Post TItled: DIY symbiotic potential of home electronics.
Post Subtitled: products (and using the scanner as a camera.)

I'm not sure if I have EVER posted about a product, but this is as close as it may come.
I bought the Red Cross solar/crank-powered radio (produced by the Etón Corporation) on sale at Radio Shack for $69.99. Although in priciple it is amazing, teh reality is that it does not reliably recieve radio signals in the city, (or perhaps just Kreuzberg?) - this was a problem. Solution (which I happened upon by accident) is the Trekstor i.Beat sweez FM, a lighter-sized MP3/Radio/voice recording device which I bought at Media markt on sale for EURO 15,99. Although 1/20th the size of the Red Cross radio, the i.Beatsweez gets amazing radio reception (using the headphone cable as an antennae!)
the Red Cross radio has a USB Power OUT "Phone Charger" which I can use to power the IBeat, (which- despite its otherwise amazingness- has a fairly brief battery life in comparison to, say, an iPod Suffle) and charge the bastard via solar/crank WHILE using the AUDIO IN to utilize the Red Cross's speakers. Wild. It is a self-contained elecro-sphere. And that, dear readers, is how I have preferred to listen to NPR and the BBC in Berlin lately.

Which -of course- leads me to wonder: children have a lot of energy, why haven't we rigged playgrounds, classrooms and elementary school gymnasiums and cafeterias with energy-capture devices?

P.S. I will always love Radio Shack, here they are on a recent NPR segment:

Post TItled:

the

importance of

writing
everything

down.

Post Titled:

USED UNIVERSEUSED UNIVERSE USED UNIVERSEUSED UNIVERSEUSED UNIVERSEUSED UNIVERSEUSED UNIVERSEUSED UNIVERSEUSED UNIVERSEUSED UNIVERSEUSED UNIVERSEUSED UNIVERSEUSED UNIVERSEUSED UNIVERSEUSED UNIVERSEUSED UNIVERSEUSED UNIVERSEUSED UNIVERSEUSED UNIVERSEUSED UNIVERSEUSED UNIVERSEUSED UNIVERSEUSED UNIVERSEUSED UNIVERSEUSED UNIVERSEUSED UNIVERSEUSED UNIVERSEUSED UNIVERSEUSED

copyright 2009 TAR ART RAT and Post-Google

from translated russian sayings:
"no matter how much you feed a wolf, an elephant still has bigger balls"
on bad food: "it is like the burp of a drunken indian",
on being overly confidence: "so, you've crushed all the hedgehogs with one's bare ass"
on brown-nosing: "to climb up someone's all without soap"

"Dearest friends and colleagues,

As some of you may know, we are all on the verge of leaving Berlin, maybe forever! Charlie is applying to medical schools in the United States and Bolivia, Sully is joining up with a "revolutionary army of liberation" somewhere along the Argentine-Colombian border and Mikey is going to live in his parents attic.

In any event, we are going to play three more shows here in Berlin as a proper farewell to our adopted home.

On Friday, August 28th, we are playing at the famous Mano´s Cafe and Casino, Skalitzer Strasse 46A. Perhaps you weren´t aware, but we have played there a few times. This is going to be a wild show.

And on Saturday, August 29th, we say goodbye at Room 77 on Graefestrasse, on a night when everyone at the bar is going to be working.


And for the more adventurous, Mike and Charlie, as well as members of Captain Shebang, the Shoestring Swingers and the Haferflocken Swingers will be assembling at Fuchs und Elster, Weserstrasse 205, for a night of insanely new music that you have never heard before written by Charles Booth and Mike Ellison.

Overall a good way to go out, no?

Hope to see you there,

TCK"

-----------------------
The Cowboy Killers:

Mike Ellison/Charlie Booth/Sully Morland

www.myspace.com/thecowboykillersmusic

Post Titled: wow.
TED Talks Juan Enriquez shares mindboggling science
(much thanks to hot-tipper Janna!)

Pos t Ti tled:
television for schools and colleges. "Look Around You - Music"(70s?)... hey now, little mouse!

