Sunday, May 04, 2008
Saturday, May 03, 2008
Let’s all not get it together
Proving yet again that you can be a smart and politically-aware German intellectual type and still not have the slightest idea what the Berlin Wall was, photographer Kai Wiedenhoefer and his Left and Green Party supporters in Berlin’s Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg district will be exhibiting an exhibition which will equate the West Bank “Wall” with the Berlin one. This exhibitionism will be taking place on the eastern walls of the East Side Gallery, itself a wall, the largest remaining section of the Berlin Wall, get it? Am I going too fast?
That he doesn’t know why the Israelis have built the wall in the West Bank is perfectly understandable (he doesn’t want to understand, that would only make him sad), and that the US Americans only want to oppress Mexico by building the one along their border to that country is an established establishment fact (Canada is next, by the way), and that there are many, many, many much more such walls out there of this nature than he or his friends or most of the rest of us are even aware of is also understandable (hmmm, makes you wonder why he picked out Israel, doesn't it?), but die Mauer itself? He really doesn’t know why it was built? I’ll give him a little hint: It was built to keep people in.
But to be fair, Herr Wiedenhoefer has explained why he is so concerned and why an exhibition like this is so absolutely positively necessary right now. “The UN said border walls are illegal,” he said in an interview. “People need to take notice of this.” Well there we have it. Now if the UN ever gets around to making suicide bombings and illegal immigration and all that other nasty stuff some of us insist upon relating to illegal border walls like this illegal, too, well, that will be a great leap forward for mankind or something. Think of all the exhibitions we will be able to do then.
“We don’t need no education.”
That he doesn’t know why the Israelis have built the wall in the West Bank is perfectly understandable (he doesn’t want to understand, that would only make him sad), and that the US Americans only want to oppress Mexico by building the one along their border to that country is an established establishment fact (Canada is next, by the way), and that there are many, many, many much more such walls out there of this nature than he or his friends or most of the rest of us are even aware of is also understandable (hmmm, makes you wonder why he picked out Israel, doesn't it?), but die Mauer itself? He really doesn’t know why it was built? I’ll give him a little hint: It was built to keep people in.
But to be fair, Herr Wiedenhoefer has explained why he is so concerned and why an exhibition like this is so absolutely positively necessary right now. “The UN said border walls are illegal,” he said in an interview. “People need to take notice of this.” Well there we have it. Now if the UN ever gets around to making suicide bombings and illegal immigration and all that other nasty stuff some of us insist upon relating to illegal border walls like this illegal, too, well, that will be a great leap forward for mankind or something. Think of all the exhibitions we will be able to do then.
“We don’t need no education.”
Kommentare auf Deutsch? Selbstverständlich.
Friday, April 18, 2008
Mozart goes underground
Well, actually he already was, already. But Berliners just don’t want to leave him in peace or let him rest in such and it kind of goes a little like this: There’s this subway station in Berlin called Bundestag, which happens to be near the Bundestag, some here call it the Kanzler U-Bahn (the Chancellor’s subway) by the way, although she actually drives, I’m sure, or gets driven, or even occasionally walks, and because this here fancy almost-new station hasn’t quite opened up for business yet some enterprising enterpriser types have decided to “do” the Bundestag subway station and perform The Magic Flute down there.
Everyone is all excited about the big premiere except me, which will take place on the 26th of this month so get your tickets now. No, not BVG subway tickets, these babies are the real i.e. expensive opera kind.
And as you can surely imagine, the artsy opera types involved with the enterprising enterpriser types here, like opera director Christoph Hagel himself, are tickled pink about the production and are convinced, I am sure, that this is actually what Mozart had in mind. Word is that the bird catcher dude Papageno will actually be a garbage collecter this time and that Princess Pamina won’t get abducted but will be caught Schwarzfahren (riding black as in not paying) and arrested by a cop instead. I hope it’s going to be Berliner cop at least. That would make it even more realistic or something.
Or as Hagel has put it: “The queen of the night whiles away in the subway tunnels, symbolizing the big city dweller’s dreams of all that is underground and the sinister things that go on down there.” Damn. Talk about sinister. It’s like this guy can read my friggin’ mind.
