The Emmys are coming. On Sunday. And these three guys are nominated. These three guys are the new men. They are not movie stars anymore, thank god. They are so real. Adam Driver from “Girls”, who does not get girls, is America. Mongolian, slightly russian looking, but total [more]
In yesterday’s pick we announced to open the REWE stickers: REWE calls the stickers Wunderwelt (Wonderworld). There is also a REWE Bio World and die Feine Welt, a sub-brand which offers Himalayan salt and Spanish olives. Welt an sich. A Heideggerian Welt-thing at REWE? Wonderworld. It’s like the [more]
Every three months or so I get a haircut near Central in Zurich. It’s always the same procedure. I go in before noon. Sit down. I ask one of the guys standing around – there are only a few girls – to shave my hair 6mm short (sometimes [more]
And so we went. Beautiful Alexanderplatz. A lot of people. They came for the candidate. Or for the beer. Lou took a lot of stickers home, a two lunch boxes, a bit of candy, a few pens. It was a good place for the Social Democrats. It is [more]
Art Week Berlin: Gin&Tonic and fake boobs Oktoberfest Munich: Starkbier and real boobs
Gleich geht´s nach Essen, ins Folkwang, wo der unaufgeregteste, eigenwilligste, anregendste Bildhauer unserer Zeit die Werkgruppe Frauen präsentiert, eine Serie von 18 großen, in Bronze, Stahl und Aluminium ausgeführten Plastiken, die in zehn Jahren zwischen 1999 und 2009 entstanden. Die Gruppe ist erstmalig in Deutschland vollständig zu sehen. [more]
I am pretty sure that slacklining is one of the best ways to spend your time. Especially if you not only do it with someone, but for someone. Slacktivism. What will be the final outcome of it? To be very honest I don’t know yet but I also [more]
This just came in from Mr.Porter and because I misread it I read the whole page and all its subpages and links (took me 43 minutes) and when I was back on the homepage I saw that there is not written IRONIC but ICONIC. Now I had read [more]
For no particular reason MoL yesterday made a list of household objects it likes (short) and a much longer one of those disliked including: tea towels; oven gloves; nail scissors; blue wiping-up cloths; soap dishes; washing-up liquid bottles; kitchen roll; any cereal packet; bags for life; most bottle [more]
You don’t need a big budget to do a good movie. You just need a great script. Want a proof? STILL LIFE the second film directed by former producer Uberto Pasolini (he produced Palookaville and Full Monty and directed Machan) is a jewel, highly recommended. Pasolini (not related [more]
This is how Charlie looked this morning. (It’s not my picture, you are never allowed to take one during these press junkets.) He looked like an old child. Really, that’ s the first thing I thought. An extremely entertaining, middle-aged child. Charlie apologised, he was a little weak, [more]
The world’s oldest amusement park is in the centre of Vienna. And with old, I mean old. It’s really old. It has opened in the 1850s. My Kids and even I love it. Remarkable is the sound when you enter the park: Loud techno music, people screaming in [more]
“It’s only for entertainment use” is written in the manual and in the warnings. Not for business? Spying? Moviemaking? Porn? Terrorism? The AR-Drone 2.0 comes in this beautiful box. Vera Lehndorff once told me that when somebody gave Salvador Dalí a camera as present he threw it away [more]
This pretends the display wouldn’t work. No, no, no, it is the whole tram, which doesn’t work. Until October! It’s much quieter around Fennpfuhl now it does feel like in the countryside. The trams do have Flüsterschienen (whispering rails) but the M8 has this long and straight part [more]
The Berlin Art Week started yesterday with a kind of small Oktoberfest on Auguststrasse in Mitte. The street was full of people, nearly impossible to walk through and impossible to enter one of the galleries. It looked like the Love Parade, but it didn’t feel like it. I [more]
I only met Marcel Reich-Ranicki once. It was at his apartment in Frankfurt, I was there with my friend and colleague Dominik Wichmann for an interview about everything, Reich-Ranicki*s wife Theophila opened the door, she led us into the living room, there was a large black sofa and [more]
If you really going to work in Seattle the first thing you should do is going for a Microsoft’s employees’ house cruising tour on Lake Washington.* That’s what I told A. today when we had lunch together. I don’t think A is going to do it. She’s right [more]
Eine blöde Nacht mit Krämpfen im Unterleib. Am verregneten Morgen mehr als schlechte Laune. Magenschmerzen mit langen Leseabständen auf korrekt platzierter Duchampkeramik. Zahnarztbesuch mit gefühlter Vollnarkose im Höllenschlund des Ultraschalls. Später wunderschöne Schwebebahn zwischen Boros´ Werbeblock und Koreabeziehungen im Kultursekretariat. Über die Wupper gehen? Nein, über der Wupper [more]
It might be my personal problem but it seems to me that serious art criticism has died. There are a lot of art magazines but what they do is basically writing about gallery openings and shows of people they are friends with. It is all a big family, [more]
Just imagine you are 16 years of age.
