, punk, quitter, rabbit*, recreant, scaredy-cat, shirk, shirker, sissy, skulker, sneak, turkey, weak sister, weakling, white liver*, yellow*, yellow-belly
Antonyms: daredevil, hero, stalwart

Post Titled: New and Forgotten and Cool German Words

das Nilpferd = "Nile Horse" aka hippopotamus

übel = evil, nasty, bad, sick, queasy

übelkeit - nausea

words plucked from the subtitles of "Elling"

been watching a lot of German movies lately. although Elling is Norwegian.

good quote:
"Hab ich endlich eine Freund gefunden ganz ohne der hilfe des norwegisches staat?!?"
"Have I finally found a friend entirely without the help of the Norwegian State?!?"

Post Titled:

"I'm not here. This isn't happening."
-Thom Yorke
game: find that quote in the videos below.







found unusual quote:
"Junkie. That's where I'd been headed: the final, fatal role of the young would-be black man. Except the highs hadn't been about me trying to prove what a down brother I was. Not by then, anyway. I got high for just the opposite effect, something that could push questions of who I was out of my mind, something that could flatten out the landscape of my heart, blur the edges of my memory. I had discovered that it didn't make any difference whether you smoked reefer in the white classmate's sparkling new van, or in the dorm room of some brother you'd met down at the gym, or on the beach with a couple of Hawaiian kids who had dropped out of school and now spent most of their time looking for an excuse to brawl. You might just be bored, or alone. Everybody was welcome into the club of disaffection. And if the high didn't solve whatever it was that was getting you down, it could at least help you laugh at the world's ongoing folly and see through all the hypocrisy and bullshit and cheap moralism." - Barack Obama from "Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance"

p.s. sorry for the pathetic post, not well today, that is all I could muster.

Post Titled: Fake Smoking Ban in Berlin

In Berlin as of 1.1.2008 there is supposedly a smoking ban, however thus far I have seen little evidence of it. Only one cafe-lounge in the middle of a shopping center which I frequent on my lunch breaks has removed its ashtrays, but a neighboring cafe in the same complex still allows smoking, so- is the ban optional or what? Every bar adn resteraunt I have been in seems to still allow smoking,adn then, a suprising report from Reuters this morning:

BERLIN (Reuters) - The owner of a small German computer company has fired three non-smoking workers because they were threatening to disturb the peace after they requested a smoke-free environment.
The manager of the 10-person IT company in Buesum, named Thomas J., told the Hamburger Morgenpost newspaper he had fired the trio because their non-smoking was causing disruptions.
Germany introduced non-smoking rules in pubs and restaurants on January 1, but Germans working in small offices are still allowed to smoke.

"I can't be bothered with trouble-makers," Thomas was quoted saying. "We're on the phone all the time and it's just easier to work while smoking. Everyone picks on smokers these days. It's time for revenge. I'm only going to hire smokers from now on."

(Reporting by Sarah Roberts; editing by Giles Elgood)

Post Titled: Racist Books of our youth / effed-up words for our mouth(es) /and badass art for other people's walls
I sat around a table last weekend at Minibar- (sidenote: it is it an international crime of nature to open such a hidden jem of a bar up to Americans... have I done a horrible thing??? hmm. No, they're good people) with a bunch of Columbia graduates, which i was kind of excited about- I mean, "Ooohh, Columbia, that is a school they mention in Woody Allen movies all the time- oooh, your whole world is ficiton to me, keep talkig and I will tell you all I know about stuff you couldn't possible know as well, ok? fair trade-" - granted, in reality, they were just cool, funny, normal people -(keeping in mind that we are all sort of ex-pats in our 20s, it that is "normal") - anyhow, one guy was a physicist turned modern dancer white guy from from Vermont, another is a Opera writer/critic Jewish kid from NYC who has written for the WSJ, and the third was a black guy, a sort of soft-spoken intellecutal-rasta-looking anthropology major originally from Philly who couldn't believe that Berlin ddn't really have an ethnically African neighborhood... I studderd and coul d barely offer an explanation.

