a berlin blog
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a berlin blog |
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Thursday, March 30, 2006 Harbingers Every year, spring in Berlin seems to arrive during a mutually-agreed-on week, when restaurants and bars decide (maybe in secret committee) that it's now "warm enough" to put tables and chairs back on the sidewalk and relieve the people of their great winter deprivation -- the near-total lack of places to smoke and drink outdoors. The other major event that seems to occur in exactly the same week is the dispersal of rental bikes by the German rail service. ("The only good thing Deutsche Bahn has ever done," according to one reliable source.) These can be rented with a cell phone and a bank card and pedaled all over the city -- something Berliners and tourists both love to do -- which means the bikes are parked in orderly rows like this only during the first week of spring. posted by Michael Scott Moore | 6:54 PM (3) comments Hey look... I'm interviewed over at Shortcut. posted by Michael Scott Moore | 1:14 PM (0) commentsWednesday, March 29, 2006 Plus ca changeWhen Frederick decided that coffee was too expensive Johann Sebastian Bach was prompted to write the Coffee Cantata, which poked fun at the king's incessant praise of the official alternative -- beer.From Alexandra Riche's excellent Faust's Metropolis. Also: [By the 1780s] Berlin became a city of offices, bureaucrats, secretaries, and clerks.posted by Michael Scott Moore | 1:47 PM (0) comments Tuesday, March 28, 2006 The Lonesome Death of Rachel Corrie... is the name of a spanking-new Billy Bragg song about the American woman who died under an Israeli bulldozer in 2003. I'm linking to it because, of course, it's based on a Dylan song, "The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll." Here's an impressively dumb review of a show at the Somerville Theater last week (near Boston), where Bragg played it: "... a solemn new song," writes Linda Laban, "more of a free-form poem at this stage, called 'My Name is Rachel Corrie.'"Man. If you're going to review Billy Bragg for the Boston Globe, YOU BETTER FUCKING KNOW A DYLAN SONG WHEN YOU HEAR ONE. It's just barely possible that Bragg didn't sing it to the tune of "Hattie Carroll" in Somerville, but if you read the description of how "Rachel Corrie" came about on the Guardian page (above), you'll doubt it as much as I do. "My Name is Rachel Corrie" is the title of a play that just (re-)opened in London and almost got performed in Manhattan, before the New York Theater Workshop changed its mind. Interesting controversy. None of us around here feels moved to holler "censorship of Rachel's writing" the way Billy does in his song; but we'll be following the matter here at Radio Free Mike. Thanks to Kuchen. posted by Michael Scott Moore | 8:47 PM (17) comments Saturday, March 25, 2006 Wait Does Saddam have a dye job? posted by Michael Scott Moore | 1:02 AM (4) comments Thursday, March 23, 2006 Fernsehturm as Soccer Ball The company that owns Berlin's TV tower, Deutsche Telekom, has been patching over the silvery Sputnik globe with a white-and-magenta soccer ball design. I think it's sacriligious kitsch, but I don't own the tower. Deutsche Telekom presumably thinks they'll get free advertising during the World Cup, when newscasters all over the world go for "humor" or "color" by explaining with a chortle what the deal is with the big pink soccer ball on a stick. For those of you in Berlin, this is old news. For those of you in the US (or wherever), now you know the deal, so you can throw socks at your TV screen. ... Or, I guess, your computer. posted by Michael Scott Moore | 8:25 PM (15) comments "Hi. I'm a Musical Theater Major at the University of Arizona?"Oh, Liza. posted by Michael Scott Moore | 4:18 PM (2) comments"Scooter Libby is one of the most capable and talented individuals I have ever known."Oh, Lord. posted by Michael Scott Moore | 4:16 PM (0) commentsWednesday, March 22, 2006 Dylan Reference of the DayA real personal from the London Review of Books. Pretty sure "WLTM" means "would like to meet":This wheel's on fire. So is my hair. And my under-paid assistant. Beatnik chemist and perennial mis-firing love jerk (M, 35) WLTM woman to 40 with asbestos suit and no small knowledge of acids and which things from my bathroom cupboard I shouldn't be mixing them with.No, the hard drive is not better. posted by Michael Scott Moore | 8:47 PM (2) comments Tuesday, March 21, 2006 The Germany ComparisonHard drive's still down, but it's hard to resist Rumsfeld's anniversary column on the Iraq war. He's taking heat for writing that abandoning Iraq now would be like handing Germany back to the Nazis after World War II. "That is really absolutely crazy to anyone who knows history," said Zbigniew Brzezinski. "There was no alternative to our presence [in Germany]. The Germans were totally crushed. For Secretary Rumsfeld to be talking this way suggests either he doesn't know history or he's simply demagoguing."Let's be nice to Rummy for a minute. He's not just taking heat from the left, but also from the right: Everyone from David Brooks to General Paul Eaton has been blaming the poor guy for messing up their war, as if he personally mucked up what should have been a shining instance of American glory. All he means by the Nazi comparison is that if there had been organized Nazis after World War II who were in any position to take over the country, the Allies would have had a moral obligation to stand by the good German people and rebuild their nation so nothing like Hitler would ever happen