-little mouse by jack morgan british educational programme

or IRON

the internet and everyone by john chris jones. beautiful little book. copies available at GOLDEN PARACHUTES, gallery and project space, BERLIN (air@goldenparachutes.net) or via paperpools. this book is published by ellipsis

 
Post Titled: using mathematics while grocery shopping.
OR: my jaw dropped when I came across the precision of this vegetable...

Post TItled:
DREAMS FROM MY DARK FATHER*

special edition cover (including 1994 paperback edition of Dreams from my Father by President (then State Senator) Barack Obama) by artist Ernesto Ortiz Leyva,

FOR SALE: EURO 299,99
*NOTE: this title was chosen by TAR ART RAT, not the artist.

Post TItled: FROM THE DESK, part one
Gerechtigkeitsliga is just another word for Justice League
and this oversize comic is amazing, published in 1991, purchased at the Mauer Park Flohmarkt in 2009for one euro and fifty cents.

BUY NOW!: EURO 199,99

Post Titled: too long.
for years the explanation/foreward for the blog (in the bar above) has been
"POST-GOOGLE... ...beamed out of Berlin, "Post-Google" is a collection of tiny text-based echoes disguised as a TAR ART RAT (art) project disguised as a web-log disguised as an art project and/or somewhat tangible art end-product. Nothing more. (SCROLL DOWN for blogroll)I also post at ELECTROPEASANT

and there's no reason for it. not one.

I'm going to take it down for a bit.

 
Post Titled: A diagram of why the first moon landing and moon walk were not only impossible but also faked by the US government to spook adn intimidate the Russians during the space race...
(NOTE: theory later disproven)

 
Pos t Ti tled: off the wall part three
Lindsey Lohan vs. Flowers

more sh*t taken from the wall s of my aaap arrrrtmenmttt and stuck in the sccccccannnnnnner.

Post Titled: THIS EUROPEAN LIFE
Every European (with a decent grasp on the English language) whom I've introduced (my favorite radio show) THIS AMERICAN LIFE to seems to be hypnotized by the originality and lack-of-all-awful-things-American in the program.
Too bad it isn't in international syndication -nevertheless, anyone can subscribe to the podcast.
the WBEZ Chicago radio show program ira glass

 
Post TItled: CRACRAFT BURNING
(OFF THE DESKTOP, part one)

 
SNOWSPEEDERS fly low over my digital graefekiez
Post Titled: (OFF THE WALL, part 2)

 
Post TItled: Superman's GirlfriendPost SUBTITLED: OFF THE WALL, part one. (a.k.a. things that are on the walls of the apartment)
"WHo is that?"
"Margo Kidder."
"who.,.. oh, from Indiana Jones?"
"no, -but she does look like her... which actress was that??"
I felt bad about this photo being in the shop because all the other shots were 3.75 but hers had been discounted to 1.80 (Pounds).

SEVERAL DAYS LATER: ANNA, absolutely not knowing that this photo of actress
Margo Kidder has anything to do with SUPERMAN at all, (perhaps not evne aware of the film at all)
finds a stack of SUPERMAN stickers in the apartment
and sticks two of the SUPERMAN symbols over Lois Lane's eyes...

Post Titled: My dear friend, Manuel, has started a blog called follow the leader(ship)

Post Titled: Liepnitz see, week two.
Post SubTitled: be warned- this entry reads like a tour book ...

Liepnitzsee is perhaps one of the cleaner, nicer and more remote Berlin lakes, if you can actually get there I'd highly recommend it. his is the second week we've driven out to swim in the huge forest lake. Both times we found a frog hopping across the path on the walk back to the cars, but this week it peed on our hands (was it the same frog?) Last week I had large flippers and a kickboard (mind you I have been going with a swimteam and I myself have the speed and grace of a land-turtle in water) to keep up with the rest, but this eek, just mini-flippers. Flippers are brilliant- you become an instant (partial) amphibian.
There is an island i the middle with a small mountain on it full of naked families and couples and groups of the elderly where once can also access the tarzan-like rope swing. Last week, time undressing I was actually trying to cover myself with a towel as I changed but this time i was just like "this is pointless" and joined my German mitmenschen in changing right at the water's edge, something I really haven't done since high school- I feel better.