So, we are all in this tiny place called Minibar, the only bar I seem to go to onsistently, and really yacking it up, - and the subject of racist kids books comes up. Apparently they had all read Kipling as children and had later been horrified at how blatantly racist it was, I on the other hand, remember constantly reading and re-reading Little Black Sambo at my grandmother's house. I haven't actually thought about that in years, but I loved the artwork...

SKIP AHEAD FIVE DAYS AND
It is friday, I have been at work for over an hour and only ACCOMPLISHED one thing, that is, inventing the word: "geklautsgeleihen", which was necessary to use in the subject line of the following email to our IT department:
"BETREFF: buch geklautsgeleihen
hallo marco, wollte nur bescheid sagen das ich hab die Photoshop 7 buch hier bei mir, wollte nur ein paar sachen lesen, ich bringe es bald wieder zurück, oder wenn't eigentlich dringend ist dann sag mir bescheid-
p"
it is kind of silly, but perfect for the pure practical utility of the German language, which is full of words just like this. Geklautsgeleihen is a combination of "geklaut"- past tense of steal, and "ausgeleihen"- to take out on loan, like a library book. So, geklautsgeleihen just means to borrow without asking- as people sometimes tend to do.
Another oddity that is not realy on-topic: "bescheid sagen" - what the hell? One of the little things, or- one of the examples of the litle things of the German language which are roadblocks to any grosser understanding, just because "bescheid sagen" (literally "to tell answer") is used as "just let me know"...ok, maybe it isn#t sooo bad.
Another wierd coincidence which I might as well throw in: the dancer guy from Vermont (mentioned above) had hitchhiked from Paris to Switzerland to see a piece by his favorite modern dance choreographer, they had arrived an hour or too to late, but he was able to meet with him and get free tickets for the next night. Later he saw the same piece in NY and the choreographer remembered him and they had a long talk, "this man is amazing- the best" blah blah, meanwhile -coincidentally- our friend and former neighbor just happens to be the son of this choreographer, small effing world... and weird when you know nothing about the world of dance whatsoever... or any specific subject for that matter.

the Unbearably ABSTRACT VAGUENESS of the German language...
FURTHERMORE, I went to Babel Fish and looked up "bescheid" to get the answer "answer" and then www.leo.org (which is what all the Germans I know use) and the list is thus:

Direct Matches
advice [bank.] der Bescheid i
answer der Bescheid i
assessment [finan.] der Bescheid [Steuerwesen] i
communication der Bescheid i
decision der Bescheid i
information no plural der Bescheid i
notice [law] der Bescheid - amtlich oder gerichtlich i
notification der Bescheid - einer Behörde i
notification [law] der Bescheid - amtlich oder gerichtlich i
office action (Amer.) [law] der Bescheid i
official letter (Brit.) [law] der Bescheid i
official notification [law] der Bescheid - amtlich oder gerichtlich
order der Bescheid i
reply der Bescheid i
ruling der Bescheid i
verdict der Bescheid i
answer to der Bescheid auf i

Verbs and Verb Phrases
to hear | heard, heard | Bescheid bekommen i
to let so. know jmdm. Bescheid geben i
to call in Bescheid sagen i
to get back to so. jmdm. Bescheid sagen i
to let so. know jmdm. Bescheid sagen i
to be in the know Bescheid wissen i
to know Bescheid wissen i
to know the score Bescheid wissen i
to understand Bescheid wissen i
to be in on sth. über etw. Bescheid wissen i
to know about so./sth. über jmdn./etw. Bescheid wissen i
to give so. a piece of one's mind jmdm. gehörig Bescheid sagen i

Composed Entries
adverse decision abschlägiger Bescheid i
negative reply abschlägiger Bescheid i
refusal abschlägiger Bescheid i
rescript allerhöchster Bescheid i
definite advice [insur.] endgültiger Bescheid i
definite decision endgültiger Bescheid i
written opinion schriftlicher Bescheid i
notice of deficiency Bescheid über unrichtige Angaben in der
Steuererklärung

Examples
You know. Sie wissen Bescheid.

P.S. the show tonight opening at the Lawrimore project "THE PROM - A Semi-Formal Survey of Semi-Formal Painting" looks positively badass... it also makes me feel a bit validated to have bought a few little Robert Hardgrave paintings a few years back, he really is amazing.

