#60
 
60DAYS
 
#
Avatar photo
September 12, 2013
Sunset slacklining…

Another day of slacktivism comes to an end and slowly but steadily the sun sets at a home for disadvantaged children.

It is almost impossible to imagine how the lives of these children must have been like before they found a home, a family, in this incredibly beautiful and tranquil oasis in the middle of nowhere.

It is a good place to be.
It is a good place for slacklining.

For them.

With them.

#
Avatar photo
September 12, 2013
empty-post-12-9
#
Avatar photo
September 12, 2013
Mademoiselle C. et moi

Carine Roitfeld et moi, earlier this year. Today starts her movie “Mademoiselle C”. You should check it out. Madame gives advice to all of us. There are only two schools of philosophy in fashion. One is Karl Lagerfeld and the other one is Mademoiselle C. We should learn [more]

#
Avatar photo
September 11, 2013
John Malkovich and Stefano

Today is my first day in Prato, and I am forced to consider some conflicting facts. Here now is Stefano, arriving to pick me up at the Bologna airport with my name scribbled on an A4 sheet. He confirms some suspicions about Italy—that he lost his previous job [more]

#
Avatar photo
September 11, 2013
My English sucks

So. Here I am. The first of 60 pages. This makes me anxious. What should I write about? I am Italian, so: Berlusconi? Food? Berlusconi and Food? Or film and food? Maybe just film. Or maybe something personal. I turned 41 this year and I feel like shit. [more]

#
Avatar photo
September 11, 2013

emotions run deeper than what meets the eye

#
Avatar photo
September 11, 2013
Dazed & Confuzed

“9/11”, said Pankaj Mishra, “will be remembered as a minor event. It was an atrocity, no doubt, but it did not change the course of history as much as people think it did.” We were sitting in his office, close to Highgate cemetary in London where Marx is [more]

#
Avatar photo
September 11, 2013
Wines, Spirits, Breakfast.

I discovered my new breakfast place getting out of the S-Bahn this morning. Wines, Spirits, Breakfast. Berlin Moabit.

#
Avatar photo
September 11, 2013
Towers

In a tower you not only have a perfect sight you can also be for yourself. That’s why Carl Jung built his own tower at the Zürichsee. Arno Brandlhuber, Sam Chermayeff and Christopher Roth once walked with students from the Wolfgang-Pauli-Institute up on the hill down to Jung’s [more]

#
Avatar photo
September 11, 2013
Alcohol

“The most lethal and fascistic of our current enemies––the purist murderers of the Islamic jihad––despise our society for, among other things, its tolerance for the alcohol. We should perhaps do more to earn this hatred and contempt, and less to emulate it.” Christopher Hitchens, “Living Proof,” Vanity Fair, [more]

#
Avatar photo
September 11, 2013
museum of loneliness

Most of MoL’s life these days is spend dealing with the human equivalent to call waiting. MoL believes in boredom. MoL rather likes boring football matches and dull pundits. Ukraine versus England was almost perfect in this respect. Nothing happened and afterwards three quite boring men had to [more]

#
Avatar photo
September 11, 2013

After many years in India you sometimes start to think that you have seen a lot, maybe almost everything, and that there are not many things that would surprise you.

So it is always much appreciated to be reminded here and there that it is not like this, not at all actually.After many years in India you sometimes start to think that you have seen a lot, maybe almost everything, and that there are not many things that would surprise you.

So it is always much appreciated to be reminded here and there that it is not like this, not at all actually.

#
Avatar photo
September 11, 2013
another cover
#
Avatar photo
September 11, 2013
The magic country

This morning, 7.15 a.m., I met Sarah in the city of Winterthur. Sarah is the recipient of a scholarship fund issued by the Swiss Japanese Chamber of Commerce SJCC. On October 1, she will board an Emirates flight to Haneda airport in Tokyo with a stop-over in Dubai [more]

#
Avatar photo

I love Cara Delevingne- (the left one next to Rihanna, in NYC yesterday) I think it’s the fat eyebrows. Or her ripped stockings. (You can’t see them here) Cara is just 21, but she deserves love from over 21 year olds. Cara is alive and she has fat [more]

#
Avatar photo
September 10, 2013
Lichtenberg figures

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg was the first professor for experimental physics in Germany. He is remembered for his notebooks, which he called Sudelbücher, (scrapbooks) and for his discovery of the strange treelike patterns now called “Lichtenberg figures.” They are branching electric discharges that from time to time appear on [more]

#
Avatar photo
September 10, 2013
This will help you

Dear Christopher Roth, Being obese is a terrible thing. You are restricted in so many aspects that life seems bleak and frustrating. You cannot wear stylish clothes, you cannot get the spouse of your dreams, and you cannot be as active as you want because excessive kilograms stand [more]

