This is doubtless the most noteworthy experience experience of our five-day furlough in Spain. On Sunday, Marc suggested we drive over to the coastal city of Sitges, just outside of Barcelona, to see the traditional Catalan group activity (and competitive sport) known as castell, i.e. towers built by levels of humans standing on the shoulders [...]

Yesterday, flying out of sunny 20°C Barcelona and landing in wet 10°C Berlin, (yes, the change was quite jarring) I noticed the leaves have already dropped from a good third of the deciduous trees. Does it happen that fast? I’m quite sure the leaves were all there when we left the city on Thursday. Viewed [...]

That they exist is surely obvious to many, but as a resident of the northern European climes, it came as something of a shock to yours truly. Albeit a pleasant shock. Yes, I’ve seen Sardinia before, but that’s an island so it doesn’t count as continental Europe.

The blazing sun today has made a mockery [...]

Hey, I’m in Barcelona for the next five days. But don’t get jealous yet, Berliners: it’s raining here and they’ve got train delays too a la today’s DB strike. It’s all tapas and sangria for now. (Please email or sms to my mobile till Tuesday, cause I can’t handle the roaming fees.) Off to peep [...]

Considing some of the far out things that Chinese artist Zhang Huan has done, this is downright pedestrian — for him. His new work, called simply “Berlin Buddha”, provokes but does not offend. Rather, it plays with expectations of what a Buddha statue should be. [more photos @ eyeteeth and WMMNA]

As the first big installation [...]

You may be wondering why this blog site now seems to be loading every single time you try it. So consistently stable and always online? That’s not normal, right? Well, after five months of on-again, off-again, I’ve finally managed to migrate this confounded WordPress page over to a new server, one that seems to be [...]

Oh, man. This is the best clip I’ve seen in a while. American film director David Lynch is touring around his Foundation for Consciousness-Based Education and World Peace, which strongly promotes trancendental meditation as a solution to the world’s problems (negativity, mainly). I’ve been following the Foundation’s goings-on because, well, I think it’s a great [...]

So I’m not even gonna try to compete with Radiohead’s pay-what-you-want model or new longplayer, In Rainbows, which is all over the internets. If you can’t find it, then how’s the weather in North Korea? Rolling Stone [1] and Pitchfork [2] are offering their track-by-track reviews.

Montreal-based Vice magazine is free, spreads its crass bohemian empire worldwide and is owned by elitist white conservatives. It is, however, frequently entertaining. And as every X-genner knows, it’s our God-given right to be entertained. Vice landed in Deutschland two years ago and already they’re touting their expertise on deutsche NITELIFE aka Berlin. Anyway, here [...]

I, Yuhang and approximately one bajillion Germans gathered at the Brandenburg Gate Wedesday night for a big open-air concert, broadcast Fan-mile-style on a series of huge vid-screens along the stretch between the Gate and the Siegessaeule. Since I worked that day, I missed Berlin’s 2raumwohnung and Sportfreunde Stiller but made it by 21:00 in time [...]

Then count yourself lucky, because I’ve only been able to read my own damn site every third try for most of the summer (arrrgh). The provider tells me the server is in Karlsruhe, but I’m thinking that’s code for Taiwan. Anyway, I’m on the case and hope to see some improvement in transfer speeds, etc. [...]