Anyway, Mozart would be proud if he weren’t so dead and did you know, by the way, that The Magic Flute is closely associated with Freemasonry so maybe this is all some kind of sinister and elaborate underground plot? Just think about that one long and hard for a while. I sure didn't.
I’ve got your magic flute for you right here.
Everyone is all excited about the big premiere except me, which will take place on the 26th of this month so get your tickets now. No, not BVG subway tickets, these babies are the real i.e. expensive opera kind.
And as you can surely imagine, the artsy opera types involved with the enterprising enterpriser types here, like opera director Christoph Hagel himself, are tickled pink about the production and are convinced, I am sure, that this is actually what Mozart had in mind. Word is that the bird catcher dude Papageno will actually be a garbage collecter this time and that Princess Pamina won’t get abducted but will be caught Schwarzfahren (riding black as in not paying) and arrested by a cop instead. I hope it’s going to be Berliner cop at least. That would make it even more realistic or something.
Or as Hagel has put it: “The queen of the night whiles away in the subway tunnels, symbolizing the big city dweller’s dreams of all that is underground and the sinister things that go on down there.” Damn. Talk about sinister. It’s like this guy can read my friggin’ mind.
Anyway, Mozart would be proud if he weren’t so dead and did you know, by the way, that The Magic Flute is closely associated with Freemasonry so maybe this is all some kind of sinister and elaborate underground plot? Just think about that one long and hard for a while. I sure didn't.
I’ve got your magic flute for you right here.
Kommentare auf Deutsch? Logisch.
Friday, March 28, 2008
Wilder’s latest film out
No, not Billy Wilder (this guy uses an s without the apostrophe), although the film is a new-fangled version of “Some Like It Hot”, I suppose. Right-wing Dutch politician Geert Wilders wants to cause some anti-Islamic commotion by launching “Fitna” (“strife” in Arabic), his video attack collage expressly directed against the Koran, and he will most surely succeed at doing so. Is this a good thing? Probably not, his aim clearly being to distort the Muslim world as much as Islamic radicals seek to distort ours. But hey, somebody's got to do it, oder (right)?
These silly Europeans. Demonstratively speaking one’s mind is a wonderful thing, but if it never leads to concrete action, well, what’s the point? If you are not willing to confront Islamic radicals down at the ground level where they are armed and dangerous, what good is pretending to confront them at the virtual level where they are unarmed and not?
But having said that… Don’t miss this film (although I just might), because it’s bound to be good clean family entertainment for everyone (not) and maybe, in this case, it’s better to have an unbalanced point of view than not bothering to have one at all.
The time for strife is reif (ripe) again, oder?
These silly Europeans. Demonstratively speaking one’s mind is a wonderful thing, but if it never leads to concrete action, well, what’s the point? If you are not willing to confront Islamic radicals down at the ground level where they are armed and dangerous, what good is pretending to confront them at the virtual level where they are unarmed and not?
But having said that… Don’t miss this film (although I just might), because it’s bound to be good clean family entertainment for everyone (not) and maybe, in this case, it’s better to have an unbalanced point of view than not bothering to have one at all.
The time for strife is reif (ripe) again, oder?
Kommentare auf Deutsch? Her damit!
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Russian art critics active in Berlin again
German police fear that a group of Russian art critics may have possibly abducted a Russian artist living in Berlin who herself was critical to Vladimir Putin and the Russian Orthodox Church which was probably the reason why she was living in a "safe" place like Berlin in the first place but these art critics are clearly of the big-time and international type and will stop at nothing to do their job and express their criticism and intend to show Russian artists like her that you can run if you wish but you cannot hide, at least not when it comes to creating and exhibiting controversial art critical to the powers that be in Russia, these being none other than the Russian art critics themselves, of course, and that if you want to live safely in the future it would probably be better for you to paint pretty Russian landscapes and tundra scenes and stuff like that.
Of course maybe she just got into some Transrapid train somewhere by accident and vanished into the Twilight Zone forever like the Wankel motor did, hard to say for sure though.
Trans Europa Express (aber ohne Transrapid).
Of course maybe she just got into some Transrapid train somewhere by accident and vanished into the Twilight Zone forever like the Wankel motor did, hard to say for sure though.
Trans Europa Express (aber ohne Transrapid).
Kommentare auf Deutsch? Logisch.