Post Titled: case of the ol' mistaken identity
A few months ago I was trying to find Michelle Henery. She was once was subletting the apartment above me, we'd gone out to coffee and she interviewed me for Deutsche Welle Radio, etc.- she was a really cool person, however at some point last year her emails started bouncing back- email address no longer valid, so I googled her name and came across a lot a lot via google.
One thing that struck me out of all that was a wonderful quote by Will Smith: "Last February, actor Will Smith told a crowd at the Motion Picture Association of America that he was once mistaken for Barack Obama. An elderly couple approached him and said, "We love what you're doing. You're so great for the country!" according to Smith.

After Smith thanked them and walked away, the man said, "And we'll be sure to vote for you."" from ABC news

No mention of how old they were, though. Hm. I know that on a trip to the park with my +80 year old grandparents that they'd chatted with a couple for a good 15 minutes before the other guy mentioned his Asian heritage and my grandfather replied "ohhh, I didn't even notice you were oriental!"

on a sidenote, Cory says that Mr. Smith saying "OH HELLLLL NO!" in every single movie must be somewhere in his contract...

oh, and further down that rabbit hole, while trying to find a compilation of Will Smith saying "oh hell no" I stumble upon the weird world of youtube non-porn porn promotions, like this one. THey are... truly... bizarre...

or the "Hot Massage Videos - Hot Asian Girl Massage Video Clip" massage non-porn porn
or the ol' thai breast massage techniques clip
non-porn Michelle Henery Maureen Dowd columnist times reporter Obama scandal

Post Titled: Regarding the plague of New Yorkers in Kreuzberg, Berlin this Summer of 2009...
why... why didn't we pull a Greenland/Iceland and tell everyone "Berlin sucks, Brugge/Brussels/Antwerp is where its AT!"but instead: instead every second person in ther 20s I meet these days in the 'ol xberg is "visiting from Brooklyn" or "in from New York, and just staying in Berlin for a few weeks/months." It isn't that I am particularly/unreasonably racist against my fellow Americans, but jesus... there are just a lot of you around lately.

*HURM* That same old "visiting from NY" intro conversation has become a broken record. To make things intersting maybe I should pretend to not know where New York is? Wouldn't NY be creeped out if suddenly there were an influx of 10,000 Germans in Williamsburg, and everywhere you went you encountered Germans? That's how it is here now. When I moved here i encountered about 1 American every 2 weeks randomly just out and about at the grocery store or at the spaetkauf, BUT NOW I encounter abotu 100 per day. Where were y'all when Bush was in office? Embarassed to leave the country? Grrr.

TESS VIGELAND: "One of the things you realize as you read the article is how much of a microcosm Vegas was for the entire bust across the country. Talk to us a little bit about how pre-recession Vegas really was symbolic of pre-recession America and its mindset."

JOEL STEIN: "you can go to Vegas and you can see the moment when the boom stopped. Because you can see the last house in the housing project, or you can see the level of the hotel where they stopped. So it almost feels like there was just a day when all the credit left, really... I thought after hearing all this stuff about the new economy and thrift that the hotels would kinda be changing, and the rooms would look different, or they'd go back to the cheap buffets. But they're holding ground. They assume that this is another small cycle, America will go back to just how it was....people are gonna patry until the thing burns"
from the segment "How Las Vegas went bust" on APM's MARKETPLACE August 20th, 2009

Post Titled:
and this one's... OUTTA the BALLPARK!!!
(referring to the ballpark of weirdness)

found in the list "humiliating japanese ads starring oscar nominees" at cracked.com -the stallone ones are pretty good as well.

Post Titled: Sir David Attenbourough narrates the BBC video Feeding Wild Baby Birds. (so close to those little alien faces!)

