MoL has, it thinks, worked out something interesting about NADA. It’s not the opponent he attacks, it is the ball. The ball is there to be hit away. The opponent is whoever turns up. The ball is always the same. With the others it is different. There is [more]
NADA says: “If there is one thing I have learnt it is to distinguish clearly between Rafa and Rafael. Rafa is the famous tennis player, Rafael, the name they call me at home, is the real one, the one who could have ended up doing something else altogether [more]
Big money and professionalism: diet, training, training diet. Old school football: high-fat diet, drinking clubs, cigarette at half time. Wenger describes Messi as “like a Playstation”. Ian Wright, half in disbelief about Wenger’s early methods, said he was told to eat more broccoli. MoL says they are not [more]
Facts first: Over 10.000 tons of waste are shipped to chinese garbage dumps every single day. 3,5 million tons of waste do people alltogether produce everyday on earth. Despite of recycling our garbage production increases, we simply buy too much and more and more people on earth emulates [more]
Madrid, Spain. After over a year abroad it was a welcome change of scenery to travel to Madrid. I ascended from the metro station onto a street and enjoyed standing on a pavement. A pavement! This unique urban element between the edge of the road and the walls [more]
Bar’s road or Prostitute’s road? I usually choose the latter one when I have to walk home late at night. I might sound awkward but I feel safer amongst prostitutes than amongst drunken men. They aren’t drunk, or aggressive or impolite. We start getting knowing each other, we [more]
Der Sonntag hat mein Gefühl nicht wiedergebracht, vier Eier waren umsonst. Jetzt endet mein Gefühl einen Zentimeter vor den Zehenspitzen, nicht bloss einen Millimeter. Ein Teil meines Körpers fehlt, oder der Teil ist der Welt zu Land geworden, oder ich weiss nicht mehr so recht, worauf ich gehe, [more]
A few days ago my father gathered the whole family at the Good Friends Restaurant in the Kantstrasse, which is probably the best chinese restaurant (my father is chinese). There was a momentous occasion: Chinese New Years Eve. Normally my father doesn’t accept people from outside the family [more]
I called the asylum intake center (Asyl-Erstaufnahmestelle) in Berlin-Spandau today, on behalf of an acquaintance who had fled Syria and made his way overland to Germany under grueling circumstances. Locating a number for the place was a feat even for an adept Googler. All I found were protest [more]
It seems like pure schizophrenia when I go into the desert for a week to visit my father (more about this later), make plans and play music and then show off such a stillleben filled with all this plastic & carbon before even leaving. One might think my head [more]
First thought, best thought, or so claimed Jack Kerouac. But what if there are no thoughts at all? What if words fail and hellish consciousness is all you are left with? As I am perpetually lost for words, sometimes all there is to offer are words of others, [more]
Florence, Italy. Florence was the first city I visited on my own, when I was just about old enough to get through passport controls at a border. Needless to say that the trip left a deep impression. On my second visit, 25 years after the first, I could finally [more]
A few years ago, a Norwegian couple – academics, if I recall – attended a dinner party in Beirut. They, eager supporters of the Palestinian cause, were discussing the work of archaeologists in the West Bank, whose excavations aim to uncover evidence of ancient Jewish settlements and hence, [more]
There is nothing better to recover from a long night than going really really early to bed the next evening. That’s what I did. Because I had no choice. And I haven’t had experienced the feeling to wake up in the morning awake – without the urgent need [more]
Western society has this spleen with getting old or dying by negating the obvious eternal ending or transition of one’s self into a holistic entirety. Usually the most obvious approach is through clutching on adolescence like some rich girl at her gucci bag she got for her sweet [more]
Manchmal, wenn die Gedanken nicht zur Ruhe kommen, wenn die Hände sich nicht vom Buch lösen können, festgekrallt in dieser nächtlichen Zwischenwelt, wenn der Blick durch das Fenster über die Häuserreihen meiner Stadt schweift und an einem einsam leuchtenden Fenster hängen bleibt, da frage ich mich: Wer sind [more]
My neighbor is pregnant. She asked me if I had an idea how to redesign the kitchen. She wants everything to be fixed before the baby comes. I have designed a lot of interiors, Cafés, apartments, offices, lounges, booths and showrooms. This is actually my expertise and passion. [more]
John Cage: Silence. As much as I tried to force myself to like it, I never enjoyed listening to John Cage’s compositions. But I very much enjoyed looking at his notations as graphics. I also like imagining an audience listening to a pianist to whom Cage assigned the task [more]
The demographics expert Christopher Guilmoto from the Paris Research Institute for Development (IRD) has calculated that selective abortions and infanticide have cost in Asia alone, 117 million women’s lives. A UN report from 2010 makes only China and India responsible for over 85 million prevented woman’s lifes, in [more]
