There won’t be much happening here for the duration of March, as I’ll be focused on studying for some exams. Meanwhile, please feed the fish.

Seems to have the U.S. at the top, the first time in 80 years. Of course, it won’t count psychologically if Canada beats the U.S. in hockey tonight. And look at Germany up there.

Very Basement Tapes Dylan, this recording, not least the lyrics. I love it.

Zookeeper - Snow in Berlin

There’s a cold German in a bar in Berlin
With the blueprints of an architect still searching through
His pockets for a dream-maker or a chance-taker
Or the will he should have written by now
But he’s been thinking bout them ships sinking
For his whole half-lived private school life
At home silver spoons gleaming
In his eyes a vision dark as midnight in Berlin
Where we stand fearing it’s all a bit much
As great incubators ventilate to compensate
Our every step and repay each breath
And he sees building rising, sees mice climbing
Thinks of how the fall has come and gone
And all its color and calm
Now lay surrendered to Salvation Army vendors
Life insurance witch doctors
All these poor men in rich men’s clothes
And the snow in Berlin covering everything in white dress
Making us all look like such creatures tonight
And that wall is going up and coming down again
And we’ll celebrate like it’s the first time
Not just in our minds
As that snow piles up and he begins to look so mysterious
Like, “Oh, my God, I can see him now
That ghost writer saying, ‘Hello, Spider
You’re in my web now and I will see that you’re never at ease’”
And his eyes screaming for a soul to see him
Pull him out and free him from that pitiful rabbit suit
Just drops down right in the street and lies there
Getting lighter and lighter til it’s static in every view
And the snow in berlin covering everything in white dress
Making us all look like such creatures tonight
Just the snow in Berlin covering everything in white dress
Making us all look like such creatures tonight
Making us look like creation’s lucky bride
Making us look like such beautiful things stood up tonight

Some things are better unimproved, un-messed-with. Case in point: zombies. I prefer the old style, slow, lurching, shuffling kind. Sure, the new running zombies are scarier because they can catch up with you—whereas you can just walk away from a slow one—but, as Brent McKnight rightfully says, the slower ones are arguably scarier because they’ll eventually get you.

The core argument of fast zombie proponents is inherently flawed. Proponents of fast zombies confuse zombie movies with action movies, while in reality zombie movies are more akin to suspense movies. Sure, a fast reanimated body is more likely to jump out of a shadowy bush, and a foot race across a parking lot will provide a quick burst of adrenaline, but a swarm of rotting zombies, gradually moving towards you over a field, creates tension and suspense. Every time you look at them they are closer, creeping towards you and your loved ones. The effect harkens back to Hitchcock’s maxim that you don’t just show the bomb go off, true tension lies in watching the timer tick down.

Update: This just in—the original vampires were zombies. Take that, Twilight.

The United States is—so says Klaus F. Zimmerman, convincingly.

In case you wondered why the ice started to melt…

First solo exhibition in Berlin by London-based Swedish artist and photographer Sara Young.

Friday, February 19, 19:00-23:00 Uhr @ Galerie ZeitZone

Adalbertstr. 79 [map]

Just a few weeks ago (it seems a lot longer) we—the quintet of my sister Rebecca, her soon-to-be husband Jorge, their college friend Katie, Yuhang and I—found ourselves driving along the coast of Santa Cruz, California in search of nothing, which is to say without serious responsibilities apart from eventually getting to the beach and enjoying the time in between to do nothing but whatever we felt like doing, one of those rare and lovely pockets of time without ambition. Tasks, many tasks would return the following week in the pre-wedding rush (not to mention torrents of historically heavy rains), but for the sunny now we had time to burn. Driving along aimless and spaced pleasantly out, we were listening to the records we’d just acquired from Rasputin Music in Berkeley. This one came on and I think Jorge was the first, but soon we were all car-dancing, bobbing our heads, waving our arms around, grooving, a rave in a rental. I’m sure it looked hilarious to passers-by, which only made it better. Nothing like spontaneous group ridiculousness.