Post Titled: blending iPhone vs. beating iPhone
which is more entertaining?
a girl in a bikini beating an iPhone?

or a guy in a labcoat blending and iPhone in a blender?...

Post Titled:
"Born Rich"
manü has sent along a link to this fascinating documentary made by Johnson & Johnson heir Jamie Johnson:

Post Titled: „Good Morning.“ „No.“ „Oh.“
Post Subtitled: How did I manage to write this long-ass post?
Disclaimer: this post is probably really only of interest to me. And it isn’t even that interesting to me. Let's call it half-waking-emotional-documentation meets memory and personal-historical recall, like „let’s make some sense of life today!, Ok? Let's go!“
(20 MIN LATER...Oh wait, I take that back, do read, there are some things of interest afterall...)

0. Woke up extra early, and realized that waking up extra early just gives one that much more time to be late to work. I read some more of „Everything is Miscellaneous“ which NK bought me for Christmas, really entertaining read – thus far it is about the modern history and theory of information organisation, but I am only on page 32. He just talked about Mortimer Adler, who was founder of the Aspen Institute- I wonder if that ist he same Aspen Institut out on the Island in the Wannsee where I saw Stuart Bowen speak last November- or... well, how many Aspen Institutes can there be, really? Anyhow, the Founder is a man named Mortimer Adler, who worked on the first
0.1 in looking at both Stuart Bowen and Mortimer Adler’s wikipedia pages, I kind of wonder if books like „Everything is Miscellaneous“ couldn’t just be written (errh, „written“) by just being a (hyper)linked list, or if there was a program with which you could create an e-book like text by making a sort of „playlist“ of the paragraphs or pages, hmm. To avoid copyright issues I wonder if the text couldn’t be embedded via code- like how I have many of my images in the blog hosted on flickr or photobucket, but the html just makes them visible in the blog even though they aren’t REALLY technically uploaded there. Perhaps this is just lazy.

1.0 With the new seating arrangement at work, I always have the peripheral impression that people are standing up and walking over to talk or visit with me, and seconds later it turns out that they are just coming to throw something away because the only rubbish bin is by my desk.

2.0 Iowa. Hm. New Hampshire, hmm. Hmmmm... hm. quote rippd from Fox: "Clinton had scored 39 percent , Obama nipped at her heels, getting 36 percent ...Clinton’s pivotal moment can be marked at a point less than 24 hours before the voting began, say several political observers who traced it to a campaign stop in Portsmouth. It was there the New York senator’s voice took on a feminine vulnerability after she was asked to respond to a question about how she copes with the hectic schedule.
“This is very personal for me,” Clinton answered her questioner in a soft, weepy voice. “It’s not just political, it’s not just public. I see what’s happening, we have to reverse it.”
That response led the top of the newscasts around the nation Monday night. While people watched with mixed reactions, for many, Clinton suddenly stopped being a calculating, power-hungry cyclops and took on actual humanity.
“Hillary Clinton shows some emotion and (people) say, wait a minute, the ice queen is melting and there is a real person inside,” said Juan Williams, FOX News contributor and correspondent for National Public Radio."

3.0I plugged in my (own) external hard trive to my (work) laptop this morning and voilà, suddenly I am listening to the audio of „Zug Des Lebens“, a Klaus Kinski film- via Windows Media Player- which found the entire audio track on my external hard drive... so, that is kind of fascinating... and could get used to just listening to a movies sound at work.
AMMENDED 5 HOURS LATER: Correction, Kinski is not in this movie because he died 7 yeard before it was made, and the IMDB keyword listing for it is fascinating:
* Beautiful Woman
* Female Nudity
* Holocaust
* Jewish
* Nazi
* WWII
* Train
* Eastern Europe
* Escape
* Palestine
* Tragicomedy
* Twist In The End