‘Everyone knew as time went by they’d get a little bit older and a little bit slower but …’ John never did. Lennon and Farquhar were two Johns who never did get old. I called my father ‘John’, he didn’t like names like daddy or pop. He loved [more]
In Mahmoud Kaabour’s documentary “Being Osama” (2005), which follows six Canadian men who all happen to carry the first name Osama, one of the protagonists describes his undue detention at a Swiss airport (at 1:20 mins): [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpgXeTb3x10#t=79] “In the Swiss airport, they put me in the room [more]
Wieder im Raum. Eine Mauer lässt mich nicht in Ruhe. Ich sehe alles, was passieren mag, nur an der Stelle dieser Mauer sehe ich nichts. Ich kann es mir nicht vorstellen, und ich will es mir nicht vorstellen. Was ich sehe, ist ein Denkfehler, eine Fantasie, die für [more]
After each laundry, I’m missing at least one pair of socks. My father used to call them orphan socks. And I think that this fits pretty well. But what shall we do with orphan socks? We can’t throw them away; this would be cruel and amoral. We shall [more]
Oslo, Norway. There was snow all over the sloping planes. And people: climbing up to the top just for the sake of it, and coming to see each other. The opera in Oslo is located on a peninsular within a bay. The square that usually goes along with [more]
The first coincidences I had with classical music where on sundays, connected to the smell of freshly baked plaited loaf (or just zopf). I was around 9 years old more or less and the strings and harmonies did not yet talk to me but subconsciously transmitting those unique [more]
MoL went to the Cohen Bros’ film. Less than meets the eye; more than meets the eye. Nice travelling shots. Good mid-century sofas. Atmospheric narrow corridors. Folksy Aran knits. A laudable but perhaps unintentional message: older people more interesting. MoL says no problem with that. A running Welsh [more]
Alas, all the complaints about the fast life! Is it really the most pressing issue of our time? Many want to make us believe so. Countless books and articles are being written on the subject – about exhaustion, fatigue, burnouts and the unbearable pressures of the performance-oriented society. [more]
I lie in bed seeing 8 on its side looking like infinity and remember first drawing 8, one circle on top of another. My granddaughter’s name begins with O. She asked me when she first realised this ‘What is the O for Marcia ?’ Indeed. She draws circles [more]
Peace is a big word. I found a way to give peace. Actually you can not literally GIVE peace, because peace isn’t a thing or a product, that can be given, you might say, but yes: I think I found out what it is. And I will share [more]
Munich, Germany. It was a birthday party, our children said. Actually it was rather a re-birth that was celebrated as a big public event, when the river Isar was re-naturalized within the urban area of Munich. The river Isar is an element of the urban landscape in Munich that [more]
Google-chats with my mother. From Beirut. July 26, 2006 me: bombing beirut like crazy right now pound thud pound thud boom boom boom like an upstairs neighbor having an orgy bam bam bam bambambambambambambam August 9, 2006 me: i have to have to buy a cake and wine [more]
In Sexual Excitement, Robert Stoller describes the case of a woman attracted to men she sensed as dangerous. “Men with this attribute were dehumanised by her in that her excitement occurred only when she rid them of their individuality and responded to their common characteristic: they were phallic. [more]
It was the second presentation of a Nobel Prize winner that I attended within a couple of days and I must say that don’t like presentations of Nobel Prize winners (if I am allowed to generalize). Such a very very deep monotone voice that you felt immediately asleep [more]
Fünfunddreissig Wände, zehn Toiletten, sechs Säulen, drei Duschkabinen, die Genossen sind begeistert. Jémand steht vor der Kitchenette, sie ist noch nicht da, aber ich kann sie so gut wie sehen, und wie Jémand sich Quark aus dem Kühlschrank holt. Da hängen natürlich nur elektrische Kabel aus der Wand, aber [more]
It was already yesterday when I began this flaschenpost about all those bigger and smaller ideas and thoughts in my head. I tried die deutsche Ausdrucksform but could not finish my mental Autobahn express ride (either I was too ermürbt or too unbeholfen). Still, I love the german language for so [more]
As an architecture student I remember we had a professor in our university who we called Dr. F-Weiler, because the F-Word was part of his familyname: Fickweiler. Foremost my female muslim college fellows didn’t dare to call him, because it’s simply haram. And I remember the mother of [more]
“No one has ever become poor by giving”, Anne Frank once wrote in her diary. As you know Anne’s life was short. She wrote about life, love and strawberrycakes. She was 15, when she got killed from the nazis. I have read her diary when I was at [more]
Last night I heard from Georg who was enquiring after my missing prose. ‘Are you ok Marcia ?’ I have been all over the place ( lit. and fig. ) I explained and thanked him for the kindness in his message of enquiry. I want to do this. [more]
MoL had strange dream involving Scott Fitzgerald’s bed and pyjamas (with name tag), Sting advising where to take a cheap holiday in Greece (MoL points out one has no control over who appears in one’s dreams) and Samuel Beckett flying in from Montevideo and speaking in a funny [more]