LCD Soundsystem - North American Scum (Onanistic Dub)

SLAB Magazine critiques one of the more obvious design flaws of the Sony Center on Potsdamer Platz, one that’s been super evident this frosty winter.

Metal floor panels in a plaza? Excuse the parlance, but what in shit-fuckery were Murphy/Jahn Architects thinking? Here’s a little hint from your friends at SLAB, free of charge: metal is slippery when wet. That’s sound advice, write it down. Even in summer you have to watch how you go here with a pair of tread-worn sneakers on your feet, but in winter, after almost two months of snow and freezing weather, this is trecherous madness.

I’m also happy to learn that the Sony Center’s contour emulates Mount Fuji, which I’d not noticed but does make sense if you tilt your head to the side.

Since it’s technically still last year, by Chinese standards (by a hair), I will allow myself a few seconds to lovingly, obsessively and nerdishly list my favourite ten tracks from the past 365 days… It was a good year for music. I promise that all these tunes will quicken your heart and stiffen your ear hairs.

01. Moth - Burial & Four Tet
02. Empire State of Mind - Jay-Z & Alicia Keys
03. I’m Confused - Handsome Furs
04. Two Weeks - Grizzly Bear
05. Ostia - Zu
06. White Liar - Miranda Lambert
07. Oh My God - Ida Maria
08. The Gnashing - Baroness
09. Animal - Miike Snow
10. Crystalised - The xx

Tip magazine, the Berlin biweekly, had a cover story last December about where to get the best dumplings (Teigtaschen) in town. Having lived here for a decade now (as of November), I can confirm that this is something that has definitely changed for the better—ten years ago, just having a pile of noodles was enough to qualify as Chinese food.

Now, in 2010, not only is there a modestly wide variety of Chinese eateries to choose from (including some very creative Sino-Euro fusions), but Berliners can opt for the Russian and Indian varieties of dumplings too, also included in the Tip piece (which has been scanned and uploaded for your perusal here). It’s an interesting overview and they go so far as giving starred reviews to the twelve or so establishments that seem to have been, sadly, chosen at random. I say random only because they made one glaring omission by leaving out the best jiaozi joint in town, the unassailable Wok Show.

One of the better round-ups on the literature from the recent economic implosion makes a simple but striking point. It cuts to the core of the big snow job 99% of the public underwent in past, say, decade of financial and political bamboozlement.

What was easy to convey was that something about the past ten years had been unsustainable. But the truth—that an entire ideology had been unsustainable—is one that we have not yet grasped. And that is why so many journalists, economists, intellectuals and financiers now scramble to churn out books that for the most part read like the memoirs of people trying to make themselves feel less stupid. The current financial system was constructed to make us all feel stupid, and in the process of building it the architects allowed themselves to become stupid as well. That ignorance begat infantilization, which bred cowardice and systemic moral decay. The only sustainable way out is to reacquaint ourselves and our fellow citizens with the wisdom of asking stupid questions.

After much close listening, half-way listening, breakfast listening, dinner listening, concentrated listening, headphone listening, annoyed listening, enthralled listening, these are the records I enjoyed the most last year.