Just imagine you live in one of Delhi’s rundown neighborhoods.
Just imagine your family has lost all hope in you and doesn’t care about you anymore.
Just imagine your day is dictated by the urge of quenching your need for the next artificial peace of mind.
Just imagine you are addicted to injecting generic pharmaceutical drugs since almost two years.
Just imagine you inject these drugs in places so filthy that an “average” person wouldn’t even dare to sit on the ground.
Just imagine what the older, more experienced, users might could do with you when nobody is watching.
If you would be capable of imagining all this you could get an idea of how this boys life must be. Everyday.
Beyond imagination…
As you might now from the presentation Christopher Roth wrote about me, I did this documentary called Slow Food Story which was premiered at the Berlinale 2013 and then presented in Telluride (where I met Bobby). Basically I spent a lot of time of this year presenting this [more]
The English football season settles down now the transfer window has closed. Wenger, previously seen as petulant schoolmaster is now hailed for his acumen and prowess: “a slide-rule pass,” murmurs the commentator of Arsenal’s latest acquisition. Gareth Bale turns up in Madrid looking like a short-trousered schoolboy on [more]
Mit Apoll hat der nichts zu tun, er leiht sich von ihm nur manchmal die Gene und den Wagen, in dem schon einmal jemand verstorben ist, dieser blöde Phaeton. Das war wirklich ein folgenschwerer Unfall, meinen hat ja nicht einmal mein Mann bemerkt, nur die Sonne und die [more]
Last night, my guru talked about great expectations and how dangerous they can be. After class, I thought of Charlie Sheen, who I am supposed to meet tomorrow. I had great expectations. I thought Charlie would be amazing on that april night in Detroit, on stage in 2011. [more]
I was always wondering what kind of people would buy the TV-Programm Magazines. No, actually I thought they wouldn’t exist anymore, probably since the 1990’s, or if they still existed that at least nobody would actually buy them or read them. Until today. One of those people still [more]
There is a very popular trend in so called avantgarde theater which is reenactment. It is meant to show power structures, make guilt, shame, the forces of history more palpable. But what if reenactment becomes politics? Does this have the same enlightening effect? Or is it like history [more]
On Monday I am back in Rome. I need to work a little bit but most of all I need some more rest from the wedding. So I pick my favourite cure: a series. The series, actually: Breaking Bad. I am going trough Season 5 and I am [more]
“Wenn ich ehrlich bin, muss ich zugeben, wie fasziniert ich von der Idee war, zusammen mit einer Bank Kunst kaufen zu können. Das ist, als würde man einen Alkoholiker zum Winzer machen.” Daheim – im Wohnzimmer. Lebensgeschichten sind das Salz in der Suppe des täglichen Sterbens. Jetzt liegt [more]
I had coffee with my friend Matthis this afternoon in a “Altweiber” café close to Hottingerpatz in Zurich. Matthis is writing his doctoral thesis in law (don’t ask me what about exactly. I think doing a PhD sounds good enough, you should never have to explain what you [more]
On Sunday the Museum of Loneliness shot some books, with a Winchester double-barrelled shotgun. An interesting mess: you wouldn’t want that to be the back of your head. There is of course the problem of whose books you shoot. In the 1960s Pan Books produced a paperback edition [more]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4pFpV_YYKI&w=400 And as so often it is much easier to say these things as to eventually put them into practice. Believe, focus, try.
They have a huge screen to watch the Champions League. Usually older men sit there all day long. With their summer suits they look like the Central Committee of the SED during vacation. Most of the top level SED personal were very good ping-pong players. Sometimes younger people [more]
Audi upside-down-Metropolis. Silver Audi bag: Maserati bathrobe, tempting: Best outfit, Lancia: Lancia means “lance” in Italian. The model names are mainly letters of the Greek alphabet. Thesis are typefaces. And Thema? Lancia is part of Fiat and––look at the Thema––cooperates with Chrysler, since Chrysler is owned by Fiat [more]
Georg did you read the face-off between Obama and Putin in the New York Times?
Tonight I went to see my favourite yoga guru. Yes, that’s right, I know it sounds weird in the first place, especially if you are born catholic like me, there is no guru. (Jesus, that’s it) I remember though that a lot of people I knew in their [more]
Frittatensuppe is the most delicious soup you can get in Austria. It’s a crazy mixture between Brühe and Eierkuchen. The Eierkuchen (egg pancakes) is sliced in tiny pieces and is floating in the Brühe (broth). It looks like an uncomplicated and not very spectacular meal. But it’s an [more]
Frankfurt as a city always occurred to me as half big, half nice, half interesting, not far, not close, good museums, big airport, the Städel, the Schirn––sure––a tough Bahnhofsviertel which is the hippest area now (Oskar M. is opening his deli and club there), and––the IAA! The automobile [more]
I’ve been in a place today, a place so sad it almost made me cry. Carpet Land Berlin. I was looking for a red carpet, like the kind you see at movie premiers or the oscars, but just not red. I wanted a red carpet in navy blue. [more]