#
Avatar photo
September 10, 2013
Carolina

There was this man. He wore a hat, a good hat, made out of straw but such a perfect cut that made it look incredibly elegant. A very light blue shirt, a pastel green jacket and beige fading into grey trousers. Even the shoes, light brown classic brogue, [more]

#
Avatar photo
September 10, 2013
my editor an sich

bernd is by far the most amazing editor i know. i’ve known him for some years now and he’s so far saved quite a number of my books from being totally incomprehensible. when i first met him he announced that at some point he always knows a book [more]

#
Avatar photo
September 10, 2013
museum of loneliness

MoL functions as an anti-institution dedicated to post-cinema, the lost, the deleted, the censored and the obscure. Its inaugural project was an experiment of watching daytime TV: uncharted white space, an Arctic electronic wilderness to be traversed. What follows are random lines taken from the experiment – In [more]

#
Avatar photo
September 10, 2013

Water Lilly is my friend she dances and sings and reminds me how to do so myself i love the Water

#
Avatar photo
September 10, 2013
empty-post-tuesday-11-09
#
Avatar photo
September 10, 2013
The myth of the creative class

Since Richard Florida’s influential book The Rise of the Creative Class everybody (including me) has been convinced that creative people make cities more liveable, first socially and consequently also economically. The former seems self-evident, the latter somewhat comes with disruptions (creative class moving in a poor neighbourhood –> [more]

#
Avatar photo
September 10, 2013
En route to Prato.

Made in Italy no more?    

#
Avatar photo
September 10, 2013
Taking the first steps…

I had been to this area on the outskirts of Delhi many times before. What drove me there initially was the unbelievable sight of a gigantic garbage mountain. What motivated me to spend longer time there, were the people whose silhouettes I saw working on top of the [more]

#
Avatar photo
September 10, 2013
Is that you, Günter?

It was a great moment of national reckoning when the writer Mohsin Hamid, having come from Lahore to talk about his new, daring novel How to get filthy rich in rising Asia, asked the simple question, sitting at the Bar 1000 Cantina (“is that still around”, Maxim Biller [more]

#
Avatar photo
September 10, 2013
Quentin T. is working

5.14 pm. Quentin Tarantino just walked into Soho House. I am surprised, he is wearing belly bottom jeans, they are cut to open in the back. Nobody here would ever wear them. Quentin is sitting down for a drink and is reading his script to himself. I am [more]

#
Avatar photo
September 9, 2013
Mies van der Rohe

They are going to close the Neue Nationalgalerie for renovation, that*s what Thomas Scheibitz told me when I met him on Albrechtstraße, and he should know, because he has an exhibition on right now right there, called, of all things, Bube Dame König Ass, is there are more [more]

#
Avatar photo
September 9, 2013
Don’t Look Down

This morning I took the S-Bahn (like the metro but partly above ground). As I was very tired––too much Mosel-Champagne yesterday, which was Christopher Roth’s and Georg Diez’s fault––and not in the best mood after walking ten minutes through the rain, I just wanted to sit down not [more]

#
Avatar photo
September 9, 2013
leer-post-09-09
#
Avatar photo
September 9, 2013
leerpost 9.
#
Avatar photo
September 9, 2013
Le mariage

It rained on their wedding day. What did the bride wear? What did the groom wear? Only the bride can tell. What did the guests wear? Four pichets of rosé. We downed them, our throats slick with gimlets and beer. Before the bride and the groom stood the [more]

#
Avatar photo
September 9, 2013
empty-post-monday-09-11
#
Avatar photo
September 9, 2013

Indumba a dance piece choreographed by Fana Tshabalala the recipient of the Standard Bank young artist award

#
Avatar photo
September 9, 2013
The Auerbach

Before the internet killed my TV, I used to watch a sports show called “Schwab uf Tour” (or was it Freestyle?) on the Swiss channel Star TV, in which host Marco Schwab was practicing and commenting on any kind of extreme sports. Besides the talking, which was complete [more]

#
Avatar photo
September 9, 2013
Gerhard Schröder’s hair

I got this book at Strand in New York: “the Quotable Hitchens––from Alcohol to Zionism”. With a forword by Martin Amis. On Generations: “Tell me which decade you love, or hate, and I’ll tell you who and what you are.” (“Empitomizing the Eighties,” Newsday, 12/30/90) “I must say [more]

#
Avatar photo

The Bundestagswahlkreis (federal electoral district) Berlin-Lichtenberg (Wahlkreis/ Constituency 86) is one of Berlin’s twelve constituencies for elections to the German Bundestag and includes the Lichtenberg district. The 2009 elections: Thus, Gesine Lötzsch (DIE LINKE) won again the direct mandate constituency for Berlin-Lichtenberg. DIE LINKE (The Left) came out [more]

#
Avatar photo
September 9, 2013

After a long time off talking about ideas and planning how to put those into practice tomorrow will be the first of hopefully many Slacktivism days in India.After a long time off talking about ideas and planning how to put those into practice tomorrow will be the first of hopefully many Slacktivism days in India.