1. Hildur Guðnadóttir - Without Sinking
…dark and lovely Scandinavian melodicism, landscaping with cello…

2. Califone - All My Friends Are Funeral Singers
…dusty, evocative Americana created by aliens on a distant planet…

3. Isis - Wavering Radiant
…always a huge fan, I was blown away by their live show…

4. Baroness - Blue Record
…most enjoyable metal I’ve heard in a while, psyched to see ‘em in Berlin…

5. Fuck Buttons - Tarot Sport
…sounds like 30 years in the past and 30 years in the future…

6. Mountain Goats - The Life of the World to Come
…would that more Christians would make music like this…

7. Om - God Is Good
…meditation music by blissed out metalheads, like Ravi Shankar and Ozzy…

8. Moderat - Moderat
…the zoomy Berlin sound done right, sprinkle of dubstep, accidental classic…

9. Flaming Lips - Embryonic
…some bands should be allowed to jam just as much as they like…

10. Tom Russell - Blood and Candle Smoke
…if Cormac McCarthy were still a songwriter he’d be Tom Russell…

My methods of analysis are, of course, completely scientific and non-arbitrary. This list is the absolute truth. There’s no hip-hop because last year was a really bad one for hip-hop. No jazz ’cause I only listen to the old stuff.

One thing in indie music from 2009 that came to a boil were bands that sound like they’ve been listening to a lot The Band and CSN, like pastoral country bumpkin campfire music from the early 70s. Maplewood, The Clientele, Blizen Trapper, Megafaun, Midlake, Akron/Family, etc. I guess I like it, but it reminds me a lot of the late 90s alt.country thing, except this time more cosmic than cow punk. These things must be like economic cycles. More power to ‘em. I’m just glad they haven’t developed a genre name for it yet.

Also, I really liked a Lady Gaga song—but I won’t say which one.

I was a bit sad to hear the Ramones Museum in Kreuzberg had closed before I got to visit it. So, you can imagine how happy I was to see it reopen, new and improved in Mitte. Complete with cafe. Which is, you know, a bit Hard Rock Cafe-ish, but if it helps keep the place funded, more power too ‘em. It is, after all, the only Ramones Museum in the world. (There’s not even one in New York.) So add this to your list. I haven’t even been yet, but I thought I’d put it on y’all’s radars anyway.

Ramones Museum Berlin
Krausnickstr. 23
10115 Berlin-Mitte

(around the corner from the New Synagogue on Oranienburger Straße)

Well, that was a crazy decade. Some are saying the Naughty Aughties were the worst decade ever, nearly as ridiculous as calling them the best ever. Without getting all Dickens out up in here, it really was the best and the worst of times—quite possibly my favourite decade personally even while it was my least favourite geopolitically. Sorry about that, world. It looks like my personal happiness and your general well-being have an inverse relationship. Which I guess means if I’m having a bad day, at least I can assume that some rain forest is getting saved somewhere or an ethnic conflict has been resolved, or something. Or did I misunderstand the Avatarian idea of interconnectedness?

Neko Case - Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis (Tom Waits cover)

Hey Charlie I’m pregnant and living on the 9th street
Right above a dirty bookstore off Euclid Avenue
And I stopped takin’ dope and I quit drinkin’ whiskey
And my old man plays the trombone works out at the track

Hey Charlie for Chris sakes if you want to know the truth of it?
I don’t have a husband he don’t play the trombone
And I need to borrow money to pay this lawyer
And Charlie, hey I’ll be eligible for parole come Valentines Day

Remember the movie The Matrix? Remember the creators, the Wachowski bros, the future of cinema? That didn’t quite happen (ah, 2000 was an innocent, hopeful time, wasn’t it?). Their output has been a little choppy since–but they did make the pretty good V for Vendetta (let’s not talk about Matrix II, III or Speed Racer). Well, they just released this little bugger, Ninja Assassin, which title I can’t believe was still available. Obviously, every last 1980s action film director assumed it was taken, too, leaving it available for the Wachowskis to snap it up 20 years later.

The movie was shot in Berlin (which has a MUCH bigger organized crime problem than I thought) and features a very buff version of the Korean pop star Rain as said assassin. (My sister, who lives in South Korea, tells me Rain is a very big deal there.) Critics have given the movie a drubbing (except for at least one who’s convinced it’s one of the best action films of the decade). I dunno, but I think I’m gonna part with the critics on this one, too. Sure, it looks dumb, but the good sort, not the Michael Bay sort. This trailer is the “red band” version (children look away), which is quite slashy and bloody, if cartoonishly so. Watching it, you can tell it’s set in Berlin because a cop says “Scheiße” and it ends with a WTF Wäscherei scene. I’m gonna see it, critics be damned.