3.1Growing up I was never allowed to watch R-Rated movies, so instead, would just have all the kids at school tell me about them- but in excruciating detail- and then using the images from the previews/trailers I would build the entire movie in my mind. I have never seen „Robocop“ or „Alive“ (or even Tim Burton's "Batman" when it came out, -dute to the PG-13 rating) but I can remember them as if I had seen them, entire sets and scenes- actors in dramatic moments, great plane crashes and tragedies, & robot fights all build out of mere evidence- indeed, it is all there- slapped together in a marketing-meets-oral-tradition sort of way. This went of for a long time, and honestly I didn’t see "Terminator 2" until college, when the „real“ images and story of James Cameron’s Terminator 2 were added to my mind- not replacing what I thought it was, but being saved separately and supplimenting the first initial uploaded impressions, so the film now exists in these two ways form me- as a DIY story based on the highlights of which parts friend chose to relate as being „cool“ and which highlights marketing chose to show me as „cool“ and all the rest filled in with great patience as/after I would finally get some poor dork to spend all of lunch and recess relating every detail of the film(s).
3.2 Regarding details, there was a blub-report, or a real-life „SPAM“ I happened to glance at on the Berliner Fenster TV in U-Bahn train this morning which said something about Britney being on a „Doping-mittel für pferde“ („doping-substance for horses“) –and this is a reoccuring thing- this lack of detail or rather this choice to just ignore certain clarifications when it comes to stars and celebs on drugs and how it is reported. Ok, for example, usually the reporting is extremely vague, especially in the German press: „Britney arrested while on Drugs“ for example- ok, but WHAT drugs? Like, if she were simply "drunk" most people have a point of reference for that. But, for example, with drugs it is much more compley- like, if she was stoned then it is a world of difference from being on robitussin or crystal meth. I mean, come on- be specific. It makes a difference. And even when there IS specific information, it is misleading- for example the horse-doping mittel is probably much better known as „Special K“ or „K“ – nicknames for the drug properly known as „Ketamine“- and to simply call it a Horse-doping mittel seems a bit silly. I have had personal accounts from two people (as well as the lovely CocoRosie song „K-Hole“) as points of reference for what Ketamine actually does to the human mind, and it sounds terrifying. To quote wikipedia: „effects include changes in the perception of distances, relative scale, colour and durations/time, as well as a slowing of the visual system's ability to update what the user is seeing. There are reports of high-dosage users being able to see their surroundings in two sharp images, as if the brain is unable to merge the images each eye is sending. Speech often sounds unintelligible i.e. alogia, and auditory hallucinations may occur. At high doses sounds can be out of sync with the user's visual field.
Ketamine produces a dissociative state, characterised by a sense of detachment from one's physical body and the external world. At sufficiently high doses (e.g. 150 mg intramuscular), users may experience what is coined the "K-hole", a state of dissociation whose effects are thought to mimic the phenomenology of schizophrenia. This may include distortions in bodily awareness, such as the feeling that one's body is being tugged, or is gliding on silk, flying, or has grown very large or distended. Users often report feeling more skeletal or becoming more aware of their bones - the shape of their hands is also often of interest.“

3.3 Führther adventure in the U-Bahn: there is a guy MEASURING the stairs in the station, MEASURING the height of each stair... which reminded me of cONAN o'BRIAN's
STACKENBLOCKEN (or perhaps HERE also.
which has been described as "Billig, niveaulos, amerikanisch" in a commentary, for which I can provide no defense, but then again- Harald Schmidt has been known to blatantly steal from Conan over the years... so, whatevah.

4.0 as a „Good Morning" note for NK I keyed her iTunes with a note on the computer which said „Press Play“- cheesy I know, but then this song plays or played---

Actually, I like KanYe's lyrics, much more than one would expect from the average pop-hop song.

4.1 Particularly powerful episode of This American Life about current Muslim-american issues, HERE

Post: Oh, ok.
Dreamt of casual race cars, nighttime in the neighborhoods of middle america, psycho fat tween girls, dishwashing machines full of shiny porcelain reindeer antlers in suburbia, world wrestling, and rising tides carrying off all our things in boxes, bags and suitcases.
"What is happening???"
"The tide is coming in."
"What is that???"
"It just happens. Get your stuff off the beach."


NOTE: There was always a huge discrepancy between Atari and Texas Instruments games themselves (the image one would see on the screen) and the artwork on packaging... which left a LOT up to the imagination.