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
It can’t happen here anymore because we’re above all that now, honest
It happens here all the time, of course, just like it does everywhere else, every day of the week. Only it happens in small, bit-size and easily indigestible pieces. It’s not a five-day experiment aimed at teaching students about the rise of fascism at some high school somewhere, it’s the hard-wired willingness or rather need the human animal has to obey the higher-up of the day and ostracize whoever he or she can get his or her hands upon.
That’s just what we do, human being types in this so-called social context of ours. And if we don’t have the luxury of living in an ingeniously devised straightjacket system (some call it democracy) which keeps us from getting away with this type of misbehaviour indefinitely or getting too far with it (we're always getting too far with it if you ask me), then all kinds of wild and crazy stuff starts taking place.
That’s probably why the German film Die Welle (The Wave) opening here tomorrow is probably worth seeing and will flop dramatically. Nobody really wants to be reminded of the fact that it not only can happen here, it already has (in a big way, I mean, and more than once, by the way). And even does, on a daily basis, as I said.
After all, we (as in you) Germans have learned our lesson from history and are above all this nonsense now as attested to by the countless good examples we set like the fact that we always happily pass on good advise to others while staying home alone with Kevin in denial to live on forever in splendid and peaceful isolation while new and ever-changing-big-time forms of fascism develop elsewhere around the world right before our very eyes but that’s none of our business because we have already had our turn and fifteen minutes in history fame and are having too much fun doing our piddly and mundane everyday fascism here at home instead.
So it looks like it will be another Hollywood blockbuster again tomorrow (which we will promptly criticize afterwards as being another Hollywood blockbuster, but that’s another story).
Huh? Dieses Experiment findet nicht mal in den USA statt.
That’s just what we do, human being types in this so-called social context of ours. And if we don’t have the luxury of living in an ingeniously devised straightjacket system (some call it democracy) which keeps us from getting away with this type of misbehaviour indefinitely or getting too far with it (we're always getting too far with it if you ask me), then all kinds of wild and crazy stuff starts taking place.
That’s probably why the German film Die Welle (The Wave) opening here tomorrow is probably worth seeing and will flop dramatically. Nobody really wants to be reminded of the fact that it not only can happen here, it already has (in a big way, I mean, and more than once, by the way). And even does, on a daily basis, as I said.
After all, we (as in you) Germans have learned our lesson from history and are above all this nonsense now as attested to by the countless good examples we set like the fact that we always happily pass on good advise to others while staying home alone with Kevin in denial to live on forever in splendid and peaceful isolation while new and ever-changing-big-time forms of fascism develop elsewhere around the world right before our very eyes but that’s none of our business because we have already had our turn and fifteen minutes in history fame and are having too much fun doing our piddly and mundane everyday fascism here at home instead.
So it looks like it will be another Hollywood blockbuster again tomorrow (which we will promptly criticize afterwards as being another Hollywood blockbuster, but that’s another story).
Huh? Dieses Experiment findet nicht mal in den USA statt.
Kommentare auf Deutsch? Selbstverständlich.
Monday, March 03, 2008
Dumb art gallery owners make dumb decision to close dumb exhibition
After a few dopey threats of mindless violence made by some stupid Muslims visiting an idiotic art exhibition in which practically everything being exhibited there was labeled dumb (the Kaaba in Mecca included), the dumb art gallery owners knuckled under and stupidly decided to close their simple-minded exhibition ahead of time.
This dim-witted decision was made after a group of numskull thugs demanded that the image with the Kaaba on it be removed immediately or else. It shows the famous black cubed structure in Mecca under the heading of “Dumb Stone” which is, admittedly, a dumb heading, but not nearly as dumb as the moronic reaction of the feebleminded simpletons demanding its removal, much less that of the dumb ox gallery owner dunces who then actually did it.
That the goofy Jewish Hasidic or whatever it is headwear on the poster right next to the Kaaba one is also labeled dumb - as is practically everything else hanging on the gallery’s walls next to it - escaped the numskull thugs’ attention, which is not really all that surprising once you consider just how dumb these guys really and truly must be, much less the gallery owners themselves, like I said.