Man, conscious rappers hate that phrase, even ones from the Left Coast of the U.S., which has the world’s largest per capita head count of hippies. But the phrase is especially appropriate when you’re talking about an alternate rapper in the true sense, a cat who’s developed and perfected his own jazz-inflected style for decades, gained mad respect in the underground without giving a damn about following trends, not for a second. And for just that reason, the next-next generation of hip-hop artists will be referencing Myka 9 and his crazily compelling internal rhyme schemes in 2019 and 2029 like they were the first to discover him. This track, off the record of the same name, is a tribute to that revolutionary year forty years ago, the year Myka 9 was born, all those flavorful happenings and the waves that kept right on waving into the future.

Myka 9 - 1969

Update: what are the chances (?) but Mr. 9’s coming to Berlin just a few days from now for the “Third MC Challenge” at Berlin weekly hip-hop extravaganza End of the Weak at Cassiopeia this Saturday, December 5. Be there.

William Burroughs would’ve loved this town. Walking around the area of Kottbusser Tor, I think sometimes I’ve walked right into Naked Lunch. It’s got the obscenity, the freaks, the superfreaks, the rain-streaked bleakness, junkies, literate junkies, stupid junkies, romantic junkies and the cornucopia of psychotropic offerings to support them, each user his own self-proclaimed prophet of ancient apocalyptic wisdom. Today riding the subway line U8, the north-south one bisecting central Berlin, I was reading a book. When the train arrived at Hermannplatz, a blond-haired man in his 40s, wearing a rough wool sweater matching his hair in colour and dishevelled-ness, got on and plopped down at my right. He smelled about seven days away from his last shower, which wasn’t terrible, but was noticeable. About the time he saw I was reading a book, in English, he said, “Guck!” (Look!), propped his left leg on his right one and pulled up the pant leg to expose the inner calf. In freshly razor-carved block letters was written “GOD IS A JEW ♥” The cuts were still healing. He seemed pretty proud of it. He pulled down his sock to show me the heart. I smiled thinly in acknowledgement, but couldn’t think of anything to say, anything at all. And I usually have something to say for most situations. I went back to my book, though I couldn’t really concentrate on reading.

One of the New Yorker’s best writers just spent the last three or so months on a stint with the American Academy. And before I could post something about it, he’s already returned to the U.S. But not before blogging about Berlin’s life-threatening bike paths and aggressively-named streets. Or writing about 1989. Or getting into a spat with U.S. Supreme Court Justice Scalia.

For obvious historical reasons, Germany has a conflicted relationship with its military forces. For more than a few pacifist Germans (and in a way ‘pacifist’ is nearly synonymous with being German today), the fact that the country even has active armed forces is barely tolerable. That’s why Nicholas Kulish’s piece No Parade for Hans resonated with me. It described a scene I’ve seen many times in Berlin. In countless train stations I’ve also seen the “sad, lone figure of a soldier, heavy pack on his back, waiting for a train like the rest of us, but separated from the crowd by the uniform he wears.” Veteran’s Day happened last week in the U.S., a country in which “support out troops” is almost a mantra and politicians who don’t do it risk career suicide. Even the most strident American opponents to the Iraq War bend over backwards to assert their support of the troops despite their opposition to the war. For better or worse, America is a patriotic country and honoring its soldiers is part and parcel of that patriotism. Not so in Germany. One sergeant told Kulish about waiting at a train station in Berlin and being told to by someone to “make himself scarce or he would be beaten up.” I’m not making a claim on the war in Afghanistan, one way or the other; I’m just saying it strikes me that it can’t be that easy to be a German soldier these days when you’re more than likely to get ridiculed by your countrymen, if you get any response at all.