There have been some delicte debates about the strange liaison between memorial sites and the common exercise of smartphone-selfies. Ariel Efraim Ashbels and Romm Lewkowicz for instance collected online a series of supposedly seductive profile pics for the gay dating-platform Grindr. You see muscular topless men posing within [more]
Dass die Dinge nicht gehen. Mir begenete im Traum die Koryphäe der Psychoanalyse, ein Mann um Sechzig, ein Esser und ein Trinker, dünne Arme, ein dürres, gezeichnetes Gesicht, Ranzen. Er führte mich im Reality Television Format durch seinen Akquiseprozess, mal in seiner Limousine, einmal zufällig auf der Strasse, [more]
I drink to make you seem more interesting, Hemingway famously said. At least this is what I think he said. It may have been Orson Welles. Or some other sardonic lush. (I should probably google it.) I blame my brother Leon, not imperfect memory or marijuana, for my [more]
“It is good for you to meet people like us.” A.B. Are we not convinced that we can convince everyone to join us? We always imagine that other people are more afraid of sharing than ourselves. This is nonsense. They wil come because they know that it is [more]
This is a very simple thing, that can restructure your day with a deep impact: Change your sleep habits. Don’t go to bed too late. And get up early. I always have a souvereign feeling, when I can make it not to get seduced by my snooze button. [more]
Sometimes I wish I had the courage to leave everything behind me. To sell all my belongings. To keep only a good jacket, good shoes, a small recorder and a passport. No obligations, no bills, no office, no lab, no meetings, no agenda, no plans. To leave everything [more]
A new documentary on Lance Armstrong shows the man excelled in two areas: world-class cyclist and world-class liar, which leaves MoL wondering whether he made up the cancer story. A newspaper article on the film makes out sports champions are nasty aggressive crushers who steamroll other people because [more]
Die Anderen und ihre Abteilungen, ich habe sie erwähnt. Einmal als Büroetage, oder an der Stelle meiner Bitterkeit, oder als Bewegung relativ zur darauf folgenden. Vielleicht hat die Büroetage ihre Schuldigkeit getan, wir bemuttern doch nur unsere Pflicht. Das ist eine Erlösung für manchen Genossen, seinen Schreibtisch nach [more]
nuff said bout’ every thang that became reality on saturday: XXV I XIV
An MoL correspondent SMSs on MoL bemoaning itself too poor for a cocaine habit: Hats off to impoverished and resourceful ketamine users. Gone are the days of Paul Merson. Friend wants to write book called Legless with Gazza. Quite so, says MoL. In that respect, a good cameo [more]
The New York Times hosts today’s post. In anticipation of my upcoming departure from Berlin, it’s hard not to look at my beloved city through rose-colored glasses. And on this Monday afternoon it is doing its utmost best to seduce me once again. I arrived here, almost five [more]
I pity history. It’s the most abused and mistreated subject matter there is. It doesn’t help that history is a soft science that can’t rely on axioms, mathematical proofs and systems of equations to convey anything close to what we like to call truth. And it certainly doesn’t [more]
Beim Frühstück spüre ich nichts, die üblichen Dinge, Ei, Brot, Butter, und alles was dazu nötig ist. Es ist immer dasselbe, Salz, Pfeffer, der Raum der Küche, dieses Haus, hier, und diese Strasse. Eine Strasse, die nach fünfzig Metern von einer zweiten gekreuzt wird. Noch einmal fünfzig Meter [more]
If I were another on the road, I would not have looked back, I would have said what one traveler said to another: Stranger! awaken the guitar more! Delay our tomorrow so our road may extend and space may widen for us, and we may get rescued from [more]
Ladies and gents, here is a task for you: How can you find out the distance (in km) from here to the moon? No wikipedia allowed. What you can do is calling all your friends (who also are not allowed to look it up on the internet). One [more]
Everyone knows that feeling, it comes up, when your colleague at the office gets an appreciation for something in which you probably are better. It comes up, when your best friend suceeds runs the marathon much faster than you did it (and he just took half time training [more]
Mein Papa war fast jeden Tag bei uns, saß auf seinem Stock gestützt da und glotzte glücklich und hilflos seine kleine Säuglings-Enkelin an, mit der er eigentlich nichts so recht anzufangen wusste. Eines Morgens, wieder war Winter, gegen Ende des Jahres 1993, wachte er einfach nicht mehr auf. [more]
Australian Open Men’s Final NADA v WAWR: NADA making big mistakes for once and WAWR who has never taken a set off him has cruised to one set up. Tennis commentators, mostly more boring than football ones, are excelling themselves. – WAWR’s playing a brand of tennis at [more]
Today I stumbled upon the funniest, nerdiest love-story in a long time. Before I’ll tell you all about it, let me lose a few words about finding love in the 21st century. Have you ever heard about Tinder? It’s a social dating app on your phone that uses [more]
Writing about things, you would have wanted to, but didn’t actually see, seems extraneous. If I would have made it to Rotterdam this weekend, I’d have watched what they call Vertical Cinema. Why even speaking about the menace of cinema in the age of Youtube, and all the [more]