A quote I saw this morning: "I'm kind of jealous of the life I'm supposedly leading.
- Zach Braff"
Reminded me that approx. 2 years ago My sister and I once paid to see Little Miss Sunshine and then snuck into The Last Kiss right afterwards, it was kind of a magical double-feature. I think Zach Braff plays the lead role in the Last Kiss... not sure.

I arrive home from work yesterday pretty catatonically depressed for no good reason, hit up an internet cafe to do stupi things online for a few minutes, and then thanks god get a call from a guy named Adam whom I met last Fall at "the Reader" filming. So, rather than moping around the apartment I was happy to go out for a few beers with a group of people and goof-off late into the night. Winter, ick.

Post Titled: Maximum Black Festival OR Maximum Blackmail Festival
this is kind of badass- ripped from LAST.FM
"Owen Pallett of Final Fantasy will be curating the Maximum Black Festival in London, Berlin and Vienna in February/March 2008 supported, strangely, by the Vienna Public Utilities company.

Vienna Public Utilties approached Final Fantasy in the hope of using their track “This is the song of Win & Regine” for their ad campaign. When Pallet turned them down, the company approached another band and asked them to record a similar song that ended up as a nearly identical cover, which the company then used.

Pallett used the threat of legal action to twist the company’s arm into backing his festival, Maximum Black."

So the Dirty Projectors will be back in town, along with Six Organs of Admittance, which sounds like the name of a Matthew Barney piece, but which Tod swears are "soul-searing"

So, I got switched to a new computer at work, which is great- is is a laptop which is 5 times faster than the junker PC I was on last year, BUT it has this weird thing where when I stream radio online everyone sounds linke Mooninites. Even Nick Cave. Dammit.
P.S., these are mooninites:

(Awesome, let's go!)

BAD POST.
So, I went to the Deutsche Post’s parcel pick-up office (a 45 minute walk from our apartment if one were walking) and waited in line for 20 minutes just to be told that the package which I had the pick-up slip for had most assuredly already been returned. We were on vacation for 2 weeks, and in that time we had recieved a package, which –after 7 days- was returned to the sender. „But we were on vacation! How could we pick it up?!?“ I said in shock-
„Hmmpf“ came the non-reply from the Deutsche Post Postal worker „well, it is there in the small print, we only keep packages for 7 days...“
So, does this mean that everyone who went out of town for 7 or more days during the Holidays got their packages returned to sender? And this is a POLICY? What is easier for the post: hanging onto the packages for 10 or even 14 days, or making TWICE the work for themselves by returning them??= OR are they banking on all the extra money people have to spend to RE-send all the stuff again after it has been returned?

Besides all this I wasted my entire Mittagspause (lunch break) just to find this out.

SO, if I were to write a letter to the Deutsche Post at the moment, it would begin:

"Dear Stupid annoying fucking Deutsche Post,
you will have to be much SMARTER and DYNAMIC if you want to survive, especially with new competition. This isn't the first time that wierd senseless shit has gone down-"

Post Titled: Iron Man
Post Subtitled: Allow me to Dork out for a second here
Holy SHIT, Robert Downey, Jr. is IRON MAN???

:::ADDED LATER:::
Ok, so I haven’t been sleeping much and meanwhile this is botheing me. I know this is an old sort of tired argument is some circles, but still: some superheroes are not even technically superheroes.

Why ist this important (even in the least??) Because these characters are our mythology, they are part of the way we try to understand ourelves, our lives, our purposes and wants as humans- just like literature, drama, religion etc. also seek to do.

„The HULK really just = the fear of the bomb...“ FRANCISCO GUERRERO, a professor of mine once said, which I thought was a great way to put it.

In watching the IRON MAN preview, however, I was one again reminded of some of the things we overlook:
IRON MAN is a scientist with a suit or metal and technology, which gives him superhuman capabilites, BUT he himself is not „super“ so to say.
BATMAN is a rich man with gadgets and a sleeping disorder, not „super“ either.
SUPERMAN is actually „super“ in human terms, bu he is not technically a „man“, he is an alien from the planet Krypton, therefore he could just as esily be called „AverageAlien“ since all Kryptonites have similar „super“ powers when they come to earth... because of the „difference in gravity“? Whatever, that argument was never clear to me, nor was how his mother was abl to sew an indestructable suit OR how sometimes that suit gets damaged and repaired... whatever, I still like Superman.