And to top off all of this stupidity, the exhibition was organized by a Danish group of artists who say they want to oppose religious extremism. I mean, like how dumb is that? Who do these Danes think they are? Weren’t they just in the news recently about some other art crime somewhere or something? And what are they, I should ask, free to think and say whatever they wish? Not here, folks. Wo sind wir denn hier (where do they think they find themselves anyway)?
Wo sind wir denn hier wirklich?
This dim-witted decision was made after a group of numskull thugs demanded that the image with the Kaaba on it be removed immediately or else. It shows the famous black cubed structure in Mecca under the heading of “Dumb Stone” which is, admittedly, a dumb heading, but not nearly as dumb as the moronic reaction of the feebleminded simpletons demanding its removal, much less that of the dumb ox gallery owner dunces who then actually did it.
That the goofy Jewish Hasidic or whatever it is headwear on the poster right next to the Kaaba one is also labeled dumb - as is practically everything else hanging on the gallery’s walls next to it - escaped the numskull thugs’ attention, which is not really all that surprising once you consider just how dumb these guys really and truly must be, much less the gallery owners themselves, like I said.
And to top off all of this stupidity, the exhibition was organized by a Danish group of artists who say they want to oppose religious extremism. I mean, like how dumb is that? Who do these Danes think they are? Weren’t they just in the news recently about some other art crime somewhere or something? And what are they, I should ask, free to think and say whatever they wish? Not here, folks. Wo sind wir denn hier (where do they think they find themselves anyway)?
Wo sind wir denn hier wirklich?
Kommentare auf Deutsch? Selbstverständlich.
Saturday, March 01, 2008
Can we spray up the Sony Center now, too?
If you’ve ever felt the need to take a trip back to 1970s New York, although I honestly wouldn’t know why you would, come on down (up?) to Berlin some time. Not having much other industry to turn their attention to these days it seems, street-wise street folks do tons of their own kind of industrial design on city walls here each and every day instead. They call this design “Graffiti” here (Germans capitalize their nouns, you see).
Some even call it Art. One guy I knows even calls it Fred. Ha, ha, just kidding. Yes, Berlin is probably the most “tagged” or “bombed” city in Europe, and we’re not just talking B-17s here anymore, either. And that’s a wonderful thing, I suppose, because it wasn’t all that long ago that it used to be called vandalism, too. But that’s like just so totally negative, man. Graffiti with a capital G is actually “celebrated as street art and even regarded as an integral component of Berliner Strassenkultur (street culture)”, you see, although I haven’t met anyone here yet who is doing any celebrating about it. But, then again, I’m old and gray and in the way.
And speaking of capitalization… Now that the Japanese have surrendered (another veiled reference to “bombed” again, although those weren’t B-17s) and the Sony Center has been taken over be evil American locust types, just think of all that Fläche (area) available to spray up with industrial design downtown (uptown?) now.
Graffiti ist Kommunikation!
Some even call it Art. One guy I knows even calls it Fred. Ha, ha, just kidding. Yes, Berlin is probably the most “tagged” or “bombed” city in Europe, and we’re not just talking B-17s here anymore, either. And that’s a wonderful thing, I suppose, because it wasn’t all that long ago that it used to be called vandalism, too. But that’s like just so totally negative, man. Graffiti with a capital G is actually “celebrated as street art and even regarded as an integral component of Berliner Strassenkultur (street culture)”, you see, although I haven’t met anyone here yet who is doing any celebrating about it. But, then again, I’m old and gray and in the way.
And speaking of capitalization… Now that the Japanese have surrendered (another veiled reference to “bombed” again, although those weren’t B-17s) and the Sony Center has been taken over be evil American locust types, just think of all that Fläche (area) available to spray up with industrial design downtown (uptown?) now.
Graffiti ist Kommunikation!
Kommentare auf Deutsch? Klaro.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Toemb Ryeter
For some strange reason, many Germans insist upon pronouncing the words Tomb Raider as spelled above, more or less. That has nothing to do with this post, of course, but I just thought you might blike to know. No, I take that back. Now I remember. The latest news about the search for the missing and mysterious Bernsteinzimmer (some call it the Amber Room) reminded me of the movie Tomb Raider and that brought me on to the German pronunciation issue.