Post Titled: KYRGYZ NATIONAL GAMES
in lieu of a ball there is a goat...

info copied from youtube description: "AT CHABISH - Popular horse racing.
KUNAN CHABISH - Racing foals, two to three years old.
ULAK TARTYSH" or "KOK BORU" - Literally Goat Snatching also known as Buz Kashi in other part of Central Asia. Two teams of expert horsemen snatch a goat in a cross country racing mutch. A very widespread game amongst the Kyrgyz, Kazakh, Tajik, and Uzbek. The name "kok-boru" mean, "gray wolf. In fact this original game is very ancient. It is appeared in those remote times when herds of cattle grazed in the steppes and mountains all year round without a shelter or top dressing exposed to the attacks of wolves. Having no firearms the shepherds could not deal with wolves on the spot. Brave djigits (young men) chased after the wolves until the beasts of pray ran off their feet, then began beating them with slicks and lashes, trying to snatch it away from each other. Later "kok-boru" was replaced by "ulak tartysh''. At present time this game is played on green meadows of high mountain pastures as well as on racecourses. To seize a goat in the center of the field and deliver it into the gates of the contesting team is the objective of the game.

"OODARYSH" - wrestling on horseback: Two riders try to pull each other off the horseback. It is allowed to throw the rival together with his horse. The time given for wrestling is 10 minutes. The rider who manages to pull the rival off his horse or throw him down together with the horse wins the competition. The rules allow the player to seize the rival by his sash or arms, by his torso, to press his knees or feet against the trunk of the rival's horse.

"KYZ KUUMAI" - Traditional game in which the boy on horseback must catch the girl and kiss her.
Previously the game was a part of the wedding. The bride, the bridegroom and a sister-in-law - with the friends took part in the game. The bride did her best to gallop away from her fiance; the sister-in-law assisted her in this. The bride was given the best racer and she entitled to begin the races, so the bridegroom was given a handicap in distance. The bridegroom set out in pursuit, he had to catch up with her in this way proving his love for her and his right to marry her. Being at a disadvantage the bridegroom sometimes failed to catch up the girl. Yet she did not reject him and the wedding was not canceled. Following the tradition the man rider is given a 20 meters handicap. The young man has to catch up with the girl and kiss her while galloping or at least touch her with his headdress. Galloping back it is the girl who chases the young man and in case she catches him up she takes off his headdress. This is regarded as the sign of her victory.

"ER-SIYSH" - Two riders try to pull each other off the horseback with pikes.
KURESH - Traditional wrestling.
TOGUZ KARGO'OL - Traditional game played with nine balls.

text from www.fantasticasia.net
video from Central Asian Tourism Corporation
Category: Travel & Events
Tags:
Кыргыз Улуттук Оюндары Ат Чабыш Улак Тартыш Кок-Бору Кыз-Куумай Курош Оодарыш Kyrgyz Kirghiz Kirgiz Ulak-Tartysh Kok Boru Oodarysh Kyz Kuumai Kurosh Киргизстан Киргизия национальные игры фильм music songs clip people yurta video film movies Central Asia Орто Азия"

Post Titled: PAINTING AGAIN
behind cory's head is a new painting I am working on.
tar art rat berling artist art

Post Titled: WALK IT OUT FOSSE!!
One of the huge and unforeseen perks of being alive in the 21st century is that you constantly see amazing and hilarious stuff online (*ahem* failblog- *ahem* sneezing panda). Thanks ana and cory for bringing this to my attention:

Post TItled: CAFE CK TONIGHT
FREITAKT #3
Free Vodka. Free Food. Free Love. (-really?)

Bounce Camp is playing . Here's a video.

Post Titled: People & Power investigates how the US is involved in politics and corruption in Kyrgyzstan.
part one:

Post Titled: All that's FAIL to print
Dan of UNTITLED (and Pulpable) notes another recent German print FAIL, (labelled "Marketing Fail") on the part of the green party HERE - wow, I'm not out to get anyone here but jeeeez louise, these things just keep on happening, -is there an untapped niche for cultural sensitivity consultants or is this just how it will be?