Post Titled: Brasilian Tribute to Dilla
per Bubba

Post Titled: For today's Special, see Twits to the right.
and...
OBAMA-WAN (click name for larger version)

I'm just going to keep posting this image 'til he wins, -which he will.

POST UPDATE (March 12, 2008): a note to you (yes, YOU, you random reader of this post -wherever you may be hunched in front of a screen just like I am) So, in recent weeks this particular post is getting a lot of traffic.
SO, QUESTIONs/REQUESTs:
1.Can you leave a comment about HOW you came across the image, I am now dying of curiosity.
2.To be fair if you appropriate the image for something that's totally cool, but it would be even cooler and you would be an awesome genius if you could include a link to the blog itself: "POST-GOOGLE" by TAR ART RAT or you could check out my drawings and be brutally critical: TAR ART RAT (sorry, have to milk it a little bit, -I don't get paid for this sh*t) -thanks!

Post Titled: New Favorite website.
Since returning to Germany, I kind of feel like I have a new found appreciation for simplicity... rühe.
(ok, so in all fairness, I have been back for 2 days and "simplicity" will probably morph into "boredom" any day now, but anyhow)
I clicked around on the internet earlier in search of something to make the morning more satifying and found THIS PAGE which is so so so simple that it is almost lovely. Rarely is anything on the intenet so uncomplicated. (might have to drag down the corner to view that one-)

Post Titled: DORKfluence.
skip this sentance: rolledout of bed doused in jetlag at 8:33, must be dressed and at work at 9. somehow, I made it on-time. Still jetlagged, it is 6:01 am and i have been wide awake since 3. Ugh.

Along the way the Berliner Fenster TV flashed a report that Bill Gates was leaving the business side of Microsoft proper to persue his philanthropist goals.
Which set the tone for the day, just because in a haze of trying to think I kept revisiting the idea that the ever-unfolding human future on and beyoind earth is, in fact, somehow shaped or given direction to science fiction and its readers. That sci-fi inflated and drives the dreams and technologies we come to enjoy in daily life, and now- also- what we call these technologies...
Let me put it this way: based on stereotypes and realities - it is often the dorks of the world who read sci-fi (I#m not saying that is an absolute, but it is practically a basic truth) and perhaps sci-fi even defines their dorkiness, or is the icing on the dork-cake or whatever, but THEN
as I am currently reading A Hitchiker's Guide to the GAlaxy- I discover that the Babel Fish (a little fish which human and humanoid life forms can put into their ear canal to instantly interpret any audible (and/or telepathic?) language across the univers is ALSO the name of the AltaVista program I use every day at work! Hmmm, mighty strange coicidence there... on top of that, the new Google mobile phone software is called "Android" and there was another shining example which I have just forgotten.
It is all quite awesome, isn't it?
I am just surprised that we don't refer to mobile phones (or now bluetooth stuff) as "communicators"

Post Titled: Verdammte Scheiße,-eyh!
We left for teh airport in LA at 10:30 am on Jan. 1 and arrive home at our apartment in Berlin at 4:30 pm January the 2nd, ouch.
I was in a t-shirt before takeoff and it was snowing when we landed, ouch.
After a few weeks on the West Coast of the United states I feel re-energized, and for the first time EVER seriously considered getting a tatoo of the West Coast of the United States on my left upper arm. (Don't worry, this won't actually happen.)
Leaps like these do tend to cause some identity confusion,
IN LOCATION A the mind thinks: oh, this, yea- I am like this. and then
IN LOCATION B the mind thinks: oh, this, yea- I am like this. and then

IN LOCATION C the mind thinks: oh, this, yea- I am like this. This is like my NATURAL HABITAT!

of course none of the above are true, reallyyy...

New Year's was great- with Vern, Manü, NK, my sister, Vern's aunt and her husband and some other folks at World Cafe in Santa Monica. Nothing super wild, just a lot of drinking, talking, laughing and silliness. Better that the usual scenario of being out in sub-zero temparatures outdoors with thousands of strangers.