Anyway, the latest news about The Mysterious Case of the Search for the Bernsteinzimmer (named after famous American conductor Leonard Bernstein decades before his birth - that’s part of the mystery) is that German tomb raiders now believe to have finally located it. Of course this is about the sixtieth time that the Amber Room has finally been located but this time it could really happen, honest.
The chamber was stolen by the Nazis from Catherine Palace in St Petersburg in 1941 and then taken to the mythical city of Königsberg, now called Kaliningrad, where it was soon to disappear in 1945 at which point it was probably taken by train to Vladivostok where it was than placed on a Greek freighter which later sunk off the coast of Spain and was later recovered by Howard Hughes and then buried in permafrost before a Klingon warship transported it to a Czech copper mine in the middle of the night when nobody was looking. But like I said, other theories also abound. Let’s all keep holding our breaths on this one, okay?
Lara Croft konnte leider diesmal bei der Suche nicht dabei sein.
Anyway, the latest news about The Mysterious Case of the Search for the Bernsteinzimmer (named after famous American conductor Leonard Bernstein decades before his birth - that’s part of the mystery) is that German tomb raiders now believe to have finally located it. Of course this is about the sixtieth time that the Amber Room has finally been located but this time it could really happen, honest.
The chamber was stolen by the Nazis from Catherine Palace in St Petersburg in 1941 and then taken to the mythical city of Königsberg, now called Kaliningrad, where it was soon to disappear in 1945 at which point it was probably taken by train to Vladivostok where it was than placed on a Greek freighter which later sunk off the coast of Spain and was later recovered by Howard Hughes and then buried in permafrost before a Klingon warship transported it to a Czech copper mine in the middle of the night when nobody was looking. But like I said, other theories also abound. Let’s all keep holding our breaths on this one, okay?
Lara Croft konnte leider diesmal bei der Suche nicht dabei sein.
Kommentare auf Deutsch? Klar doch.
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Europeans eat Hollywood’s lunch
So let me get this straight: Englishman Daniel Day-Lewis and Frenchwoman Marion Cotillard get the best actor/actress awards, Spaniard Javier Bardem and Scotswoman Tilda Swinton get the best supporting actor/actress awards, Italien Dario Maranelli wins the best film music and then, even the best foreign film goes to a foreign Austrian-German-(place three or four other random European countries here) production filmed right here in Babelsberg bei Berlin?
Like what the hell is that? Only the Coen brothers managed to hold up our flag with a modicum of self-respect and even they are probably from Brooklyn or some other semi-foreign place like that. Okay then, they're from Minnesota. But that's almost Canada.
I’ve never been as shocked while not watching the annual Academy Awards presentation shown in the middle of the night over here and than reading about it the next morning as I was this year. But I guess I wasn’t the only one. Not watching, I mean. At least now we know why nobody was watching. Europeans in Hollywood? Like how gauche is that?
Früher fand die Verleihung der europäischen Filmpreise in Europa statt.
Like what the hell is that? Only the Coen brothers managed to hold up our flag with a modicum of self-respect and even they are probably from Brooklyn or some other semi-foreign place like that. Okay then, they're from Minnesota. But that's almost Canada.
I’ve never been as shocked while not watching the annual Academy Awards presentation shown in the middle of the night over here and than reading about it the next morning as I was this year. But I guess I wasn’t the only one. Not watching, I mean. At least now we know why nobody was watching. Europeans in Hollywood? Like how gauche is that?
Früher fand die Verleihung der europäischen Filmpreise in Europa statt.
Kommentare auf Deutsch? Logisch.
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Phrase these days:
“Auf gut deutsch:"
Literal meaning:
In proper German:
In other words:
In plain language (in other words):
"Now there arose up a new king over Egypt and he said unto his people, Behold, the people of the children of Israel are more and mightier than we: Come on, let us deal wisely with them; lest they multiply, and it come to pass, that, when there falleth out any war, they join also unto our enemies, and fight against us, and so get them up out of the land."
Dans les grandes choses, les hommes se montrent comme il leur convient de se montrer ; dans les petites, ils se montrent comme ils sont.
The negative views Germans hold vis-à-vis the United States are the accidental results of flawed reasoning, recklessly acquired erroneous judgments, well-intentioned but misguided teaching of parents and teachers, and unexamined acculturation. Of course the positve views are the result of that, too. But still.
Because giving makes you a better person.
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