a berlin blog
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a berlin blog |
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Thursday, June 30, 2005 Is there such a thing as "American intelligence"?And if so, why doesn't the State Department seem to know if the new Iranian president was involved in sacking one of its own embassies? Am I totally out of line here? posted by Michael Scott Moore | 6:38 PMSauerkrautsBob Geldof gets radiant attention from the BBC, but his Live8 road show hasn't won over the German press. First the Berliner Zeitung kvetched about the list of bands coming to Berlin -- "A-Ha, you're just sending us the B-stars, Sir Bob?" -- and now the Tageszeitung wonders if the spectacle will help Africa at all:Cui bono? Africans? Bob Geldof and his buddy Bono from U2 are serious about "speaking truth to power." But Tony Blair and Chancellor Gordon Brown are even more serious about braking Labour's plummeting popularity. That cause is beautifully served when Bono, for example, hails the two British politicians as "the new Lennon and McCartney of international development" -- as he did in 2004.posted by Michael Scott Moore | 11:22 AM (3) comments Wednesday, June 29, 2005 Here's how I feel today
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Tuesday, June 28, 2005 A Small, Good ThingThe longer Richard Mitchell remains dead, the deeper his Underground Grammarian sinks, uh, underground. But the pamphlet was a beautiful, funny Quixotic project -- really a proto-blog -- which some of us sent off checks, in the mail, in order to read -- and the fiery essays will survive as long as people go read them. (This means you.) Reader Peter Hoh just remembered Mitchell on his new blog. posted by Michael Scott Moore | 9:21 PMStuff Just Writes Itself SometimesIn a statement posted on his Web site on Sunday, [Michael] Jackson said he could not have made it through "without God, my children, my family and you, my fans."posted by Michael Scott Moore | 1:13 AM Monday, June 27, 2005 A Panty Raid in IndonesiaIslamic hard-liners barged in on Indonesia's transvestite beauty pageant, panicking its skimpily dressed contestants, but failing to stop the show -- the second year running that the world's most populous Muslim nation has staged such an event.posted by Michael Scott Moore | 3:41 PM (1) comments Sunday, June 26, 2005 California Ueber AllesTaking a cue from Doughnut Boy, yesterday, I rode to Schlossplatz and watched some beach volleyball. Someone set up a vast sandbox in the shadow of the Palast der Republik and the Berliner Dom in order to hold the (annual) Beach Volleyball World Championships. Here's a photo of Kerri Walsh, from California, who defended her world title today with her improbably-named partner Misty May:
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Cheese Ninja to the RescueVideo here; explanation here. The Bob Dylan excerpt's a beautiful touch.It's been so long since I laughed like that I was ready to sign up for classes. UPDATE: If you don't like Quicktime, click here and scroll down. posted by Michael Scott Moore | 4:11 PM (3) comments Saturday, June 25, 2005 Laughter School Opens in GermanyI can't tell if this is funny or not: Laughter teacher Susanne Maier said people who sign up for the courses practice exercises to teach them all the different types of laughs.(Thanks to Rachel.) posted by Michael Scott Moore | 10:28 PM (4) comments Thursday, June 23, 2005 KGB in BerlinThe Neue Nationalgalerie has a fancy exhibit up this summer featuring the KGB -- a clique of young German Expressionists who got together 100 years ago to call themselves the "Kuenstlergruppe Bruecke," or "Bridge Group," apparently because they wanted to bridge the revolutionary currents flowing through Europe at the time. Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Erich Heckel, Max Pechstein, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, and Otto Mueller were all a bunch of art and architecture students in 1905 when they declared their independence from literal, heavy Wilhelminian traditions and marched down paths marked out by the post-Impressionists. The show's worth seeing; it sets the Bruecke boys in the same space as their influences (not just Art-Nouveau prints, and sketches by Van Gogh, but paintings by Gauguin and woodcarvings from New Guinea). Berlin already has a permanent Bruecke Museum, which owns the most surprising bits of this exhibit, like Kirchner's pagan stained glass and Schmidt-Rottluff's icons of the four evangelists, which were so cubist and strange, in 1912, that a Cologne church refused to hang them on the wall. Maedchen zwischen Blattpflanzen, by Otto Mueller, 1912 posted by Michael Scott Moore | 9:43 PM War With Iran?Scott Ritter, in a badly-edited essay, argues that war with Iran has already started. Back in August 2002, Radio Free Mike was one of the first blogs to point out that the air war in Iraq had started; this time things aren't as clear, since the U.S. doesn't have any part of Iran under military lockdown. But we are sending UFOs. posted by Michael Scott Moore | 3:59 PM (0) commentsTuesday, June 21, 2005 Krauts are Cool, Dad You local readers know all about the trashy, tacky, Cold-War-cocktail-party-cool aesthetic dominating Berlin right now. I assume it's a progression of Ostalgie, but the upshot is retro dance joints like Kaffee Burger, surf-ska bands from London like Plan 9, and a hot little act from Dresden called Robert and the Roboters, who played surfed-up covers of 1960s pop in the shadow of the Alte Nationalgalerie and its pompous gilded sign ("Der Deutschen Kunst") this evening before it rained. It's hard to describe the feelings of a native Californian watching kickass surf music played by Krauts in front of the Alte Nationalgalerie. But I've heard Dresden has a happening Dixieland scene. UPDATE: Graphic no doubt copyrighted, by this site over here. posted by Michael Scott Moore | 9:14 PM Hey LookAn old friend, Rick Berlin -- who named himself after the German metropolis long before he ever visited it -- like Lou Reed and his album -- is working on an oral history of Jamaica Plain. posted by Michael Scott Moore | 9:02 PMSunday, June 19, 2005 Waterbones... is also in a rather fine lather about napalm use in Iraq, which I didn't know about, either. The editrix there thinks Bush can be legally impeached, and so do I. In the end I think the Iraq invasion will be seen as a clever and forward-looking strategy to keep huge reserves of oil out of the hands of fundamentalist Muslims (while we go about destabilizing the rest of the Middle East). Will it be worth the blood and damage to America's name? Probably not, but more than anything I want to keep the lying, theatrical Bush style of going to war from becoming an American style: a precedent. But I'm probably a romantic fool. posted by Michael Scott Moore | 11:08 PM (1) commentsJames Wolcott... is breathing fire this weekend. posted by Michael Scott Moore | 9:13 PMFriday, June 17, 2005 The Story So Far, For You American ReadersGerhard Schroeder has set the date for a so-called "confidence vote" in his government for July 1. The idea is calculated political suicide: He expects the parliament to collapse his cabinet and force early elections in the fall. How this will help Schroeder no one can quite figure out. Some people think he just wants out of his job. A few others think he'll squeak through; but the tea leaves (or at least reports from Reuters) keep saying that European leaders will have to learn a new name after September, the name of the first woman to rule a German-speaking nation since Maria Theresa sat in a Viennese throne: Angela. posted by Michael Scott Moore | 3:29 PMThursday, June 16, 2005 How to Dissolve Free Speech 2Of course, if you're not an Indonesian president or a professor in the Department of Educational Leadership, you can get a bunch of your young-Republican homies together and try to pass a Students' Bill of Rights. In other words: Clip a short paragraph out of a professors' statement of ethics (where it damn well belongs), and turn it into law. posted by Michael Scott Moore | 10:44 AMWednesday, June 15, 2005 Who Felt the Earthquake?Comments are on, for readers in California. Since there was a tsunami warning, everyone on BBC and CNN has been speculating wildly about the whole Pacific Rim. Or is it so wild? Things have been shaking and erupting for months now, not just in Indonesia but also Washington state, Japan, Alaska, Chile, and southern California. posted by Michael Scott Moore | 10:08 AM (10) commentsTuesday, June 14, 2005 How to Dissolve Free SpeechIf you're Indonesia's newish president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, allow a court to jail a Balinese student for burning your