I am writing now in preconceptions Those of sex and ropes Many frantic cruelties occur to the flesh of the imagination And the imagination does have flesh to destroy And the flesh has imagination to sever The mouth is just a body filled with imagination Can you imagine [more]
Sarbet, Ethiopia. One of the main traffic junctions in Addis Ababa is called “confusion square”. Seven roads from different directions intersect here and the one and only train line of the city crosses, too. No big deal, but colloquial names of places always indicate the signs of the [more]
Five people one car. Three students and us. One future architect, one future human rights lawyer, a future philosopher and us, older than them, so future us already. A homogenous group of strangers sharing a car. It’s a question of minutes until similarities will be shared. The female [more]
Christoph Schlingensief’s play, “Sterben lernen,” was performed in December 2009 in Zürich. The play gives the audience a primer on “how to die” using the example of the main character, Mr. Andersen, who discovers he has terminal cancer and has to deal with his grim prognosis: 60 minutes [more]
I found out from my parents, the birth certificate I have, was the cheaper of the options they were given at the time. There was one that was slightly more expensive that had their names written on it. I have just my name. I have ordered one with that [more]
and at the end it didn’t work ANYHOW BUY + read: LISTEN: http://vimeo.com/72208252 CELEBRATE: christmas new year’s eve AND FOR THE NEXT YEAR: work hard play hard (http://www.workhardplayhard-film.de/=) ALL THE BEST FOR THE NEW YEAR! and at the end it didn’t work ANYHOW BUY + read: LISTEN: http://vimeo.com/72208252 [more]
Answer to the question posed yesterday – and it really was a question, despite the lack of a question mark – is as follows: you go back the next day to see what’s what. The Coen Brothers’ latest is a great film about, among many other things, what [more]
Wednesday’s Fed meeting, above all, drove home one message: economics and finance are more publicized, yet less understood than ever. In the run up to the decision, the media were all over the issue, spilling black ink by the gallons on front pages, op-eds and headlines. It wasn’t [more]
Casablanca, Morocco. At the end of my high school years I got a book on modern architecture. The cover showed a building that looked different to anything I had seen before: an abstract composition of cubes, no windows visible from street level, all life hidden behind walls. It [more]
Man with gold chain chewing gum in a hurry, a couple screaming at each other, two Japanese in duffle coats carrying pizza, men in boubou, women in headscarves, two Indians speaking loud, iPods, iPads, smartphones, laptops, earplugs, Chinese newspapers, Amsterdam only 29 Euros, all escalators out of order, [more]
When Müllerstraße went on, radically radial, it becomes Chausseestraße. While crossing Chausseestraße today, it happened to me, that I had to stop driving the car. The sense of humor of Müllerstraße changes into Homeric laughter. To drive along the BND-building (German Secret Service) is like a movies of the [more]
When the year comes to an end, a lumbering sadness overcomes me. It is checking a checkbox, knowing it was not all done. I haven’t done everything I wanted to. I haven’t lived or laughed or kissed enough. I have wasted time, arguing with people, being angry at [more]
What if you’re having one of the most meaningful, therapeutic, religious, cathartic, pain- and beatiful film experiences of your life – and somebody in your aisle (not the person sitting next to you) is laughing out loud, but not because of shittiness or derision or “irony” but because [more]
Yesterday I fell in love with Joy Wellboy, a band, that is: a girl and a man, who quickly managed to transform the impression of two clashy antipodes into a remarkably charming performance (them standing in front of a magical image of estragon might have contributed to that). [more]
Giving is important. When sharing I feel the need to make other people comfortable. I think that that is good trait though one that occasionally gets me into trouble and feeling like I have no boundaries myself. (To be precise I really have very few self imposed boundaries. [more]
I have this pet peeve: I hate it when others recount a movie to me. My father tries to avoid watching movies for some reason and my mother loves to give him very detailed, elaborate summaries of whatever last Lars von Trier she saw. These accounts can last [more]
It will all be ok again. A safe drive back to Berlin. Being able to stop when it is needed. Oh the joys of owning a car.