Slacktivism is based on the idea to use one’s birth given status and privileges to bring a positive change to the lives of the ones who hadn’t been as lucky as they actually deserve to be.

What my fellow slacktivist and me will initiate is a social activity experiment and we all are very excited about its results.

#
Avatar photo
September 9, 2013
Disney Problems

America can’t deal with Miley Cyrus  and this picture shows us why. 1) M. will upset Disney, because they can’t forget about Hannah Montana (Miley’s old character as a child, that made them Billions and Billions) and naturally they would like her NOT to wear things like a comic [more]

#
Avatar photo
September 8, 2013
Not so long ago,

when Colorado Democrats debated gun control and Second-Amendment rights the Centennial Gun Store in the Denver suburbs became the place to be. Gun-cretins cleared the shop of assault rifles. People who had never owned a gun went because “they didn’t want the government telling them what to do.” [more]

#
Avatar photo
September 8, 2013
Machu Picchu

Isa Melsheimer was back from Rome, Bobby Roth was back from New York, Sam Chermayeff and Johanna Meyer-Grohbrügge were back from Machu Picchu, I was back from the Uckermark, so we all met on the roof terrace of the Arno Brandlhuber house on Brunnenstraße, the one that looks [more]

#
Avatar photo
September 8, 2013
Gauteng
#
Avatar photo
September 8, 2013
museum of loneliness

The scene has been shot – as in filmed – to death and still no one can agree what happened. The image analysts working over the weekend reckoned eight shots. That would never do. And as to who did it, the shooters, forget it, they were faceless technicians, [more]

#
Avatar photo
September 8, 2013
The Bride Wore Black

Tina Turner’s Wedding

#
Avatar photo

I can’t read it anymore. It’s awkward. It’s …. It’s James Franco. The Mindy Project. What a great building: The Port Authority Bus Terminal. My favourite. James Franco: Did I call him Frank in the last post? I love him too. Awkward.

#
Avatar photo
September 7, 2013
Merkel 2

This is what my old friend Dirk wrote after my last column: alten freunden darf man das mal schreiben aber merkel herrisch zu nennen ist wirklich absurd. kohl ja, schroeder fischer erst recht aber merkel, machtbewusst ja, wie sonst soll man in der maennerschlangengrube politik voller eitler alphatierchen überleben. [more]

#
Avatar photo
September 7, 2013
museum of loneliness

Most things can be shown to connect up. Ade Edmondson won Celebrity Master Chef last night. Cooking has been the new porno for some time. Nigella did what might be called blow-job cooking, full of suggestive burlesque. But Celebrity Master Chef shows how the process has become standard. [more]

#
Avatar photo
September 7, 2013
leer-post-7
#
Avatar photo
September 7, 2013
leer-post-7
#
Avatar photo
September 7, 2013
En attente de la mariée

Il a attrapé le bouquet de mariée! réception sous la boule

#
Avatar photo
September 6, 2013
Winners

Now, a few days later I have to make a list of my Telluride top three films: Blue is the Warmest Color by Abdellatif Kechiche is very impressing. First of all it’s very long. Too long, especially towards the end. The use of extreme close ups is absolutely [more]

#
Avatar photo
September 6, 2013
Merkel

I did not go to the premiere of René Pollesch`s new play Glanz und Elend der Kurtisanen at the Berliner Volksbühne tonight, I did not go to see the Pet Shop Boys or Blur tonight, and I did not go to the opening at Judy Lybke`s gallery Eigen [more]

#
Avatar photo
September 6, 2013
I got a job.

I got a job today. To treat myself, I did one of my favorite things, which is to buy a garbage bag full of slut clothes from Guerrisol. It cost all of 10€.

#
Avatar photo
September 6, 2013
leer-post-sept-6
#
Avatar photo
September 6, 2013
museum of loneliness

YESTERDAY’S POST (missed because of Celebrity Master Chef – beyond the final frontier) Controlled space, dark and mysterious, a maze. Corridors like crime scenes, dead ends, doors that say: Do not enter. The anxiety of the threshold. Screens like jewelled shrines. Sometimes whole banks of monitors. From movie [more]

#
Avatar photo
September 5, 2013
Summer

Summer has come back to the city with a certain flavour to it, maybe it is matureness, maybe it is the rememberance of things past. It is a revival, and like every good show, the revival is different, maybe even better. You could feel the sun struggle to [more]

#
Avatar photo
September 5, 2013
walk towards the light
#
Avatar photo

The Criterion office is on Park Avenue. It’s really huge. Kim Hendrickson gave me a tour which ended in this tiny room with all their dvds. And I got a bag full of the greatest films. (Georg: JP Gorins three films are in the bag) I enjoyed the [more]