photograph:"[The president] is trying to send a message that he upholds the freedom of speech, but in accordance with our values and ethics," Andi Mallarangeng, Mr Yudhoyono's spokesman, said yesterday. "You can say anything you want, but you don't have to burn pictures or anything like that."If, on the other hand, you're a "professor in the Department of Educational Leadership," whatever that means, in Hayward, show your selfless devoltion to La Causa by supporting a boycott on a Richard Rodriguez graduation speech, because the man doesn't toe the line on Latino integration: Rodriguez, author of the acclaimed memoir "Hunger of Memory," drew criticism from some students for his views against bilingual education and affirmative action.Richard Rodriguez bowed out of the speech, but Gonzales -- masquerading as a liberal -- is still allowed to influence tender minds. posted by Michael Scott Moore | 10:29 AM Friday, June 10, 2005 Only a Question of Time
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Tuesday, June 07, 2005 400-pound Copper Lady Just Can't Take it Anymore, With the Pigeons
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Sunday, June 05, 2005 "Mr. Gorbachev, Tear Down This Wall"One thing that irritates me about Berlin Wall memorials is the way Reagan's 1987 speech at the Brandenburg Gate tends to be treated like prophecy, or at least like strong leadership in an uncertain world. Because -- gosh! -- just two years later that wall did come down, didn't it? Reagan must've known something! He must've had an inside track. At the very least, he was bold enough to dream.I've written that Reagan had the right idea, about Communism, just like George Bush has the right Big Idea about democracy, as opposed to tyranny. I mean, duh. But the details are always inconvenient for ideologues who prefer to take their politicians at face value. Marc over at Misanthropicity points out that Reagan got lucky. His CIA, his cabinet, and his Pentagon were all founded on the prospect of a nice long Cold War, with no end in sight for the mighty Soviet Empire. When it surprised everyone by collapsing, they were on record with the right sound bites and high-flown rhetoric, but their actual resume of behavior -- from the Iran-Contra and Contra-cocaine scandals to support for Bin Laden in Afghanistan -- was not what you would dare call pro-democratic, not in the U.S. and not in little nations like Nicaragua, where democratic elections were against our foreign policy. Sorry: "Tear down this wall" was just good theater. It wasn't historic. Didn't David Bowie give a protest concert near the Brandenburg Gate at around the same time? Didn't he get people to chant about tearing down the wall? How come he doesn't get any credit? posted by Michael Scott Moore | 9:02 PM (4) comments Friday, June 03, 2005 Summer in BerlinI just bought a bike, which is easily the finest way to see Berlin in the summer. Not only is the city flat and crisscrossed by bike paths, but the countryside around Berlin has paved roads through the fields and trees that aren't even wide enough for a car. I have yet to visit the countryside; but here's a photo essay of some local urban landmarks.Here's the famous Riva Bar:  Here's a hotel where my mom happens to be staying:  And here's an especially beautiful and well-preserved old Hohenzollern remnant on Torstrasse:  As soon as I get to those countryside bike paths I'll post more photos. posted by Michael Scott Moore | 10:08 PM Thursday, June 02, 2005 Like I Need Another ReasonI just found half a 100-Euro bill in a bag of Crunchips. It's a cardboard facsimile, not the real thing, but if I find the other half in another bag I'll get 100 Euros for real. This is so exciting I can't even talk about it. I eat at least one bag a day, and now I'm halfway to earning back my quarterly junk-food budget.Crunchips remind me of a cheap sort of Kettle Chip, which I bought in the States because because of the flavor names: Mature Cheddar and Chive, Yogurt With Green Onions, Roasted Pepper With Goat Cheese. No matter which flavor you bought the chips tasted the same. Crunchips have a little more variety -- they vary salt and maybe paprika content -- but I think basically the tangy red powder must come from the same factory in Newark. posted by Michael Scott Moore | 12:12 AM (5) comments | |
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