The idea that Jewish theatrical genius was a product of Jewish evolution was a common presumption in the late 19th century and early 20th century. In his 1869 ethnographic study of the Jewish “tribe” (Stamm), the Viennese rabbi, Adolph Jellinek, points to Dawison as a prominent representative of [more]
Al Hail, Oman. The week around national day is fireworks season in Oman. The celebrations of the country’s remarkable progress over the last four decades take place not on the ground, but in the sky. Through the spectacular show of fireworks in the sky everyone can participate in [more]
I had planned on writing something else. In fact, I had already started writing something else. But, alas, fate intervened. In this instance, I had to make a judgment call. I choose a very recent first-hand experience over a carefully laid out argument on a more serious subject. [more]
Back at journalism school we used to play a game called «Bullshit Bingo». Everyone got a paper full of business lingo or political phrases, and we would watch speeches or read PR magazines out loud. Everytime you heard a word from your list, you could cross it out. [more]
My previous forays into the role of maskilic literature in Judaism in the early 19th century, I hope, will set the stage for what is significant in the new iteration of Jewish satire in the Internet age. While traditional maskilim used the varied genres of the printed word, [more]
Just a few more days to go. But wait! Have we written all the cards, thought of all our friends, wished everybody a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, have we bought all the presents, ingredients, decorations, and, most importantly, baked all the cookies? I have managed [more]
There is no such thing as the drug. Drugs exist in all colors and shapes. The charts of attributes the word drug entails range from natural, chemical, hard, soft, stimulating to consolidating, sometimes deadly. Yet the semantic instructions to separate the medical from the mundane or the endogenous [more]
Wie einem jeder selbsternannte Generationenspezialist bestätigen kann, leben wir in einer Zeit, in der die Menschen dazu tendieren, sich unangreifbar machen zu wollen. Beliebte Mittel hierfür sind Ironie, Referenzen, Diskurskritik oder Obskuritäten. Ich bin leider nicht in der Lage, mich auszunehmen – das hat mir die tägliche [more]
Fragments of an inner projection. Memories of our old universe in the black studio of our imagination. Full of lonely marionettes of human beings, changing figurines of the ego, endless material for monologues, mono-plays and tragedies on celluloid. Dances of death, dialogues of death, dialogues in the land [more]
There are worse things happening around the world. There are worse things happening around the world. There are worse things happening around the world. There are worse things happening around the world. There are worse things happening around the world. There are worse things happening around the world. There are worse things happening around [more]
So what is one to do when the brakes just stop. They have been making a terrible noise sporadically but now, now it has got just too bad to ignore. Now there is no choice. An 8am visit to somebody who knows slightly better than me will be [more]
Are you one of the chosen few? Find out with this test. You better be ready! Ready? Okay, here we go: How many times – within one day – do the two pointers of a clock cross each other? I I V Do you know? Come on, do [more]
Reflections after seeing the documentary, Inventing Our Life: The Kibbutz Experiment, 2010 There was a time, in the shadow of the pogroms of Russia in the late 19th century, when the situation of the Jews in Czarist Russia became so intolerable that their sufferings could only improve through [more]
Let’s talk about dismissing artists for moral reasons, and be honest about it. I wrote a long text about R. Kelly yesterday – please, do read it, I beg of you – and the struggle to dismiss artists you like. (Just to be clear: the struggle in that [more]
Penultimate is the original and easiest-to-use handwriting app that combines the natural experience of pen and paper with the flexibility and syncing of forevernote. Lose the paper, keep the handwriting, and remember everything.
It was good to meet a friend and sit in a warm and crowded place surrounded by strangers who seemed happy and relaxed, and it was good to talk and drink Saxonian beer and forget the outside world for a moment. My friend had come to town on [more]