again. Right? Sorry, that was sarcasm. A Jewish friend of mine who was still alive in Berlin after World War II tells me postwar Iraq looks nothing like Germany then, and never has. The German people were defeated and demoralized; there were no serious Nazi resistance movements; the scattered gangs shooting in the streets were quelled in a matter of months; electricity and water were back on quickly in Berlin because the western Allies were already trying to impress the Russians. "No, Iraq looks to me like Germany after World War I," he said -- meaning a ruined economy, street violence, and an angry, humiliated population. Rumsfeld needs to flip back through a history book and remember what that led to. posted by Michael Scott Moore | 7:40 AM (3) comments Saturday, March 18, 2006 Mercury in Retrograde... and most of the office equipment here at Radio Free Mike in a smoking pile of rubble. The hard drive doesn't work. I'm reduced a spiral notebook and a pen. I can't blog, or answer e-mail, from the spiral notebook. It'll be awhile. posted by Michael Scott Moore | 7:40 PM (5) commentsThursday, March 16, 2006 Danish Cartoonists Strike BackOver on Henryk Broder's web site. Your own damn fault if you write to him, though. posted by Michael Scott Moore | 3:36 PM (1) commentsWednesday, March 15, 2006 Too Much of Nothing in Berlin! Mike's novel is on sale now at St. George's bookstore, Woertherstrasse 27, in Prenzlauer Berg. posted by Michael Scott Moore | 2:49 PM (0) comments Monday, March 13, 2006 People Unclear on the Concept, 2When it snows a little unseasonably in Berlin, this happens: But when it snows in San Francisco:  Thanks to Indri. posted by Michael Scott Moore | 2:02 PM (6) comments Sunday, March 12, 2006 People Unclear on the Concept In Berlin, people in a Stammtisch group just get together and talk. In Cologne, people in a Stammtisch group dress up and walk in a parade. posted by Michael Scott Moore | 1:26 PM (5) comments Saturday, March 11, 2006 Those Quirky GermansAnyone with tidbits about maddening, funny, or otherwise typical German quirks is welcome to share them in comments to this post, with the understanding that they might (might) be used as material for a Spiegel Online thingy. If we quote you, and you have a blog -- this goes for every one of you Berlin bloggers -- we'll link! We already have a pretty good list, so classics like "Yelled at When Crossing Against the Light" are already on there. posted by Michael Scott Moore | 1:34 PM (13) commentsThursday, March 09, 2006 The Bad News, Cheerfully Discussed... by Salam Pax, the Baghdad blogger, in an interview on BBC. The most frank and valuable thing I've heard on the Beeb in a long time. posted by Michael Scott Moore | 5:40 PM (0) commentsWednesday, March 08, 2006 Viva ColoniaFrom Switzerland I wandered up through western Germany, starting with Heidelberg, where an intelligent and cultured friend of mine lives on a street obviously named after Led Zeppelin: I know it's named after Led Zeppelin because the other streets nearby are named after other prominent European musicians. The trip ended in Koeln. My cousin wanted to expose me to Karneval, which would be just like Mardis Gras or Carnaval in Rio if it didn't sleet most of the fucking time. Which doesn't keep Koelners from having a party:  Or making fun of their politicians:  Or, or course, their new Kanzlerin:  I have no idea who these people are: 
posted by Michael Scott Moore |
12:19 AM
(3) comments
Tuesday, March 07, 2006 OK, I'm BackI survived a gruelling Maennerwoche in Switzerland, where we slept on bunk beds and made fart jokes and drank like sailors and skiied a glacier without eating properly. Now I'm paying for it with some kind of disease. But this review of an underappreciated Dylan album, Street Legal, reminded me of long and cryptic songs I haven't listened to since college and convinced me to download them all from iTunes. The album's still brilliant. One formula for finding good new stuff is to think of an artist you like and look up the work that was panned or ignored at the time by most critics. This method will also lead you to Mr. Sammler's Planet, by Saul Bellow (if you like Bellow), and convince you to leave Ravelstein on the shelf, where it belongs.Anyway, the Dylan album is full of songs that don't make sense. But they roam with incredible force through a country that by turns feels like America, ancient Palestine, and a Jungian tarot deck. What, for example, is anyone supposed to make of "Where Are You Tonight (Journey Through Dark Heat)"? I left town at dawn With Marcel and St. John, Strong men belittled by doubt. I couldn't tell her What my private thoughts were But she had some way of finding them out ... There's a lion in the road, there's a demon escaped, There's a million dreams gone, there's a landscape being raped, As her beauty fades and I watch her undrape, I won't, but then again, maybe I might. Oh, if I could just find you tonight. I fought with my twin That enemy within Til both of us fell by the way. Horseplay and disease Is killin me by degrees While the law looks the other way. Your partners in crime Hit me up for nickels and dimes, The guy you were lovin' couldn't stay clean. It felt outa place, My foot in his face But he shoulda stayed where his money was green. ... There's a white diamond gloom On the dark side of this room And a pathway that leads up to the stars. If you don't believe there's a price For this sweet paradise, Just remind me to show you the scars. No idea. But it rocks. posted by Michael Scott Moore | 11:46 PM (4) comments | |
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