Meanwhile,(a bit of housecleaning here) I recently wrote criticizing the "Wir Krisenkinder" issue of Der Spiegel and its subsequent SPECIAL issue re-devoted to the subject. the post spawned several comments:
Did you even read these article(s)?
2:06 AM

Victoria said...
p.... when i saw that cover i did not even want to look inside this issue... what you wrote, was what i instantly thought... don´t know the content,... but its about your thoughts right now..... i mean we both live here but something i would love is that germans to see more how many opportunities there are around... (i´m half german) and its not as terrible they always make things look... nothing is terrible at all here in germany... maybe some people need to see a therapist to sort out there terribili-ties but we don´t starve to death here... its innate... krises or not... there will be always this gene in some to complain... i have a number of pure german friends which actually are not like that & bless them... and lucky me i met them.. its true.... how dare they to complain without even having started to contribute to the system yet.... oh... its starting to crawl up on me now.. better stop.. cause now i am complaining am i not? ;) see you soon*
5:06 PM

Anonymous said...
Hmmm. I was going to say, with all due respect, TAR, some of us would very much enjoy moving on...but, at 33, I'd feel like kind of an a-hole getting evicted from my house... then I read you response to DLR. Good advice. I hope you enjoy this time to do...whatever!
Peace Out.

Anonymous said...
Yeah, those assholes trying to make ends meet are so 1954! I'm gonna go live on a pile of Spagettios and make friendship bracelets until I give birth to my first child. He shall be raised on Eggs Benedict made out of fiberglass, pigeon doo doo and free lard and become the REAL Incredible Hulk!!!
7:54 AM


After a few days of mulling this over and some digestion of sob-stories in BILD zeitung and and and I think... ok, in Germany it seems like if one does x and y then z is somewhat assured. (x=study something or learn a skill; y=find a job in that field; z=then you will have a certain level of comfort and stability in life, which almost seems to be assured by a laws to that effect.) Mh. Stability...

Furthermore, I like these comments, and I actually tried to re-name the blog "pile of Spagetti-Os" but it was too long.

Post Titled: GOOGLE SEARCH RESULTS FOR "NOTHING" comes up with something:

Post Titled: Tuesday Afternoon

Tracks of my Tears

smokey robinson and the miracles the moody blues

Post Titled: What Would Jesus Read? 
Willem Dafoe is currently reading Tod Wodicka -or rather... hurm, err: the non-existant works / the phantom unpublished works of Tod Wodicka (?) All Shall Be Well; And All Shall Be Well; And All Manner of Things Shall Be Well: A Novel, aka Author of All Shall be Well William Dafeoe collection of unpublished Todd Wodika writings

Post TItled: Techno Viking VS. Ween Friends
hot tipper Death W. Insists: "... in Berlin! Paul, I think this needs to go on your blog RIGHT NOW. "

I'm pretty sure I blogged the original Techno Viking (sent my Ms. Reuter last year) but this WEEN one hits a whole new level.

Post Titled: LUCKY DRAGONS 2 shows in Berlin
tonight at Madame Claude's experimontag (Lübbener str. 19)
and tomorrow at Program initiative for art + architecture

 
Brigitte Bardot from the Bear and the Doll, (really bad movie)

Post Titled: Rufus Wainwright, Tiergarten
Thanks to hot-tipper Cory for sending this in a rainy Monday morning

Post Titled: Poor little babies!
Normally I respect Der Spiegel, but they recently put out a "Wir Krisenkinder" issue recently (translated to something like "We, the children of the crisis") and then puts out a special edition... In my mind I imagine the special edition being in response to poor little krisenkinders shelling out the cover price to read about their own horrible plight. Makes sense... Look how thin they are!:

This sort of pandering to obvious bat guano kind of makes my skin crawl. Germany is one of the top world economies and their quality/standard of living is one of the highest on planet earth, so having an issue which clearly panders to their effing plight is simply absurd. Oh, you poor verwöhnte little shits, you don't get your comfy cozy job after studying until you are 26 years old. You have lived a quarter century, consuming resources all along and have yet to contribute almost nothing to balance out the resources required to keep you alive, eating and shitting and downloading. Seriously? wow. So, my point: Dear Spiegel, re-adjust your bullshit-tinted goggles, and think about all this for a second.
P.S. Oh, and I'm currently jobless (also a direct result of the "krise" and I'm really happy being unemployed. The "KRISE" is an opportunity to dissolve the dumb work-life ideas leftover from / as a result of the 20th century post-war period. The possibility of living a non-stagnant life now presents itself. This is a blessing: Death to the office. Death to the work week. Death to spending more time with your co-workers than your loved ones. Move on, people...