By Ariel Molvig, publ. in the New Norker last July.

There’s something obviously circular about The New York Review of Books running a round-up of books on blogs, a review I read online mind you. Sarah Boxer, who wrote one of her own despite finding the idea “dreadful” at first, makes some interesting observations about the last ten years or so in blogification. I’m impressed [...]

Punktlichkeit der S-Bahn “nicht so toll”

This kind of thing is why I love living in this bastard town.
CLUB TRANSMEDIALE.08 – UNPREDICTABLE
festival for adventurous music and related visual arts
25 January - 2 February 2008
Various venues, Berlin
artists include VITALIC, MOUSE ON MARS, CONRAD SCHNITZLER and the awesomely named WOLVES IN THE THRONE ROOM

Well ahead of Valentine’s Day here’s the song (in case you were wondering) that plays over the semi-animated opening sequence of Juno, the little indie movie that has blown up to such proportions that A.O. Scott is praising it and the Academy Awards are nominating it. I’ll go ahead and say it too: great, enjoyable, [...]

Yesterday in the S-bahn I saw someone reading an article in the tabloid B-Z about a famous actor doing a “Kneipen-Tour” in Berlin. Yep, America’s favourite cigar-chomping alpha male and silver screen psycho is in the city gearing up for the Berlinale to promote his elderly buddy movie (is that a genre now?) with Morgan [...]

There’s a lot to love about Sarah Vowell’s MLK Day op-ed, Radical Love Gets a Holiday, especially these days when everyone seems to be chattering about Ronald Reagan; even Barack Obama (gasp) is doing it. For one thing, the Gipper actually tried to scupper Dr. King’s holiday before it got rescued by Congress, what she [...]

Apropos the yummy food from Charité displayed and discussed below, there is something at least elementary school funny (albeit a school offering basic German classes) about this news from the Berliner Zeitung:
Mann aus Essen soll neuer Charité-Finanzchef werden

You were just wondering: hey! if Berlin is so young, hot, international and cinematic as it’s cracked up to be, then why doesn’t it have a 6-day-long film festival showcasing nu Asian film? Well, silly, it actually does and the whole shebang starts today. Asian Hot Shots, in true Berlin film fest trad, is featuring [...]

Like J.C. (Johnny Cash) before him, Appalachian wonder Will Oldham aka Bonnie Prince Billy covers a Danzig song and makes it his own, proving metal sturm to be of the same cloth as mountain drang.
Bonnie Prince Billy - Am I Demon
Need I say more? Ney. I needn’t, so I shan’t. (except for thx, Micah!)

Two weeks into the new Berlin-wide smoking ban in public buildings — something many avid smokers will remind you was also enforced by Hitler — I notice, travelling the U8, these faux-helpful signs in the U-bahn with a cheerful, freckled cartoon brunette sporting a BVG hat reminding passengers not to eat on the subway because, [...]

It’s very possible that Berlin city planners have not seen the same movies I have, but when think “big shiny cubic object” I think: evil, run away. This is the monstrosity of a project awarded to Danish architects 3XN to be built on Washingtonplatz where the German government building cluster is located. I think it’s [...]

Last year was a great one for live musics. One of my big justifications for clawing myself into a Berlin residence was/is having neighborhood access to a vast cornicopia of artists that pass through this town on the over and undergrounds. Ok, this is not going to be a thorough look-back whatsoever, but I just [...]

@ the NYT. They just hired Bill Kristol and they’re actively covering cray-cray Britney. I’m not sure which is the greater evil but I suspect it has something to do with defending red-state territory against Rupert Murdoch and his repositioning WSJ. Apparently, hiring an arch neo-con operative (and remorseless Iraq warmonger) is how you get [...]

Quiz: which well-known Berlin institution serves this as a “meal”?
a. the infamous Rütli grade school in Neukölln
b. the maximum security prison in Moabit
c. the esteemed Charite hospital (to postnatal mothers)
Note: the pink cylinder is Teewurst, a spreadable sausage. Thx, Matthias!

I’d have to say the most frequently asked question among Berlin expats and most specifically to/from Pacific-oriented (including Californian) friends is not why’s it so cold? what’s wrong with jaywalking? or what’s Berliner Schnauze?
No, the top Berlin FAQ seems to be where can I find real Chinese food? The problem is that most Chinese eateries [...]

Hells, yeah. That’s what I have to say about Barack Obama’s decisive victory at the Iowa Caucuses last night (giving him, historically speaking, a 62.5% chance at the Democratic party election). It’s unfortunately insult to injury for Hillary who takes third by a hair to John Edwards (7 points!). And with Herr Huckabee winning on [...]

This is what happens when a sensitive black metal dude from France, who looks like this, gets bored with making cold, angry music and decides to make warm, joyful music for a while — but with the same band.
When Neige of Alcest was a child, he had frequent visions of a “fairly land” where “one [...]

It gets easier every time.

So after a year of no snow, it ambushes Berlin first thing on 2008 (before melting an hour later). This is a photo of my Hof. Hope y’all had a good time bringing in the new year. I sure did. Apart from someone nicking Yuhang’s backpack (containing my bottle of Old Crow) and I nearly [...]