a berlin blog
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a berlin blog |
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Saturday, July 22, 2006 THIS BLOG HAS MOVED! The old links will stay where they are, with full working archives on the right, so if you miss the old design you can always come back. And we're still based in Berlin. But as of today, Radio Free Mike -- I mean the whole site, not just the blog -- is re-vamped, redesigned, relaunched, and running like mad over here. God, are we happy. Please, please change your bookmarks and links. (RSS feeds might be OK, but you can check from the new page.) UPDATE: RSS feeds are not OK. More later. UPDATE: New Atom feed should be as follows. posted by Michael Scott Moore | 3:07 PM (2) comments Q'est-ce que c'est? For more on Berlin's TV tower, including the source of Radio Free Mike's nifty mouseoverable new broadcast icon, scroll through our archives from January 2006. posted by Michael Scott Moore | 3:06 PM (0) comments Friday, July 21, 2006 What, Me Worry?Here are two good but opposing columns on the new war in Lebanon. One from Richard Brookhiser at the New York Observer, who asks a tough question -- "Would we be better off coming to this pass with Saddam Hussein still in his palaces, with his oil revenues flowing to terrorists?" -- and the other from William Pfaff, who for my money is the only person to put his finger on what was really wrong with Bush's open-mic chat with Blair (though Pfaff gets the city wrong):This was the implication of George W. Bush’s fatuous 4-minute overheard conversation in Moscow with Tony Blair, where he demanded that Kofi Annan “get on the phone with [Syria’s Bashar al-Assad] and make something happen. See, the irony is that what they have to do is get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this shit, and it’s over.”Discuss, please. posted by Michael Scott Moore | 9:11 AM (3) comments Birth of the BluesHere's an amazing little Rat Pack video that includes Johnny Carson, for some reason, singing next to Frank. They must be on Carson's show. Things are running a little high even for this crowd -- just watch Dean dance -- but they still have impeccable timing. Sammy in particular:This is my first YouTube video, ever. posted by Michael Scott Moore | 8:09 AM (6) comments Thursday, July 20, 2006 Some Like it Hot You, wherever you are, might think you're having a heat wave. But Berlin has been like a Swedish sauna for two weeks. It's hard to believe this place ever gets cold. I'll admit London may be worse ("The London underground system, the oldest in the world, was a furnace on Tuesday with a record temperature of 47 C"), but the heat in Berlin somehow manages to be humid and dry at the same time -- muggy thunderstorm weather that the stone buildings and sandy ground trap and radiate into the sky at night. July may be the hottest month here in a century. If this keeps up 2006 may also be sunnier than 2003, which was especially hard on the French but produced some of the best German Riesling in almost fifty years. posted by Michael Scott Moore | 9:05 AM (1) comments Public Service AnnouncementThe address of this blog will change in a few days. Please have your fingers ready over link-changing buttons, etc. posted by Michael Scott Moore | 9:03 AM (5) commentsMonday, July 17, 2006 Surfin' EuropeOkay, now that two people have sent me this link to a Guardian piece about surfing in the UK, I guess I should pass it along. At first, the photo of a righteous crowd in the water at Polzeath Beach "in north Cornwall" is alarming. Who knew England had so many surfers? But then you notice something: All those people are using Morey Doyles! Foam sponges! Probably rented up the beach for seven pounds an hour. People, I'm sorry, but that's not surfing. It's Boogie Boarding, or what Australians like to call Esky lidding. posted by Michael Scott Moore | 11:02 PM (3) commentsSaturday, July 15, 2006 Hard to Know Where to Start Dept.Salon has a good piece on Pete, the Virginia anti-abortion blogger who mistook an old Onion piece for real opinion and went to town on "Caroline Weber" for being "totally psyched" about her upcoming abortion. This was all over the web last week, and the wonderful thing about Pete's website -- before he took down all the comments -- was that even after he had been ridiculed from around the globe for not understanding The Onion, he still acted as if "Caroline Weber" was a real person, rather than a longtime figment of his imagination.The punchline? He's German. "I come from Germany -- a German economy, a German culture, German friends. And Germans have no humor." When he first came to the States, he said, he worked at Wells Fargo, where he befriended "a bunch of good old boys" who used to prank him. "They'd tease me to the point where I'd say, 'Really?' and they'd say, 'No, you idiot! When are you going to get it?' So I've been struggling with this kind of thing for a long time."posted by Michael Scott Moore | 1:00 PM (1) comments Friday, July 14, 2006 Behind the CurtainA repeat for some of you, for others maybe a revelation... Q: What is Trader Joe's secret? Where does the American store get its stylish, eclectic assortment of organic and European foods? Who is Joe, anyway, and how can he sell his fashionable stuff so cheap? A: Theo Albrecht, owner of the mundane (and cut-rate) Aldi supermarkets in Germany, bought Trader Joe's while it was still a smallish Los Angeles concern in 1977. Here's an Aldi store in Berlin: 
posted by Michael Scott Moore |
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Monday, July 10, 2006 The Department of Contradictory FoodFirst, I have to point out that creepy semi-generic fatty-food statues don't exist in Berlin alone; they span the globe. But Ed Ward found a place here that wants to cash in on the trend of American sausage products without scaring off dieters: Contest: Where in Berlin do you find "organic hot dogs"? And what are they made from? Free-range pigs, oder wat? posted by Michael Scott Moore | 4:39 PM (1) comments Sunday, July 09, 2006 Allez les bleus! Oh fuck.Until almost the last minute I have to admit I thought France was winning. I didn't pay very close attention. I just saw a guy in a white uniform miss a goal and clapped really hard. This was after reading discussions like this one about how both teams have blue uniforms. Well, whatever. When's the Superbowl again? posted by Michael Scott Moore | 11:00 PM (2) commentsSaturday, July 08, 2006 Klinsmann WatchI don't really care what Juergen Klinsmann does with himself after he leaves Berlin, but it seems like a duty for us at Radio Free Mike to track whether he'll take over Team USA and reform American soccer. Here he denies the rumors again (but still leaves the possibility wide open). There's a persistent rumor in the British press that Klinsmann lives in "Santa Barbara," but that's wrong -- he lives about three hours away, in Huntington Beach.The Daily News has more. posted by Michael Scott Moore | 2:02 PM (0) comments Friday, July 07, 2006 The Legendary"Ninety-five-point-five, K-L-O-S -- Los Angeles." Wow. I haven't heard that in years, and I'm not sure what just made me think of it. Some things never change. posted by Michael Scott Moore | 6:19 PM (3) comments Thursday, July 06, 2006 There Goes the NeighborhoodTwo reasons for living on my street, the condom shop and the cheese shop, have closed. This is a disaster. The condom shop, just in theory -- I didn't go in there every morning -- but what, please, is the point of living in Europe if you can't have a cheese shop a few doors away? Of course it's a sign of gentrification, rising rents, Berlin bohos becoming parents, etc. There was already a baby-clothes shop next to the condom place. (In case of product failure.) But guess what finally pushed the condoms out? Dingdingdingdingding Richtig! A "baby-mama spa." Anyone who knows what that is, please enlighten me in the comments section. posted by Michael Scott Moore | 6:11 PM (4) comments Wednesday, July 05, 2006 Das Macht Uns Nix. Ehrlich.The first goal Italy scored last night, in late overtime, happened so fast that most of the crowd on Zionskirchstrasse failed to notice. But it was like the shot that killed the President. Why's that Italian player celebrating? Oh God -- All of Berlin fell silent, I think, except for some Italian cafes. Germans in the overflowing restaurants and bars, who had been following the game like a single fan, started behaving like frustrated individuals again, getting in each other's way, kicking empty beer bottles, drifting into the street with useless plastic horns.Ah, well. The whole German-pride thing was getting scary anyhow. As a consolation prize I offer this link to webcams at Berlin's Olympic Stadium, which you can use on Sunday to watch the crowd as nations with better food sqare off for the title. posted by Michael Scott Moore | 12:48 PM (1) comments Tuesday, July 04, 2006 Naumburger Hochzeit When an East German chick you knew fifteen years ago (not pictured) who successfully protested her government as a student -- meaning, protested until the government fell -- and went on to do well in American public TV and marry a Muslim anthropologist, only to bring all her friends and all her husband's friends back to eastern Germany for a wedding celebration, and cart them around in a bus until it seems like the bus itself is the party, filled as it is with a huge mix of rowdy foreigners that the little town has probably never seen, in its thousand years or so of existence -- at least not driving backwards down a lane in a giant tour bus, singing The Scorpions out of tune -- um, well, the only thing I can imagine improving on a party like that is if your date lights up a cigar.
posted by Michael Scott Moore |
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Monday, July 03, 2006 Carnival of German-American RelationsJust in time for July 4th, the Blog Carnival of German-American Relations has kicked off over at Davids Medienkritik and Extrablog -- a German blog written by Olaf Petersen, and obviously the one I favor because Olaf picked an entry of mine. Hooray! Except that Olaf doesn't live in Berlin, so I can't invite him to the Stammtisch. These online carnivals are only so festive. posted by Michael Scott Moore | 11:56 PM (0) comments | |
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